Air Force Football: Jake's Post-Utah Musings

(Photo by Stephen Dunn/Getty Images)

One of the most athletically impressive plays I’ve seen by an Air Force player since covering the team was made Saturday by Jon Davis.

Davis, the Falcons’ sophomore free safety, came on a blitz with Utah facing a third-and-10 from its own 24-yard line early in the second quarter. Davis came right up the middle on a full sprint and left his feet to disrupt a potential throw.

Utah quarterback Terrance Cain did not throw, but Davis gathered himself in midair and crashed into Cain for a sack.

Wow.

Davis also looked pretty good returning a punt 35 yards. He was in because Reggie Rembert was out.

Speaking of Rembert, there were bunch of hard hits in Saturday’s game.

Rembert was on the receiving end of two of them, both on kickoff returns in the second half.

It looked on a replay as if Rembert might have been unconscious for a moment before he hit the ground on the first one. And he didn’t return to the game after the second. He will be held out of Monday's practice as a precaution.

A lot of weird plays Saturday too.

First was the fumble that resulted in Utah’s first touchdown. Cain went right on an option, was tackled and lost the ball. Utah’s Eddie Wide, who had been the pitch man on the play, barely had to break stride to scoop up the ball. And he raced 44 yards for a touchdown.

But was Cain down before the fumble?

I saw Air Force coach Troy Calhoun looking up at the scoreboard, hoping to see a replay that would let him know if he should challenge the play. But before a replay was shown, the Utes attempted their extra point.

“I never saw one,” Calhoun said of a replay on the scoreboard. “I kept looking up there at the board, and to their credit (they didn't show one). At a good place, that’s the way you do it.”

It was hard to tell from the angles we got on the television replays, but it looked to me like Cain was down.

Then there was the tipped punt.

Utah was punting from deep in its own territory, and its punter, Sean Sellwood, was clobbered. Air Force avoided a roughing the kicker penalty because refs said the ball was tipped.

Davis said after the game that he got his right hand on it. I believe him, but how the heck did that ball travel like 60 yards in the air after it was tipped? If Davis hadn’t touched it it might have flown out of Rice-Eccles Stadium.

Senior punter Brandon Geyer is putting together an all-conference kind of season. He continued his strong play Saturday, averaging 41.7 yards on seven punts, and pinning three inside the Utah 20-yard line.

And how about his punt on Air Force’s first possession of the second half? He kicked it from just inside his own 40-yard line, it flew high and deep and appeared as if it would role into the end zone (Utah’s returner thought as much, letting it land and getting out of the way).

But the ball landed at about the four-yard line, bounced pretty much sideways and was downed at the three.

It was like watching a Tiger Woods pitching wedge hit a green and check up at the flag-stick.

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