Gladiators Vent on Fury
Scott Miller
Thursday April 29, 2004
Head coach Frank Haege agreed.
“It was a long dry spell and it is a great feeling to get a win,” said Haege.
The Gladiators’ cautious optimism is justified. They are long way from making the playoffs even if they win all five of their remaining games. Detroit was the only team to lose to Grand Rapids (1-10) and Las Vegas still has to play San Jose and Los Angeles.
The keys to the victory were improved special teams play and exceptional play by the defense.
“We challenged the defense all week to get a pick,” said Haege. “Take some chances, we have nothing to lose.
“The return team was a lot better. The kickoff coverage was a lot better. Our kicking was atrocious.; the job is not getting done.”
Taylor rose to Haege’s challenge and got two interceptions earning him Defensive Player of the Game honors. Early in the second quarter, Fury head coach Tom Luginbill replaced QB Andy Kelly with Billy Dicken after one of Taylor’s interceptions. Unfortunately for Dicken, he broke his elbow during the game and is out for the rest of the season.
Besides the kicking game, careless penalties continued to plague the Gladiators. It seemed as if there was a flag thrown on every play. Even after Taylor’s interception, which gave the Gladiators the ball on the Detroit four-yard line, they failed to get a touchdown, in part because of an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty that moved them from the Detroit one to the Detroit 10-yard line.
The Thomas & Mack Center continues to be tough on coaches as well, as Haege and Luginbill had three unsportsmanlike conduct personal fouls between them. Haege said he definitely deserved a warning for going on the field, but felt the flag was thrown a little quickly. Luginbill said both of the fouls against him were for requesting an explanation of an unusual call, a “defensive leg whip.”
Part of the penalties issue could be that Las Vegas and Haege are, in a way, “marked” after the incident in the Arizona game. There also might be some questions about the ability and quality of the officials and possible pressure on them to keep televised games to exactly three hours, but those are questions for another day.
Las Vegas continues their home stand against the Indiana Firebirds on Sunday at noon.
Scott Miller is a professional computer geek and talk show host in Las Vegas. His show is streamed live from klav120am.com on Fridays at 8PM. Archives of his show, The Usual Suspects can be found at his website.
