AF2 : Twisters fumble away last chance against BattleWings
Posted on Sunday, July 20, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/Sports/231839/
Cedric Cobbs’ return gripped the crowd.
His fumble sent them home.
The Arkansas Twisters trailed the Bossier-Shreveport BattleWings by four points with 23 seconds left, and Cobbs and Jamaal Perry were set to return a Bossier-Shreveport kickoff.
“I wasn’t worried,” Arkansas Coach Chris Siegfried said. “We had all three timeouts. We had time for five or six plays.”
Perry drifted to the back of the end zone to field the kickoff. Art Carmody’s kick hit the bottom bar of the net, skipped over Perry to the goal line and was retrieved by Cobbs.
Cobbs, in his first game with the Twisters, was met at the 2 by several Bossier-Shreveport players. He struggled to break free and the ball popped loose into the end zone. Bossier-Shreveport’s Dustin Johnson recovered for a touchdown with nine seconds left and the BattleWings beat Arkansas 80-69 before a crowd of 6, 244 at North Little Rock’s Alltel Arena on Saturday night.
“I was trying to do too much,” Cobbs said. “I was trying to make a big play and it kind of got away from me, but I’m just upset we lost regardless of what I did.”
Cobbs starred as a running back for the Arkansas Razorbacks from 1999-2003, and remains the school’s fourth-leading career rusher. He played two seasons for the NFL’s New England Patriots and Denver Broncos, was cut from Denver’s camp last summer, and signed with the Twisters on June 18.
His second play was a 56-yard kickoff return that gave Arkansas a 20-14 lead in the second quarter.
“Cedric had a great return,” Arkansas Coach Chris Siegfried said. “We had some good blocking for him, but I know he feels bad about what happened. It was tough for him. You get crazy bounces in this game.”
Jason Schule’s 1-yard touchdown run gave Bossier-Shreveport (8-7 ) a 73-69 lead with 23 seconds left, adequate time for a touchdown drive in indoor football.
“We felt like we had all the time we needed,” Perry said. “Unfortunately we gave the ball up. That’s arena football for you.”
Arkansas showed its strength from the start. It took two plays for the Twisters’ offense, ranked No. 1 in AF 2, to score on a 23-yard pass from Rowley to Perry.
Bossier-Shreveport answered with a touchdown, but Arkansas took advantage of its first stop.
Two sacks by Twisters defensive lineman Tito Hannah led to an unsuccessful field-goal attempt by Bossier-Shreveport in the second quarter. Arkansas (10-5 ) turned its stop into seven points and a 27-14 lead on Rowley’s 7-yard touchdown pass to Perry.
Bossier-Shreveport cut Arkansas’ lead to 27-21 with 1: 13 left in the first half on a 5-yard pass from Cooper to Manwell Talbert, but Rowley fired a 43-yard, third-down touchdown pass to Chris Denney with 27 seconds left.
Denney caught 14 passes for 5 touchdowns and 237 yards, seventh most ever in an AF 2 game.
Cooper’s 1-yard touchdown pass to Winston with two seconds left put Bossier-Shreveport within 33-28 at halftime.
“That was huge for us,” Bossier-Shreveport quarterback Gary ooper s hat made up the difference [created by Arkansas ’ stop ] and gave us momentum going into the second half.
Cooper’s 28-yard pass to Schule gave Bossier-Shreveport a 35-33 lead with 13: 11 left in the third quarter.
Arkansas started the game ranked second in Arena Football 2 with a positive turnover differential of 23, but fumbled the ball away to Bossier-Shreveport on its next possession with a failed center-quarterback exchange recovered by linebacker Marvin Byrdsong at Arkansas’ 12.
The turnover turned into a touchdown on a 6-yard pass from Cooper to Chavis McCollister and Bossier-Shreveport led 41-33.
Bossier-Shreveport kicker Art Carmody missed the extra point. Consequently, after Rowley scored on a 5-yard sneak, his twopoint conversion pass to Denney tied the score at 41-41 with 5: 56 left in the third quarter.
After an exchange of touchdowns, Bossier-Shreveport took a 54-48 lead on Talbert’s 26-yard touchdown catch from Cooper, and took command when Cobbs fumbled the subsequent kickoff. The ball squirted from a scramble of players into the end zone and was recovered by Tony Moss to give Bossier-Shreveport a 60-48 lead with 13: 18 left in the fourth quarter.