Role reversal for Coe

CEDAR RAPIDS – This was a reverse.

Not in the fool-the-defense, have-your-receiver-run-for-a-touchdown reverse way. For the Coe Kohawks, Saturday was the exact opposite of the way their first two football games of the college football season played out.

The modus operandi had been poor first halves, good second halves. But a 37-21 loss in the home opener to Wisconsin-Stevens Points saw the Kohawks blanked over the final 30 minutes and outscored, 20-0.

'I think that's just kind of our thing,” said linebacker Mark Atwater. 'We've struggled to put a whole game together.”

Which is why Coe enters its bye week with a 1-2 record. It's probably a good thing the Kohawks don't play again until Oct. 4, a home game againt Loras.

This team appears to need to sort out some things before the Iowa Conference wars begin.

'Hopefully this was a learning experience for us,” said Coe Coach Steve Staker.

There were two pivotal sequences that swung the game. Ahead 21-14, Coe drove to the Stevens Point 12-yard line late in the second quarter, but a holding penalty and sack moved the football back to the 30 and a fourth-down Hail Mary pass fell incomplete with 29 seconds left.

Stevens Point then threw two long completions to set up Jesse Vervelde's 47-yard field goal, making it 21-17 at the half. On the Pointers' first offensive play of the second half, quarterback Kyle Larson and receiver Matt Sosinsky hooked up on a beautiful fly pattern over the middle that produced an 80-yard touchdown and a lead the Pointers (2-1) would never relinquish.

Coe's defense was gashed by the big play the entire game. For example, Stevens Point running back Christian Almonte had all of five carries but rushed for 113 yards and TDs of 14, 29 and 58 yards.

'We can't have that,” Staker said. 'We can't have that type of thing happening to this team. We've got to be able to fix that.”

'We're a good team, I think we all know it,” Atwater said. 'We just can't give up big plays like that.”

Offensively, Coe was limited to 52 yards in the second half. Quarterback Josh Rekers threw for 272 yards and two TDs but was sacked five times and eventually replaced midway through the fourth quarter by Gavin Glenn.

Sam Lahr rushed for 100 yards and a touchdown, but the Kohawks couldn't sustain any drives the final two quarters. The deepest penetration they had was the UWSP 30.

There were penalties galore, 12 on each team for a total of 243 yards. The game started almost an hour late because of lightning that appeared just as the teams were ready to emerge from their locker rooms.

That turned out to be an omen.

'We've got two weeks now to get better,” Atwater said. 'With this bye week, Iowa Conference play isn't something we should think too much about right now. We need to focus on getting better as a team. Then the games will start coming, and we'll figure them out. To me, this is preseason all over again. It's not that these games don't matter. We just need to get better these next two weeks, make a big jump.”

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