Moore allowed Jacoby Jones’ 70-yard touchdown catch in the final minute of regulation in the Broncos’ playoff game the Baltimore Ravens won in double overtime on their way to winning the Super Bowl.

John Elway, the Broncos’ vice president of football operations, and coach John Fox both say Moore made great progress last season and they have confidence he’ll put the blunder behind him and make even greater strides in 2013.

With free agency looming and the draft approaching, the Broncos say they feel good about their safeties, including Quinton Carter, who is recovering from knee surgery and could push Moore for playing time in training camp.

“We anticipate both of them to come back even better,” Fox said at the NFL combine last week.

Elway said Thursday on 104.3 FM The Fan radio station in Denver that there’s no thought at team headquarters of moving Pro Bowl cornerback Champ Bailey to safety next season, either.

As the AFC’s top seed, owners of an NFL-best 11-game winning streak and odds-on favorite to win it all, the Broncos thought they’d be the ones hoisting the Lombardi Trophy in New Orleans. Instead, the Ravens parlayed their stunning comeback in Denver into winning the rings that Peyton Manning and Von Miller were so confident they’d be getting fitted for about now.

The business of 2013 beckons, however, and the Broncos are moving on.

While fans may salivate over the likes of free agents Ed Reed and Charles Woodson or any number of younger safeties about to hit the open market, the Broncos’ brass continues to praise Moore for the progress he made last season and insist his wasn’t the only costly mistake that hurt them in the playoffs.

“Rahim had a great year,” Elway said at the NFL combine. “The strides he made from his rookie year to this year were tremendous. We expect him to make those same strides and I think the bottom line is for him — I haven’t seen him since the last game, but once he gets back and around his teammates — there are a lot of things in that game that caused it to end up the way it ended up. It wasn’t one play that caused us to lose.

“I’m happy with him and I think I was really impressed with him and how he handled it after the game. He stood up and he took it, which to me showed a great amount of maturation on his part. I’m looking forward to him coming back and even having a better year next year.”

Fox took just as much heat as Moore did over what happened next — ordering Manning to take a knee so Denver could take its chances in overtime rather than trying to move into field goal range with three timeouts and 31 seconds to work with.

“Once the season is over or after the Super Bowl, I think the reality is that everybody is 0-0, or undefeated or however you want to put it,” Fox said. “Any loss kind of sticks with you — scars, I might say — but you have to spit it out and get onto the next season and not let it linger and affect your preparation moving to the next season.”

Elway has been down this road before, and he’s optimistic a similar payoff awaits. The Hall of Fame quarterback-turned-front office executive has now been a part of two playoff runs that ended with questions about what went wrong in an early exit from the playoffs.

Elway experienced it as a player in 1996, when the Broncos were upset at home by the Jacksonville Jaguars, 30-27, but then came back and won the next two Super Bowls.

He once again finds himself picking up the pieces after a disheartening loss.

The Broncos’ stars all stumbled in that 38-35 loss: Manning had three turnovers, including an interception that led to the winning field goal; Bailey got burned repeatedly; Ryan Clady was playing with a torn rotator cuff that would require surgery and wasn’t anything close to his usual dominant self as Manning’s blindside protector; and Miller and Elvis Dumervil combined for just one sack.

All those poor performances were overshadowed, however, by the many mystifying mistakes that Moore, their second-year free safety, made on Jones’ 70-yard touchdown catch from Joe Flacco with 31 seconds left in the fourth quarter.

Moore lined up too shallow and allowed Jones to blow past him after leaving cornerback Tony Carter, who failed to jam at the line of scrimmage, in the dust. Then, instead of going for the tackle, Moore tried for the interception on Flacco’s 50-yard high-arcing heave but mistimed his jump.

Moore took the blame after the game and promised to make good, saying, “I’m going to keep my head high and next time the opportunity comes, I’m just going to make it for my team. I’ll just make the play.”

The Broncos say they’re willing to give him that chance.

The post Broncos sticking by Rahim Moore appeared first on IdealCapper.

Given the ball at his 20 with 31 seconds, two timeouts and one of the best quarterbacks in the game, the Broncos coach decided to run out the clock and head to overtime.

