Red zone struggles costing Marauders

By: Jaycee Cruz

First down production is a constant focus for McMaster’s football program. Due to the three-down system in Canadian football, positive yardage on first downs is crucial to the success of an offense. After the game against Guelph, Mac was not thrilled with their production.

The Marauders ran 43 plays on first downs against the Carleton Ravens on Sept. 13. Of those plays, only two accounted for negative yardage, 11 were incompletions, and the remaining 30 plays went for positive yardage. Mac racked up 223 total yards off of their first-down plays and averaged a healthy 5.2 yards per play. If that figure were to be measured against Behie’s criteria for a “first-down win”, meaning five or more yards, Mac had a lot of first-down wins against the Ravens defense.

The final score over Carleton may seem impressive on paper, but those who watched the game know that Carleton made it too close for comfort near the middle of the fourth quarter. On two straight drives between the 14-minute mark and the 9-minute mark in the fourth quarter, quarterback Marshall Ferguson threw interceptions that gave Carleton the ball back with a chance to grab the lead. Prior to those two turnovers, the Marauders had made two trips to the red zone that ended in two Tyler Crapigna field goals instead of two Marauder touchdowns.

This brings us to another area worth focusing on: the production of the Mac offense in the red zone.

McMaster took three trips to the red zone and came away with two field goals and a touchdown, instead of the ideal 3 touchdowns. While it is easy to criticize the ratio of field goals to touchdowns in the Carleton game, Behie remains positive.

“The positive thing, if we want to take anything away, is that we’re ending with points. We’re not coming away totally empty-handed. With that in mind they haven’t been total wastes, but we absolutely need to finish with touchdowns and not field goals,” said Behie.

Going perfect in red zone trips is a great sign but there is room for improvement. Had Mac scored three touchdowns on their three red zone trips, the score would have been 45-17.

Behie says the pieces are in place for a touchdown producing offence in the final third of the field.

“I think that system, scheme-wise, we’re okay, we just have to finish,” said Behie.

Mac will have to wait to work out the kinks of the red zone offence. This weekend’s opponent, York, has conceded 51, 61 and 70 points in their three match-ups so far. The Homecoming game against Queen’s will be the best opportunity to see if the Marauders can finish drives with six points instead of three.