Steamwheelers To Respond at Home
Gary Stibolt
Friday April 15, 2005
The Steamwheelers do have a very good football team. They have the best roster they’ve ever had overall not to take anything away from some of the great players we’ve had here. Getting these players to execute the game plan and play mistake-free football will be the task at hand when they open up their home schedule against Bossier City/Shreveport Saturday night at the OS Field at The MARK of the Quad Cities.
"What people may not realize is Sam Clemons had half the snaps over two days of practice before we played Wilkes-Barre," said head coach Rick Frazier.
The Steamwheelers have had a very good week of practice and it started the moment they landed in Moline on Monday morning.
"Sam has had the bulk of the snaps this week and the players have responded very well. Pike has some bruised ribs so he will dress but we are hoping that we won’t have to put him out there," continued Frazier.
So Coach Frazier is confident that his team will be just fine Saturday in their home opener and he’s not the only one.
"I feel more comfortable today than I did last Sunday," said Sam Clemons. Veteran center Pete Traynor echoed that as well, "things are a lot smoother this week."
The secret to winning football games lies with your front line. You can have the best receiving core and the best quarterback but if you can’t pass protect all bets are off. Correcting the fumbled snaps will give the frontline a chance to do their job.
"Looking at the film from last week confirmed what I saw in that game and that is our line did a pretty good job of protecting Pike and Clemons but when you fumble a snap, everything breaks down," Frazier said.
The Steamwheelers are stacked in the receiving ranks. Travis Burns (OS) along with wide receiver/defensive back’s Jeff Hewitt and Tim Dodge along with wide receiver/linebackers Jack Walker, Jr. and Torey Morris are enough to give any defensive secondary a cause for concern. Sam Clemons has a championship under his belt when he played with Nick Cosentino (Steamwheelers FB/LB) in a semi-pro league in which Clemons was named the MVP. He also has two years at the AFL level. This weekend he’ll have his chance to keep his receivers busy. We’ll know early on if the mistakes are cleaned up and if that holds to be true then we’ll have a chance to see the Steamwheelers potential.
So given the circumstances surrounding the team, this home opener is going to be a good test. They come in at 0-1 and will look to even it up against a Battlewings team who are off to a 0-2 start.
"No one likes starting off 0-2," said Frazier. "Quad City did a couple of years ago and they fought like hell to go 14-0 after that, so I expect Bossier City to come in here and give us one hell of a fight. It won’t be easy for us but coming into our house, it won’t be easy for them either."
So much of the focus has been put on the offensive side of the ball because of two AFL-tested quarterbacks and the way things transpired last week. The Steamwheelers defense has an opportunity to show us how to win as well. They were on the field nearly the entire second half last week and a lot of it was deep in their own territory due to fumbled snaps. So with the miscues corrected tomorrows contest is a test and we’ll see how they respond to the debacle from a week ago.
Steamwheelers Notes:
OS Travis Burns welcomed the birth of his new son this week…OL/DL Ryan Bell was traded to Oklahoma City in a deal that brings OL/DL Will Goodlowe to the Steamwheelers. He will report on Monday…Former Kicker, Stephen Scaldaferri kicked a game clinching 19-yard field goal in Germany last week.
Gary Stibolt has covered the Quad City Steamwheelers since their 2000 inaugural season. He also owns, operates and is the Chief Editor/Publisher of SteamwheelerFans.com, a website dedicated to the Steamwheelers and their fans. He coresponds for other media outlets covering arenafootball2. In addition to leading the Steamwheelers Fan Club, Gary serves as Coordinator of the National af2 Fan Club. He is married with two sons and works as an Infrastructure Analyst for Deere & Company in their Corporate Computer Center in Moline, Illinois.