Result: Baltimore 38, Denver 35. End of season in Broncoland.

Fox said he felt good about the decision when he made it Saturday, toward the end of one of the most disheartening losses in the franchise’s history. After hashing it over during the last two sleepless nights, he stood by his decision.

“I’d do it again 10 times if it presented itself in that situation,” he said Monday at Denver’s season-ending news conference, where he was joined by Elway, the quarterback-turned-front office executive.

Even 48 hours after the game, that single decision remained the most hotly debated of the many Fox, Manning and the Broncos made in their gaffe-filled loss to the Ravens. The second-guessing only got more intense Sunday after Atlanta moved the ball 41 yards in 12 seconds to set up the game-winning field goal in its 30-28 victory over Seattle.

But, Fox said, Denver’s situation was nowhere near what the Falcons faced. The Falcons were losing and had no other choice. They were playing in a dome. The Broncos had just given up a game-tying 70-yard touchdown pass and were standing on the sideline in disbelief. The temperature was below 10 degrees. Manning had thrown the ball downfield a grand total of twice the entire game.

“You watch a (70)-yard bomb go over your head, there’s a certain amount of shock value,” Fox said. “A little bit like a prize fighter who gets a right cross on the chin at the end of a round, you’re looking to get out of the round.”

Elway, of course, built his career around extracting the Broncos from impossible situations. But asked specifically how he would’ve responded in his playing days if told to take a knee under those circumstances, he sounded not at all like the go-for-broke quarterback he once was.

“I thought it was the right thing at that time,” Elway said. “I think with where the team was mentally and the situation we were in, I thought that it was a good move.”

Though the Broncos recovered and stopped Baltimore twice in the overtime, eventually Manning threw an interception that set up the Ravens for the winning field goal. It was a sudden, shocking end to a season that had Super Bowl written all over it. Instead, this year is drawing more comparisons to 1996, when the Broncos also were 13-3, also were top seeds and also lost by three points in the divisional round — to Jacksonville instead of Baltimore.

At the time, Elway was 36 and still searching for his first Super Bowl title. He won the next two.

Currently, Manning is 36 and stuck on one Super Bowl title. He signed with the Broncos last offseason to win a few more.

“I think having been through this before, and having been disappointed before, I realized that this was a possibility,” Elway said. “The bottom line is how we learn from this situation. If we get defensive and don’t look at everything we did in this game and try to learn from it, then there is a chance we can experience it again. Hopefully, we’re back in this situation again and we will have looked at it the right way and learned from the situation.”

While Fox conceded there were coaching mistakes in the game — most notably not having safety Rahim Moore coached up well enough to properly defend the pass that tied the game — he stood by his two most important strategic decisions.

A few minutes before kneeling on the ball, Denver was up by seven and trying to grind out the clock. Despite being down to their third-string running back, 188-pound Ronnie Hillman, the Broncos called three straight running plays, including a run off right guard on third-and-7 that went for no gain. That ran the clock down to 1:15 and made Baltimore burn all its timeouts.

But three plays after a punt, Joe Flacco threw the improbable 70-yard touchdown over Rahim Moore and into the hands of Jacoby Jones that tied the game.

“I’ve never believed in, `It’s one guy, one play,” Fox said when asked about Moore’s role in the loss. “It obviously was a big play.”

Fox said he played the percentages on all the calls — nothing more, nothing less.

According to his calculations:

” There’s a 38 to 40 percent chance of converting a third-and-7 into a first down.

” By punting and giving Baltimore the ball on its 23-yard line, trailing by a touchdown with 1:09 left and no timeouts, the Broncos had a 97 percent chance of winning.

” That percentage spiked to 99.9 percent when the Ravens had the ball on the 30 with 41 seconds left.

Turned out, the Broncos are a “.1 percenter.”

“I mean this in all sincerity, if I felt like we were going to give up a 70-yard touchdown pass with 31 seconds to go, we might have re-evaluated that,” Fox said. “But that’s not what the percentages said.

Elway said the Broncos intend to pick up the option on Manning for the next two years, which would pay him $40 million for two seasons. Manning still has to pass a physical later this winter to get the money.

In an interview with The Denver Post, owner Pat Bowlen called Manning “the real deal.”

