Gridiron Lowdown - Week 7

2016 playoffs - North Greenville - Photo credit: James Ragan

Despite another good performance out of the defense, the Florida Tech Panthers suffered their second straight loss last Saturday falling to North Alabama 30-7. North Alabama got a blocked punt for a touchdown and a pick-6, turning what was a close game at the half, into one of the most lopsided losses in program history. 

“It wasn't turnovers that were anything that they did to create the turnovers, it was our own fault,” said head coach Steve Englehart on Thursday. “We had two passes that hit our wide receivers right in the hands that popped up and they end up picking them off and obviously the blocked punt had a big part to do with the game.” 

Outside of those turnovers, the Panthers held the North Alabama offense in check. They allowed the Lions 134 yards of total offense, including 56 through the air. This is not a surprise, as the Panthers defense has come up big all season. 

“Defensively the stats looked great,” said Englehart. “Unfortunately, the touchdowns they scored they had a short field, they only had to drive 20 or 30 yards on us and get those touchdowns. It was a tough one to handle cause I knew we were better than a 30-7 loss.” 

As good as this defense has been all season, the Panthers have forced just one turnover through the first six games. That came in the Coastal Classic against West Florida when J.T. Hassel picked off a pass on the Argonauts first drive of the game. 

“That's the most unbelievable statistic that I've ever been a part of,” said Englehart. “The fact that we've played six games and have one turnover on defense boggles my mind. It affects our offense too because we never have a short field, we never get the ball at the 35 or 40-yard line going in to score, cause we never get any turnovers. It's something we need to get turned around, hopefully, this week and get the offense a short field.” 

Last week during his post-game interview, Englehart eluded to some changes they would be making going forward. On Thursday, he expounded on the changes he's made during this week of practice. 

“The changes are more from a program standpoint, I'm kinda going back to the way we did things the first couple years from a practice standpoint,” he said. “I made some changes last year, we changed the way we did things practice structure-wise and that group last year was able to handle that because we had 30 seniors. This team is a younger team, we only have a few seniors and a bunch of juniors that haven't played, so I went back to a practice structure you would do with a younger team.” 

Englehart also said he changed the thought process on offense, as he wants the team to be more aggressive. “Our defense is playing good so we gotta try to get some points early and grind it out,” he said. “We'll see what happens this week we had a pretty decent week of practice, hopefully, the guys are ready to go.” 

There will be some added motivation for the Panthers, as they head to North Greenville, to take on the team that ended their season in the first round of the 2016 playoffs. 

“I think there are some guys that were here last year that look at that and know that's the team that knocked us out of the playoffs,” Englehart said. “Obviously, we're just trying to fight for our life right now, we have two losses in a row and they have two losses in a row right now, right now it's all about the 2017 season and getting back on track.” 

You can catch Saturday's game on WFIT.org as well as FloridaTechSports.com. Jerry Durney and Paul Van Scott will be on the call with the pregame show starting at 11:30 a..m. The game will kickoff at noon.

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