5A high school football semifinals: Eagles unable to overcome sluggish start

It's no mystery that football teams that live and die with an option running offense usually die when they fall behind early by a couple of scores.

In Thursday's 5A semifinal match-up at Rice-Eccles Stadium, Skyline — a team driven by ball control and an option game — quickly found itself with an insurmountable deficit to the Bingham Miners. The Eagles trailed 17-0 after one quarter and 24-0 early in the second. Skyline never recovered from the huge hole.

"Maybe we were nervous or something. I just don't know," Eagles coach Roger Dupaix said following his team's 37-15 defeat.

Things turned sour for Skyline in a hurry. On the game's second play the Eagles fumbled a pitch and Bingham recovered, giving the Miners possession at the Skyline 20 yard line. Bingham settled for a 34-yard field goal four plays later to quickly go up 3-0.

"We knew that Bingham would have a fast start and that we'd have to do better in the first quarter, but we just didn't do it. Instead we fumbled the ball and gave it away," Dupaix said. "Bingham is a talented, big, strong, good team, so we couldn't afford those mistakes."

Even though Skyline was fortunate to surrender only three points from that early turnover, the Eagles' lack of offense on their next three possessions continued the downward cycle. Skyline failed to gain one first down in the opening quarter. As a result, combined with a 17-yard punt and 25-yard punt by the Eagles, the Miners started their first four possessions across midfield.

"They kept us pinned down pretty good with the very strong defense they had, and our offense just couldn't get anything going. It was tough," Dupaix said.

The real killer came when Skyline, trailing 10-0 with seven minutes left in the first quarter, went for it on a fourth-and-one from the Eagles' 29 yard line and failed. Bingham scored a touchdown two plays later.

"I knew we needed to control the ball better than we did and we just couldn't do it in that first half, especially that first quarter," Dupaix said.

Eventually the Eagles put enough offense on the board to score two touchdowns, but without an effective passing game they couldn't catch up. Actually the Eagles finished with more passing yards (130) than rushing yards (113) but also had two balls picked by the Miners.

"We never could get good timing because we were so far behind and couldn't catch up. We were hoping to be able to run the option better than we did today, but we failed to execute," Dupaix said.

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