“I don’t think he’s going anywhere,” Bowlen said. “I got more than I expected.”

Elway also said the Broncos would like to bring free agent LT Ryan Clady back.

By losing, the Broncos coaching staff gets assigned to coach the AFC in the Pro Bowl, the week before the Super Bowl. Manning said he will play in the game, as well.

“We had a very good football team,” Bowlen told the Denver newspaper. “A lot of those guys are going to be back. Some of them won’t be. Some will go to other teams or whatever, but I’m very comfortable that the nucleus of this football team will be back.

“I think we learned something. We learned a lesson. I think that lesson will help us. We’ve got to get better. Not in a lot of different areas. Keep the nucleus, but maybe tweak it here and there. But as for the future, that’s up to John. He’s going to tell me what we’ll do. I would be very surprised if we don’t agree.”

The post John Elway supports John Fox appeared first on IdealCapper.

John Elway, of all people, agreed with that call.

Given the ball at his 20 with 31 seconds, two timeouts and one of the best quarterbacks in the game, the Broncos coach decided to run out the clock and head to overtime.

Result: Baltimore 38, Denver 35. End of season in Broncoland.

Fox said he felt good about the decision when he made it Saturday, toward the end of one of the most disheartening losses in the franchise’s history. After hashing it over during the last two sleepless nights, he stood by his decision.

“I’d do it again 10 times if it presented itself in that situation,” he said Monday at Denver’s season-ending news conference, where he was joined by Elway, the quarterback-turned-front office executive.

Even 48 hours after the game, that single decision remained the most hotly debated of the many Fox, Manning and the Broncos made in their gaffe-filled loss to the Ravens. The second-guessing only got more intense Sunday after Atlanta moved the ball 41 yards in 12 seconds to set up the game-winning field goal in its 30-28 victory over Seattle.

But, Fox said, Denver’s situation was nowhere near what the Falcons faced. The Falcons were losing and had no other choice. They were playing in a dome. The Broncos had just given up a game-tying 70-yard touchdown pass and were standing on the sideline in disbelief. The temperature was below 10 degrees. Manning had thrown the ball downfield a grand total of twice the entire game.

“You watch a (70)-yard bomb go over your head, there’s a certain amount of shock value,” Fox said. “A little bit like a prize fighter who gets a right cross on the chin at the end of a round, you’re looking to get out of the round.”

Elway, of course, built his career around extracting the Broncos from impossible situations. But asked specifically how he would’ve responded in his playing days if told to take a knee under those circumstances, he sounded not at all like the go-for-broke quarterback he once was.

“I thought it was the right thing at that time,” Elway said. “I think with where the team was mentally and the situation we were in, I thought that it was a good move.”

Though the Broncos recovered and stopped Baltimore twice in the overtime, eventually Manning threw an interception that set up the Ravens for the winning field goal. It was a sudden, shocking end to a season that had Super Bowl written all over it. Instead, this year is drawing more comparisons to 1996, when the Broncos also were 13-3, also were top seeds and also lost by three points in the divisional round — to Jacksonville instead of Baltimore.

At the time, Elway was 36 and still searching for his first Super Bowl title. He won the next two.

Currently, Manning is 36 and stuck on one Super Bowl title. He signed with the Broncos last offseason to win a few more.

“I think having been through this before, and having been disappointed before, I realized that this was a possibility,” Elway said. “The bottom line is how we learn from this situation. If we get defensive and don’t look at everything we did in this game and try to learn from it, then there is a chance we can experience it again. Hopefully, we’re back in this situation again and we will have looked at it the right way and learned from the situation.”

While Fox conceded there were coaching mistakes in the game — most notably not having safety Rahim Moore coached up well enough to properly defend the pass that tied the game — he stood by his two most important strategic decisions.

A few minutes before kneeling on the ball, Denver was up by seven and trying to grind out the clock. Despite being down to their third-string running back, 188-pound Ronnie Hillman, the Broncos called three straight running plays, including a run off right guard on third-and-7 that went for no gain. That ran the clock down to 1:15 and made Baltimore burn all its timeouts.

