Game Day Central
ABILENE, Texas - The quest to end a nine-season drought of winning seasons for the McMurry football team begins Saturday in Muskogee, Okla. when McMurry opens the 2010 season with its first-ever meeting with Bacone College at 6 p.m.
Hal Mumme is in his second year as head coach of McMurry University. McMurry is Mumme's sixth college program to lead, and in the past, the second season under his Air Raid Offense has proven to make significant improvement from the first season.
At Iowa Wesleyan, Dustin Dewald led Mumme's passing attack and threw 40 touchdown passes in his second season in 1990 compared to 30 the season before. Chris Hatcher at Valdosta State threw for 1,103 more yards and 16 more touchdowns than he did in his first season in 1993.
Tim Couch at Kentucky passed for 391 more yards in 1998 than he did in 1997 and finished with 4,275 yards his final season with Mumme. When Mumme took over at Southeastern Louisiana State, his quarterback Martin Hankins passed for 703 more yards and five more touchdowns in 2004 than in his initial year with the team in 2003. At New Mexico State, Mumme's primary quarterback his first season threw for 1,930 yards in 2005 before Chase Holbrook came in the second year in the system in 2006 and threw for 4,619 yards.
Overall, in Mumme's previous five programs, the primary quarterbacks on average threw for 918 more yards and 10.6 more touchdowns in the second season under the Air Raid Offense than the first year in the system.
Jake Mullin played nine games at quarterback in his sophomore season at McMurry in 2009 and passed for a school-record 2,749 yards and tossed 25 touchdowns.
“We're better on offense than we were a year ago,” said Mumme. “We've got more talent, but more than that, in this system nothing helps you more than experience and repetition and most of our key guys are back this year.”
R.J. Long, a junior wide receiver who tied for the team lead with eight touchdown receptions echoed his coach's sentiments about improvement heading into McMurry's second season in the system.
“The first year was confusing at first, we were getting used to the plays and getting used to playing again in a new system,” said Long. “This year, it's a lot better, we're more confident and stronger.”
As for the opponent Saturday, Mumme said that the Warriors have an advantage in that they have played their first game.
“The first game is always scary, and they've already gone through that and won,” said Mumme. “We'll have to overcome our initial jitters in order to beat them. We've got several players back with experience, but out of the 66 guys we're travelling Saturday, 28 of them haven't played for us before, we're still relatively young.
Bacone beat Haskell Indians Nation University Saturday 20-16 scoring the winninng touchdown in the final two minutes of the contest. Last season, Bacone gave up an average of 50 points per contest including a loss to McMurry's American Southwest Conference foe Howard Payne in which the YellowJackets defeated Bacone 56-7.
“Coach Spotted Wolf has done a good job of adding athletes; that's been clear from watching film,” Mumme said. “This is not the same Bacone team that got beat by Howard Payne last year, they'll be a challenge.”
Long said that he expects a competitive game Saturday as well.
“Bacone is a very good NAIA time, they run a 4-3 defense and a lot of cover two,” he said. “What we're preparing for is working hard every day and making everything into a game situation. I'm pretty sure they are doing the same thing too and it should be a good game this Saturday.”
The game will be played at Indian Field at Bacone High School's stadium. McMurry fans can listen locally on the radio on 1560 AM beginning at 5:45 p.m. The McMurry sports information department will travel to provide live audio and video streaming as well as live stats; fans can access these features on mcmurrysports.com/gameday.
