Tiger Bites: ETBU vs. Texas Lutheran

The Tiger football team has another big game on Saturday night down in Seguin against Texas Lutheran. Here are some facts about the series with the Bulldogs, as well as some fun (and-not-so-fun) memories I have of ETBU-TLU football:

-- The Tigers haven't won in Seguin since 2002. ETBU has lost the last two games played in Matador Stadium.

-- The 2004 game played down there was a heartbreaker for us. We were in the middle of one of those years where nothing -- absolutely nothing -- went right for ETBU. TLU quarterback Sean Salinas passed for over 500 yards that day, including a 98-yard bomb to Jason Trahan that stands as the longest play ever against the Tigers. Still, it took TLU going on a 20-0 run in the fourth quarter to pull out a wild 39-28 win.

-- The last three games of the series have been quite exciting. The margin of victory in those games is by a total of six points, including ETBU's 19-17 win last season in Ornelas Stadium.

-- Just as Seguin has been a tough place for ETBU, TLU hates coming to The Jungle. The Bulldogs are 0-4 all-time against the Tigers in Marshall.

-- TLU head coach Dennis Parker was my high school football coach here in Marshall, back in the late 1980s. I've always had the utmost respect for Coach Parker. I just wish I'd been about 6-3, 290 or so so I could have actually helped the Mavericks out back then. But alas, I was only a 5-10 or so, 190-pound (dripping wet) O-lineman. I have always proudly boasted to any Marshall fans who would listen -- I was part of the last team to finish with a losing record under Coach Parker with the Mavs. In the three years after my graduation, the Mavs won like 40 or something games, played deep into the state playoffs every year and won a state championship once. Either my class was a springboard for that program, or I probably should have not wasted his time...

-- The 2003 ETBU-TLU game is memorable for me in a not-so-nice way, I guess. The reason: I was sick as all get out that day, which ended with a 45-21 Tiger romp in The Jungle. I had been battling some nausea and stomach pain for a few days, but thought it was just something, well, not major. El Chico catered the press box meal that day, which didn't help matters with my nausea -- nothing against El Chico, but the smell of tacos and enchiladas isn't something that's prescribed when your stomach is turning somersaults up into your throat... I went home after the game and woke up the next morning in a bad way, and by late Sunday night I was in the hospital with what the surgeon would later describe to me as a "ripe" gallbladder. I was on the shelf and hospitalized for almost a week, and missed the Tigers' thrilling overtime loss at Hardin-Simmons the next week. The Tigers went 9-3 that year, but I was 9-2. And minus a minor body part... On that note, you know what minor surgery is? It's surgery that's happening to somebody else.

-- The most exciting game in the series, probably for ETBU fans, has to be the 2001 contest. That's the game where Jabori Jackson exploded on the national scene by single-handedly whipping the Bulldogs. The Tigers won 38-24, and Jackson accounted for 24 points himself. Jabori scored in every way possible, almost -- he took two passes for touchdowns, and he returned two kicks for scores. The numbers speak for themselves: 4 catches for 187 yards and 2 TD, and 3 kickoff returns for 190 yards and 2 scores. I will go on record and I'm pretty sure there are a lot out there who will back me up -- there hasn't been a better kickoff returner in the ASC in the last nine years than Jabori Jackson. There's been some good ones, but his name is at the top of the list.

-- Finally, can't forget the memories of the 2005 game in which Jeremy Seeton kicked the game-winning field goal with 12 sacks. TLU was nationally-ranked, coming off that impressive 2004 season, and Salinas was back for his senior year. I had a lot of respect for Salinas in the two games I saw him play against us -- he was as elusive a quarterback as we've seen in this league and he simply made the Bulldogs into a contender by being on the field. He was a special player. But we got to him nine times that day -- Micah Rucker had three sacks -- and that kept the game close into the fourth quarter. The offense got things going in the final 15 and managed to put enough points on the board to Seeton a chance to win it at the end.