But three plays after a punt, Joe Flacco threw the improbable 70-yard touchdown over Rahim Moore and into the hands of Jacoby Jones that tied the game.

“I’ve never believed in, `It’s one guy, one play,” Fox said when asked about Moore’s role in the loss. “It obviously was a big play.”

Fox said he played the percentages on all the calls — nothing more, nothing less.

According to his calculations:

-There’s a 38 to 40 percent chance of converting a third-and-7 into a first down.

-By punting and giving Baltimore the ball on its 23-yard line, trailing by a touchdown with 1:09 left and no timeouts, the Broncos had a 97 percent chance of winning.

-That percentage spiked to 99.9 percent when the Ravens had the ball on the 30 with 41 seconds left.

Turned out, the Broncos are a “.1 percenter.”

“I mean this in all sincerity, if I felt like we were going to give up a 70-yard touchdown pass with 31 seconds to go, we might have re-evaluated that,” Fox said. “But that’s not what the percentages said.”

Game notes
Elway said the Broncos intend to pick up the option on Manning for the next two years, which would pay him $40 million for two seasons. Manning still has to pass a physical later this winter to get the money. Elway also said the Broncos would like to bring free agent LT Ryan Clady back. … By losing, the Broncos coaching staff gets assigned to coach the AFC in the Pro Bowl, the week before the Super Bowl. Manning said he will play in the game, as well.

The post John Fox, John Elway of Denver Broncos stand by late kneel-down decision against Baltimore Ravens appeared first on IdealCapper.

Kent State at Arkansas State
When: 9:00 PM ET, Sunday, January 6, 2013
Where: Ladd-Peebles Stadium, Mobile, Alabama
TV: 9 p.m. ET, ESPN
Oddsmakers currently have the Red Wolves listed as 2-point favorites versus the Golden Flashes, while the game’s total is sitting at 62.
Prediction: Kent State 45, Arkansas State 41

The Red Wolves finished the regular season strong, scoring 131 total points in their final three games and topping 500 yards of offense in each of those contests. Arkansas State can break the school record for points in a season by scoring 20, a safe bet considering the Red Wolves topped 30 points in 11 of 13 games. Freshman wide receiver J.D. McKissic is Aplin’s top target and – with 92 catches – needs three more to break the single-season reception record. Thompson, who in his first season as defensive coordinator, helped Arkansas State lead the Sun Belt in scoring defense for the second straight year. Linebacker Nathan Herrold has 109 tackles, the first Arkansas State defender to reach triple digits since 2007. Placekicker Brian Davis is a reliable weapon, with 40 made field goals for his career and a school-record 100 points this season.

Last time out for Arkansas State, they were a 45-0 winner as they battled Middle Tennessee at home. Arkansas State covered in the match as a 13.5-point favorite, while 45 combined points moved the game UNDER for totals bettors.

The Golden Flashes won the East Division title in the MAC and is making their first bowl appearance since December 1972. Archer logged a 38.2-yard average on kickoff returns with three returns for touchdowns. Archer, who’s scored 22 total touchdowns in 13 games, is the only player in the country with more than 1,300 yards rushing and 500 receiving. He also threw a 24-yard touchdown pass this season. Linebacker Luke Batton is the Golden Flashes’ top defensive player. He has 132 total tackles and ranks as one of the top 20 most prolific defenders in the country. Kent State ranks second in Division I in turnover margin and – with 38 takeaways – is tied with Oregon for the nation’s lead. The Golden Flashes have solid special teams. In addition to Archer’s exploits as a returner, Kent State led the MAC in net punting and kicker Freddy Cortez closed the season with six straight made field goals.

In their last action, Kent State was a 44-37 loser at home against Northern Illinois. They covered the 7.5-point spread as underdogs, while the combined score (81) was profitable news for OVER bettors.

Team records:
Arkansas State: 9-3 SU, 8-4 ATS
Kent State: 11-2 SU, 11-2 ATS

A few trends to consider:
Arkansas State is 5-0 SU in its last 5 games
The total has gone OVER in 4 of Arkansas State’s last 6 games
Kent State is 10-1 SU in its last 11 games
The total has gone OVER in 5 of Kent State’s last 7 games

The post Arkansas State Red Wolves vs. Kent State Golden Flashes CFB Free Betting Pick & Matchup appeared first on IdealCapper.

