Las Vegas Locos Clinch Spot In UFL Championship Game With 16-10 Victory
November 15, 2009 - United Football League (UFL 1)
Las Vegas Locomotives News Release
SAN JOSE, CA (November 14, 2009) - The Las Vegas Locomotives clinched a berth in the United Football League's Championship Game tonight with a 16-10 come-from-behind over the California Redwoods in front of 4,312 fans at Spartan Stadium. The Locos scored 10 points in the fourth quarter and intercepted a Redwoods pass with four seconds remaining in the game to thwart California's last scoring threat.
Las Vegas will face the Florida Tuskers in the inaugural UFL title game Friday, Nov. 27 at Sam Boyd Stadium in Las Vegas. The UFL's final regular season week will feature each squad in its final tune-up, as Las Vegas hosts the New York Sentinels and Florida travels to California.
For nearly three quarters, the Redwoods maintained the upper hand in a sluggish battle dominated by field goals and untimely penalties. Las Vegas, after early struggles on offense, began to find its rhythm late in the first half and scored on its last four meaningful possessions to overcome the Redwoods. California outgained Las Vegas 333-226 for the game-including a 146-82 advantage on the ground-but turned the ball over twice in the fourth quarter and was penalized six times for 75 yards.
Perhaps the most damaging sequence of penalties for the Redwoods came late in the third quarter after they had increased their lead to 10-6. Las Vegas took possession at its own 28 after the ensuing kickoff, and two plays later found themselves staring at a 2^nd-and-21 situation after Jason Parker sacked J.P. Losman. But Redwoods defensive tackle Chris Cooper was called for a 15-yard personal foul away from the play and was ejected from the game for his actions, giving Vegas new life. Three plays later the Locos threw incomplete on third down but Redwoods cornerback Robert Herbert was called for pass interference downfield, and the Locos drive was once again resuscitated.
The Locos then got on track offensively, converting two third-down plays to move inside the California 10-yard line. On 3^rd-and-goal from the 8, Losman hit Andrae Thurman for an 8-yard touchdown to cap a 12-play 72-yard drive spanning 5:31, including 50 yards on penalties. Redwoods Head Coach Dennis Green requested a replay challenge on the Losman-to-Thurman touchdown, which Thurman hauled in while leaning out of bounds. The original ruling was upheld to give Las Vegas its first lead of the game at 13-10 with 11:53 remaining in the game.
California answered with an impressive drive on its next possession, and was poised to regain the lead before running back Cory Ross fumbled at the Las Vegas 1-yard line and the ball was recovered in the end zone by Locos' safety Nick Turnbull. Ross, who finished the game with 111 rushing yards, had ignited the potential go-ahead drive with a 29-yard catch-and-run on a screen pass from quarterback Shane Boyd.
Las Vegas took over with 6:43 on the clock and was successful in running the clock down with a methodical nine-play, 66-yard drive for a 33-yard Graham Gano field goal and a 16-10 lead with 2:01 remaining.
The Redwoods would not go down without a fight as they once again moved the ball downfield, this time with Boyd efficiently spreading the ball to four different receivers who were adept at getting out of bounds to stop the clock. California managed to run 10 plays and cover 60 yards in just 1:47, reaching the Las Vegas 20-yard line with 11 seconds on the clock. Staring at a 4^th-and-5 situation, Boyd's last shot at the win was denied when Turnbull struck again by intercepting Boyd's pass at the 5-yard line to seal the win.
Boyd finished the game passing for 194 yards on 21-of-31 efficiency with one interception, and was sacked twice. Ross accounted for 144 total yards from scrimmage, and scored the Redwoods lone touchdown on a 3-yard run in the first quarter to give his team a 7-0 lead. The drive was keyed by Ross' 53-yard run to the Vegas 6-yard line. Joe West and Glenn Holt each caught five passes to pace the Redwoods.
Losman threw for 199 yards and a touchdown on 16-of-29 passing, and David Kircus registered a game-high 104 yards on four receptions. Marcel Shipp was the Locos' leading rusher with 66 yards on 19 carries. Gano was 3-for-4 on field goal attempts, converting from 35 and 39 yards before his fourth-quarter 33-yard effort, but also missed from 51 yards in the first quarter.
California (2-3) next hosts the 5-0 Tuskers Thursday, Nov. 19 at AT&T Park in San Francisco, while Las Vegas (3-2) wraps up the UFL's regular season Friday Nov. 20 playing host to the Sentinels (0-5). Below are quotes from tonight's post-game press conferences: California Redwoods Head Coach Dennis Green Opening statement: "In some ways that was a defensive struggle except that we did move the ball decently but I think we only scored three out of the seven opportunities to score and that makes a difference in a very close game. Also, a fumble and a missed field goal and then two kicks when you really shouldn't kick, it should have been a touchdown and that made the difference in the ballgame. It was a good hard-hitting football game, they are an excellent football team and they throw the ball very well. We did a fairly decent job bottling them up on the run most of the time; our guys ran the ball fairly well, we thought we could run it and at certain times we threw the ball ok... we just didn't make quite enough plays.
