Austin’s Heartbreak Hotel

Adam Markowitz
Tuesday May 22, 2007

One year ago this weekend, the Philadelphia Soul were one yard away from adding to the misery of the Austin Wranglers’ first playoff game, a 52-35 defeat.  Instead of falling apart and just letting the Soul add another exclamation point to their resounding victory, the defense held its ground and kept FB Wes Ours out of the end zone on the last play of the game.  The ultimate result didn’t change, but the team showed a ton of character and left the field with their heads raised high for a tremendous 10-6 season.

Things have changed a bit since then.  Skip Foster has moved on to become the offensive coordinator of the Columbus Destroyers.  John Fitzgerald has since moved on to coaching.  The entire front three for the Wranglers on the final play of the game are now either on injured reserve or are on different teams.  Only Damon Mason remains from last year’s secondary.

For a team that promotes progress, Jimmy Fryzel’s 7-yard touchdown reception with no time remaining to rip the hearts out of the Austin faithful was another example of how far the franchise has fallen from last year’s playoff campaign.

Austin team president, Doug MacGregor had one thing to say to me about the team’s performance following their playoff game last season: “We were out-coached.”  At least some things haven’t changed.  As I stood on the field after the game, MacGregor came down from the stands and said the exact same thing to me.  Last year it spelled the end for Foster.  Is this the end for new head coach, Brian Partlow?

The sentiment at the post-game party from the Wrangler fans was that this was the same old, same old.  Let’s face it.  For 59 minutes, Austin has played well enough to be a 6-5 team.  They’ve also played well enough to be a 1-10 team.

The mess in Austin started against the Nashville Kats, a game that then starting QB Adrian McPherson was suspended for the first quarter for.  The Wranglers were up 44-35 one drive into the 2nd half, but found themselves in a tie game at the 1:00 warning.  Kats QB Jeff Smoker hooked up with Kenny Higgins on an 8-yard TD strike to put Nashville up 7.  The ensuing drive, McPherson threw an interception to end the Wranglers hopes of victory.

The very next week, Austin traveled up I-35 to Dallas to take on the Desperados.  With 5:09 left in the 2nd quarter, the Wranglers opened up a 37-14 lead.  The Desperados made it 37-21 and onside kicked at the 1:00 warning.  Once again, the Wranglers came up empty on the drive, and Dallas scored the final touchdown of the half and the first of the 2nd half to cut the lead to 2.  Even then, in the 4th quarter, the Wranglers led by 16.  Another poorly timed McPherson interception and an onside kick returned for a touchdown later, the Wranglers found themselves down 4 points.  McPherson turned the ball over again, giving Dallas the 68-64 victory.

Against Utah, McPherson managed the last minute of the game quite well, throwing the game winning touchdown with just 0:08 remaining.  Even still, if K Steve Videtich’s 46-yard FG had been true, the Wranglers would have been sent home winless yet again.

The same could be said about their game against New Orleans.  The VooDoo had every chance in the world to put away the Wranglers, but two missed field goals by Eric Houle down the stretch gave Austin every chance they needed to win one of the ugliest games of the season by the count of 45-38.

After two games where losses for the Wranglers were never in doubt down the stretch, the Predators broke their back and dropped them two losses behind the pace for the last playoff spot in the National Conference.

Everyone complained that Skip Foster was a lousy 2nd half coach.  Adjustments were sometimes not made that should have been, and teams often put the Wranglers away or came back from behind in the 2nd halves of games in Foster’s three years.

Is this year progress?  The Wranglers have 261 points for and 327 points against in the 2nd half, and perhaps an even more remarkable difference of -54 points in the 4th quarter of games this season, including the past three games when they’ve been outscored in the 4th 65-24.  If you give up almost 30 points a game in the 2nd half, you’re not winning too many games.  On top of this, the Wranglers have 35 TD drives and 31 non-TD drives in the 2nd half of games and have had more non-TD drives than TD drives in a remarkable five games this season.

The numbers don’t lie.  The same old problems that were in Austin last year still exist, except the team isn’t making the plays necessary to win games like they did last year.  There is no doubt that the 2007 season for the Austin Wranglers has been the worst in team history, but things continue going from bad to worse.

Even on this day, where the Wranglers were clearly the superior team for the mass majority of the game, a collapse down the stretch saw the 13,428 at the Frank Erwin Center singing the blues on their way home.