VCU club football opens season with tough loss

Amir Vera
Staff Writer

Commonwealth Times Sports’ Twitter

On Saturday, the VCU club football team opened up its much anticipated season with a tough 19-18 loss to Radford.

According to head coach Alfonso Bell, the loss was due in major part to an overabundance of turnovers.

“I knew we had the opportunity to win the ball game, even before the kick-off,” Bell said. “We had some talented kids on the team, and turnovers cost us the game. I thought we outplayed Radford, but when you have seven turnovers you’re not going to win a ball game. I commend the guys for being close after seven turnovers. We had every opportunity to win the ball game.”

Simple mental mistakes were also evident. Throughout the game, calls for false starts, holding, illegal substitutions and ejections for fighting contributed to the loss.

“Some of these guys haven’t played football in over four years, and we’re just getting back into the flow, that first quarter we kept it close,” Bell said. “We fell behind on those mistakes. Once we got them calmed down in the second quarter and at half time, the football sense started to come back to them, but we still had those mental turnovers with the fumbles.”

Along with the mental mistakes came loss of composure. There were two incidents in which VCU and Radford players had altercations. It was the second one, though, that really affected the Rams.

In the fourth quarter, running back Greyson Gilbert was tackled to the ground. As he was getting up from the tackle, Gilbert was allegedly punched by a Radford defender. In self-defense, Gilbert pushed the defender. The officials only saw Gilbert’s assault and ejected him out of the game.

“You have to hold your composure; we teach our players when you react to something done to you, you’re going to get that call because the referee is most likely going to see the second person,” Bell said. “We can’t do that; we have to keep our heads and play smart football, and we let that slip a couple times. But we’re going to work on that.”

These mistakes, according to captain and offensive lineman James Tait, were expected of a new team.

“The coaches came in knowing that there (were) going to be some mental errors. It was disappointing that people messed up in that way,” Tait said. “We had the overreactions by our players, and we had the false starts and the pass interferences. All in all, I think the game would make up for those mistakes.”

The game was a battle from start to finish. VCU did well converting on third downs most of the game, with the help of beautiful chemistry between quarterback Mike Jones and receiver Adrian Thurston. The duo completed three of the most important passes of the game, two of which resulted in touchdowns, and each of which were over 20 yards. The two have been working together since practice in the Spring.

“Back in the spring, (Thurston) was one of my favorite receivers,” Jones said. “He’s a go-getter, that’s what he is, and I’m glad to have him on the team.”

Thurston added that he felt this chemistry was more natural than practiced. He also felt as though this was a great season opener for the team because Radford is ranked third in the South Atlantic Conference of the National Club Football Association.

“We saw how we did against Radford,” Thurston said. “They’re supposed to be one of the top club football teams, and we did pretty well against them so hopefully we just get better from there.”

The team’s next game is not for another two weeks. In that time, they will have the opportunity to correct the mistakes made and improve the skills they already had in game one. Captain and fullback Jules Charles believes it is the tiny details that need to be developed before they can be successful in game two.

“It’s just the little stuff as a team, not the individuals. The false starts, not standing properly on the sidelines and all the other little penalties – little stuff like that we’ll get right in practice,” Charles said. “Once we get that right, we’ll come back out for game time in two weeks and we’ll be ready to go.”

VCU’s next game will be at the University of North Carolina on Sept. 25.

Photos by Chris Conway