Photo by Michael Slone.
I watched the Tigers’ 65-13 win over the Rams back with an obvious focus on the first half given how the game played out. Katy got the early 7-0 lead and was in position to go up 14-0 when Tiger RB Trey Hill fumbled going into the end zone. There was live controversy about whether he broke the plane prior to ball out, but it looks like a good eye by the officials seeing it back on film. Secure the football all the way and it’s never in doubt. Never leave it for the officials to save you.
Rams offense centers on the pass
Elsik had a pretty good QB and 2 or 3 good athletes at the receiver positions. They managed to hit Katy for a few big plays early. Katy’s secondary misplayed one of the deep balls where players were in position to make a play and just failed to read the flight of the ball properly. On a couple of other plays, Elsik’s talent made Tiger defenders look a bit silly in the open field grabbing air for nice catch and runs.
The main pass defense adjustment I see for Katy from this game is to tighten up the coverage. Elsik players had way too much space to catch and make a play after the catch because Tiger defenders were 5 plus yards away on the explosive plays allowed. That’s a recipe for getting beat against anyone with talent out wide. The other common element I noticed in Elsik big plays was the pass rush not getting home. The QB had really nice pockets to sit and pass. Katy saw some match-up issues exposed that it will need to try and address moving forward because those will only become more and more prominent the longer the Tigers hang around the bracket.
Turnovers still concerning
Turnovers change games whenever they happen as Katy has seen multiple times this year from the offense and special teams. The fumble sequence put just enough juice into the Elsik sideline to make the game interesting for about 8 or 9 minutes longer than it should have been.
The 2 or 3 minute sequence going into halftime obviously was huge for Katy. The score was 17-13 when the Tigers got the ball and punched in a score to make it 24-13 with about 30 seconds left in the half. For some reason, Elsik decided to try and run a couple of plays, and Isaac Coughran forced a fumble on a sack of the QB. Katy tacked on a field goal to extend the lead to 27-13 going into the locker room.
What do the say about hindsight?
Watching the game back, it didn’t look as bad to me as it seemed following it live. Katy clearly was the better team as you’d have expected, and the turnover made it more interesting than it needed to be. Katy had a long leash in this game given Elsik’s inability to make consistent stops on defense, but starting next week the Tigers have to eliminate those errors. They will not get away with it against Cy Falls and certainly not in Rounds 3 or later if Katy is fortunate enough to beat a very good Cy Falls team next. Good to elite level teams don’t give you 8 to 9 minutes to find yourself. They punish you.
Katy’s response late in the second quarter and in the second half against Elsik was more like what it needs to look like and there are positives to take from the performance. I like that Katy was able to work in several back-ups as the second half progressed.
I watched Cy Falls’ game against Cy Fair from district, and am going to watch their game against Bellaire back before I post that preview in the next day or two. Crunch time has arrived.
