By Dan Weber
NKyTribune sports reporter
When college football evolved into an at times all-out passing game, they called it “basketball on grass.”
Now that Arena Football is here again in Northern Kentucky, what do we call the Kentucky Barrels’ marathon 34-26 inaugural win over the Michigan Arsenal in front of a couple thousand or so enthusiastic fans at NKU’s Truist Arena Sunday?
“Basketball in helmets and shoulder pads” maybe. Or “hockey without the ice and sticks and a puck” or “cage match rugby with passing alllowed.”
My favorite is “football in a box.” With the fans in the box with the players. As they were Sunday.
“It was good,” Barrels’ coach Cedric Walker said of the support from the “oohs” and “aahs” at the big hits taking players into the stands to their displeasure with an officiating crew that may still be throwing flags well after the more-than-three-hourlong game had ended.
And a game that started inauspiciously for all involved when on the very first play from scrimmage, Barrels’ defensive back Cedric Thomas, from Liberty Township, Ohio, crashed to the turf in an end zone collision never to get up before the Campbell County EMTs and ambulance had him on his way to the hospital where as the postgame press conference was happening, Thomas was already in surgery for a fractured right tibia and fibula.
Three of the four Barrels afterward used the same language to describe what has to happen as a result of Game 1 for this team: “We’ve got to clean things up,” said – one after another — Walker, quarterback Dalton Oliver and owner Corey Cunningham.
“Our game is supposed to be fast-paced and fan-friendly,” Walker said. This was not that.
Nor was the offense. “I’ve got to be more precise with the football,” said Oliver, a Muhlenberg County native, Kentucky Wesleyan alum and former Nashville Kat of maybe not maximizing a terrifically athletic receiving group led by ex-NFL’er and Ohio State Buckeye Jalin Marshall (seven catches for 110 yards and two TD) on a night when Oliver hit on 13 of 22 passes (59.1 percent) for 190 yards, two TD and no INT.
Marshall had help from quick Darren Epps who had three catches for 37 yards and another 115 yards on returns including an end zone-to-end zone kickoff return TD that proved to be the difference in the game. Darius Prince had three catches for 43 yards and scored a TD after the Arsenal started doubling Marshall.
As for the Arsenal, they rode with quarterback Malik Henry, the Inglewood, Calif. native and Long Beach Poly alum who starred in the Netflix series Last Chance U. about the likes of the onetime bright stars like Henry, who went from a top national prospect at Florida State to Nevada to Independence CC – and now his eighth Arena Football team. He threw for 244 yards and three TD on 23-of-48 passing (.479).
But it wasn’t quite enough. Not on this night.
Not when the Barrels seemed to know that as ugly as this game was, as much time as was taken up waiting around for the six officials to decide what they’d just called, or as they headed over to the replay table to see if what they’d called actually happened, or as they tried to figure out what exactly the rules said they should do like transitioning from a second-and-25 to a first-and-10 without explanation to the fans who, without a video board or a scoreboard that noted down and distance – or even the score for a while – had no clue.
Is this what Arena games are always like, Walker, who describes himself as “a man of first impressions,” was asked. His answer: “That was not a good first impression.”
And then in language that makes it clear why Walker was both a top Arena player and now a championship coach: “I’ve got to correct it,” he said, accepting the blame for what didn’t happen here.
“Our standard is to win championships,” Walker said. “Our quarterback has to meet that standard. We’ve got a long way to go.”
But their kicking game – returning kicks and blocking them – is already there, producing a touchdown, a single point on the kickoff tackle in the end zone and then stopping the play of the game with a sack of Michigan kicker Rhoden who was lining up for a go-ahead field goal attempt from his own 21 with just over a minute left. A bad snap had the Barrels’ defense all over it, taking the ball away at the 3 on their way to a final score.
And from owner Cunningham, who came down to the boards before game’s end to extend his hand to defensive lineman Zeke Rose, one of the four former NFL players on the roster, there was this. “He told me ‘We need you,’ “ Rose said with a big grin. “We have a good relationship,” Cunningham said. “He’s humble, he gets it and as an NFL guy, he’s great in the community.”
“Are you the leader on defense?” we asked Rose. “One of them,” he said.
Which is where this team will win, if Walker, the defensive coordinator who is allowed on the field when the team is on defense, has anything to say about it.
And if Cunningham has anything to say about it, when he talks about “cleaning it up,” the software entrepreneur is talking about “the product.”
And there’s a way to go there, from the overly intrusive and inexplicable officiating to a referee’s mike that didn’t work to no lineup cards/programs so no one has a clue who the visitors are much less the home team, to no video board with the main scoreboard so high in the arena (to avoid the kicked footballs) that it might as well be outside the arena to the chain crew that apparently according to league rules can’t be holding the down markers that often fall over as they’re propped against the sideboards to the difficulty of keeping the pads on the gates where the players enter and exit the field to a scoreboard that doesn’t do down and distance to a pregame warning to the media that they dare not go onto the field after the game before a late announcement welcoming fans down on to the field after the game for autographs to no printed stats available after the game in the arena.
“We’ll be much better next week,” Cunningham – not to mention Walker and Dalton – promised when the Barrels host the Oceanside, Calif., Bombers. Game time has been moved to 5 p.m. from its original start time of 3 p.m.
SCORING SUMMARY
Michigan Arsenal 6 6 14 0 26
Kentucky Barrels 7 7 13 7– 34
KB: Marshall 18 pass from Oliver (PAT: Baum kick)
MA: Grissom 11 pass from Henry (Rhoden kick blocked)
KB: Marshall 31 pss from Oliver (Baum PAT kick good)
MA: Henry 2 run (PAT 2-pt. pass incomplete)
KB: Epps 50 kick return (Baum PAT kick no good)
MA: Williams 12 pass from Henry (2-pt PAT Williams pass from Henry)
KB: Prince 21 pass from Oliver (2-pt. PAT run fails)
KB: 1 point for kickoff tackle in the end zone
MA: Grissom 2 pass from Henry (2-pt. PAT pass fails)
KB: DiLeo 3 run (Baum PAT kick good)