Significance of the loss: "It was very disappointing. First of all, any loss is disappointing to me; I don't get in there and say, if I win, this happens; I have coached enough games and you want to win, regardless of the circumstances. We are very familiar with Las Vegas, they beat us both times and both times the game could have gone either way. Both times we had the lead going into halftime so that is the most disappointing thing and again that we didn't take advantage of opportunities."
Losing the lead at halftime again: "What you try to do is come in and finish the job. Considering we had the ball coming out and you try to get the ball, keep the ball and score and get the points on the board. We know they can make big plays in their passing attack and they did that. They have got an excellent quarterback and he made some plays also but the big thing is that we just let them get too many big plays. I think we did a fairly decent job keeping them out of the end zone; we just didn't do a good job on the big plays. There were some circumstances, we had them at second and 25 or second and 30, I think it was, and we got one of our better players ejected from the game because he lost his composure. We had a pass interference call which most of the time you think would be called uncatchable, but those are the things that happened and allowed them to really take advantage."
Las Vegas Locos Head Coach Jim Fassel Opening Statement: "I thought Denny Green did a great job with his staff and team. They played hard. They played a very good game. They really did. Very aggressive in all areas. Their defense, offense, special teams. You know games always come down, I told my team after the game, you play hard, you can do a lot of things, but turnovers will cost you a game...and different mistakes, as they did, they turned the ball twice. And we didn't turn the ball over. At the end of the day that had a lot to do with the game. The last play they turned the ball over. We were very fortunate. I thought our offense was kind of out of synch quite a bit and I don't think we played nearly what I thought we could play. But I can just say, they played very well on defense. Heck of a football game. These two teams went after each other. You can see the emotions on the field. That is the one thing I told my guys, I talked to them before about it. Sometimes you don't listen when you get in the moment of the game. We settled down and we stayed away from all the stuff, and played football and I think that helped us win."
Adjustments made during course of game: "We made some adjustments in some of the run game and I changed up some things that we were having some success with and then they started playing and I adjusted back and some other things and different formations in. Started throwing the ball in a little different manner with a little better protection. They were bringing people and causing us some problems. We wanted to do a lot more empty packages and spread sets and things like that. But, we weren't protecting as well, and I wanted to run the football. I thought we could run the football on them and if we were going to run the football we needed to get more into play action type passes."
Overthrows: "They were overthrows. He read them right. He had some pressure on the one when the tight end was wide open. He did. Too much on it. That happens sometimes as quarterback you get a lot of pressure real quick... chances are you have to throw it you have to anticipate and that was a kind of hook and go route. And the guy's hooking when he takes off, he doesn't have full speed and you're under pressure sometimes you don't realize that as much, you have to take something off. Um, we just missed him."
Importance of win: "(This win) was huge. This was about the championship game. If we lost, it would be devastating to us. Our goal has always been to get to the championship game so I knew coming in. You have dreams as a coach, alright our guys are ready, they are going to play, we're not going to make any mistakes. Everything is going to click for us, they are going to make mistakes and we're going to beat them soundly. And you sit back, that isn't reality. Brace yourself, this is going to be one that is fought right down to the last couple of minutes, and that's exactly what this game was."
About Two-Minute Drive: "First thing I said was, they got no time outs with one minute. One thing I kept telling those guys was to make them throw inside. They got 8 yards in 4 seconds on us. I've been in one of those games in my life with the NFL, that was the worst feeling ever. When I was an offensive coordinator with Denver, watching Joe Montana with 1:08 go down with no time outs, and all he did was go outside. I didn't want to see that again, so we mixed some blitzes in, and at the end we needed to make sure they threw the ball inside, and not let them near the boundary, with no timeouts. They executed the two minute well, and gave them a chance to score."
Las Vegas Locos QB JP Losman About the win: "It feels great, it's a big relief. I know there was a lot riding on it. Both teams out there battled. We knew coming into this game it was going to be tough. They (California) have gotten much better since the first game of the season. We felt that we've gotten much, and we've been on a roll offensively the last couple of weeks. We've had 2 of 3 weeks in a row where we've felt we have been doing some good things. They did a good job today, we weren't as sharp as we'd like to be on the offensive side, but, this is the biggest team game in the world, and our defense played an excellent and special teams got us a big turnover at the right time. D was able to stop them at the end of the game."
United Football League Stories from November 15, 2009
- UFL Personnel Transaction Notice - UFL 1
- Las Vegas Locos Clinch Spot In UFL Championship Game With 16-10 Victory - Las Vegas Locomotives
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