The sophomore threw a 36-yard touchdown strike to Marquise Goodwin with 2:24 left for the last of two fourth-quarter touchdown passes, stunning Oregon State and lifting the Longhorns to a 31-27 comeback victory Saturday night.

The Longhorns (9-4) never led before Goodwin scored his second touchdown on a deep post pattern, just a down after Texas converted a fourth-and-1 play to keep its chances alive.

“I guess in in every situation you have to be thankful,” said Ash, who was pulled in a loss to TCU a month ago and wasn’t immediately selected the starter for the Alamo Bowl. “I learned a lot at TCU. It was a tough situation I was in. I was just really thankful I got another opportunity to play a game I love.”

With Texas down 20-10 at halftime, Longhorns coach Mack Brown said he told his players they would win.

“I told them this it wasn’t going to be easy, but I told them this game was ours and we would win it,” Brown said. “This one is really special.”

Storm Woods ran for 118 yards and scored two touchdowns for the Beavers (9-4), who left stunned after looking as though they would wrap up their first 10-win season since 2006.

“Not to take anything away from Texas, that was a great team offensively and defensively,” Wood said. “In the first half we had a great style of football. In the second half, Texas made some adjustments and I guess, they just wanted it more.”

The victory was a dose of much-needed good news for Texas after coming into the game under a cloud of questions following the suspensions of backup quarterback Case McCoy and injured linebacker Jordan Hicks.

Ash, whose been pulled at times for McCoy this season, was 21 of 33 for 241 yards. Ash sputtered until the fourth quarter, when he went 9 for 11 for 146 yards. Even if there were doubts about Ash before then, Texas had no choice but to stick with him: the only backups were two redshirt freshmen who haven’t taken a snap all season.

Brown announced the suspensions Friday but wouldn’t reveal which players were sent home. A source within the school’s administration told ESPN.com on Friday the players were McCoy and Hicks.

Brown addressed the suspensions during a previously schedule news conference and referred to a local TV report that police were investigating two unidentified Texas players in an alleged sexual assault at a San Antonio hotel. Police released a heavily redacted incident report that only identifies the suspects as two students, one 20 and the other 21.

Authorities are still investigating and no charges have been filed.

Brown said he would not address the suspensions further.

Oregon State quarterback Cody Vaz was 15 of 28 for 194 yards and two interceptions. The Beavers had negative 4 yards in the fourth quarter as they were muffled by the Longhorns defense that was led by Alex Okafor, who finished with 4 1/2 sacks.

“When we tried to just drop back and pass, it was difficult,” Oregon State coach Mike Riley said. “That’s why Cody had to just hang in there. It was very, very tough. He made some plays and some other plays didn’t develop because he didn’t just have time.”

Although Goodwin’s touchdown catch might have won the game, two spectacular Texas plays in an earlier 83-yard scoring drive handed the Longhorns momentum — and a chance.

First was wide receiver Jaxon Shipley rescuing a pass sailing behind him with a dazzling one-handed grab at midfield. Ash made up for that off-target throw six plays later, slithering out of safety Anthony Watkins’ near-certain sack and flinging the ball to Johnathan Gray, who then zipped down the sideline for a 15-yard scoring play that got the Longhorns to 27-24

The Longhorns played for a national championship in 2009. What’s followed has been the shakiest of Brown’s 15 years at Texas: a combined 22-16 record, an overhaul of assistant coaches and stubborn instability at quarterback following seven spoiled years with Heisman Trophy finalists Colt McCoy — the suspended player’s brother — and Vince Young under center.

A surge of four consecutive victories late this season put this nine-win season in reach — a benchmark that had been the ho-hum standard of the Brown era. It comes following an unexpected twist earlier this month, when school President Bill Powers went to his blog to write that Brown had his “full support” and would remain the head coach.

Powers cited an increase an “increase in media speculation” about Brown’s future. It was published on his blog the same day Brown would not yet commit to Ash or Case McCoy as his starting quarterback for the Alamo Bowl.

The post David Ash-led Texas rallies late to stun Oregon State appeared first on IdealCapper.