Blaze look to hold home win streak against Shock

Don Eisenbarth
Friday April 15, 2011

The Utah Blaze have been perfect this season… at home. With four games in the books and fourteen still to go the Blaze are 2-0 at home with wins against Tampa Bay and Dallas and 0-2 on the road with losses at San Jose and Orlando.

When I asked Head Coach Ron James about this discrepancy, he gave me a two-fold response on why the Blaze have opposite records when it comes to home and away.

“First thing is we've been playing good teams on the road,” said Coach James. “But more importantly, we're not winning the turnover battle on the road. Particularly at Orlando we turned the ball over five times and we got one from them and in San Jose they stopped us three times and we stopped them once. Those are the difference in the games. On the road, it's been more of our self-inflicted wounds where as at home we've been able to play more soundly and create more turnovers.”

Coach James is very keen on the idea of playing for possessions, and two of the key components of possession football is talking care of the turnovers and then secondly being aware of the situations you are in at the end of the beginning and end of each half. However, during last week’s game at San Jose the Blaze were unable to do either and completely fell apart at the end of the first half.

“The first half was more depressing, if you will, because we were going to score at the end of the half, and they got the stop and then they scored,” said Coach James. “Instead of going in with a two point lead, we went in down by 12 and if you can't give any team, especially a good San Jose team that kind of a lead. We managed the clock pretty well. If we got the first down we could have run down the clock, and prevented them from scoring. You work for those situations. We got out executed on fourth down and then we got stopped again in the first possession in the third Quarter. It was a devastating turn of events that you can't have in an Arena Football game.”

That being said, there’s plenty for fans to be excited about as the Utah Blaze are shaping up to be one of the best offensive teams in the Arena Football League. The Blaze have scored an average of 62.25 points a game, which is second only to those pesky San Jose Sabercats at 64.2 points per game. Tommy Grady is playing phenomenal averaging 322 yards passing per game, and Aaron Boone is also having one of the best seasons ever for a wide receiver and will probably break the all time team records for receiving Touchdowns and yards this week as he only needs 35 yards and 4 TDs to become the team record holder in both.

In fact, after the first couple home games, it looks like the Blaze’s only real issue was at special teams, however that appears to be solved with the Blaze bringing in Greg Gunderson as their new kicker. In his two games with the Blaze, Gunderson is 16-18 in PAT’s and has the third best completion percentages in the AFL.

“Greg's been a bid bright spot. He's a solid kicker. It was a good find for us,” said Coach James. “He's the third kicker we've brought in this year. Our special teams have come along in the last few weeks and that's a bright spot. We just have to develop more consistency. When we do that, we're a pretty good football team.”

This week, the Blaze take on another pretty good football team in the Spokane Shock.

“Spokane is a good football team. They're the defending champions, until someone proves it otherwise. They're very talented, with one of the best pass rushing groups that I've seen in this league. One of the better QB and a good young coach so I know they'll be prepared and be ready to come in here. I've admonished our players to get back on track and keep our home field advantage.”

The defending Arena Bowl Champions come in to Salt Lake as the last place team in the West Division, but that doesn’t mean the Blaze are taking them lightly.

“I am surprised (by their 1-3 start) because their team is loaded. They have more talent on their team then every other team in the league,” said Coach James. If the Blaze are going to win, they’ll need their defense to stop Shock QB Kyle Rowley and give Tommy Grady against a strong defensive front for the Shock.

Kickoff is at 7 p.m. Mountain Daylight Time on Friday and will be broadcast live on NiftyTV and 104.7FM/1280AM the Zone.

TGIF

For the first team this year, the Blaze play a home game on a day that isn’t Thursday. Because of scheduling conflicts with the EnergySolutions arena, the Blaze were forced to move the days of the first two home games to Thursday. However, because of the Utah Jazz’s inability to get to the Playoffs, the Blaze will be able to play the rest of their season as originally scheduled on Fridays and Saturdays.

TV Coverage

Friday’s game against the Spokane Shock will be broadcast locally on ABC 4… on Saturday night. I don’t care for tape delayed sports no matter what sport I’m watching, but even with that I must applaud ABC 4 for supporting the Blaze by broadcasting a game or two this season (especially because the away game against Spokane is also included in their current reported broadcasting package). Play-by-play will be by ABC’s Wesley Ruff, while former NFL player and current Blaze co-owner Jason Buck will be doing the color commentary and current Blaze president Bill Gibson will do the sideline reporting, so you know, unbiased reporting. The game will air Saturday, April 16th at 7:00 p.m. exactly one day after the game was actually played.