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Life in the NFL
Travis LaBoy
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From the front office to the equipment staff, we all knew we could beat the Colts
FIRST, I want to congratulate Hawaii head coach June Jones and my Warriors on a terrific football season. Congratulations to Colt Brennan and June Jones for being named offensive player of the year and coach of the year, respectively.
I want to congratulate Samson Satele as well for earning his fourth straight All-WAC honors and second straight first team All-WAC honors. We will all be seeing him playing on Sundays next year. I also want to congratulate Mel (Purcell), Ikaika (Alama-Francis), Nate (Ilaoa), Leonard (Peters), Davone (Bess) and the rest of the All-WAC Warriors.
Now, I know I said last week's game was a huge win, and that you had to see it to believe it, but this past weekend's win against the Colts was bigger and better than that. Last time we played, the Colts edged out a 14-13 victory against us at their home field. That loss probably hurt us more than any other loss this year. We had a bad taste in our mouths after that loss and carried that chip on our shoulder to our matchup this past Sunday.
Each week we play a very tough opponent, but the Colts game is probably our most anticipated. Since the AFC South was formed, the Titans and the Colts have been battling it out for conference superiority. We have had our share of success against the Colts, but we have been unable to beat them the past three seasons.
The Colts have become arguably the best team in the NFL in those past three seasons as we have been rebuilding. But like I have been saying all year, we are an extremely underrated team, filled with talent, and we feel we can beat anyone in the NFL.
Going into the game on Sunday we felt that the time was now. If you were around the Titans facility, you could feel it all week. From the front office down to the equipment staff, our team was ready for the game and confident that we could pull off a win. We had the momentum on our side, coming off a big win at Philadelphia and the huge come-from-behind victory last week against the New York Giants. Our confidence was high and we knew we weren't letting the Colts get away with another one-point victory.
The game looked like it would be a blowout win for the Colts as they rattled off 14 unanswered points in the first quarter and a half of play. Peyton Manning seemed to get in his groove early, piecing together two scoring drives. As a defense, we knew we couldn't let the Colts fire out to a big lead similar to what we faced against his brother and the Giants.
Peyton is unstoppable once he gets going, so we knew that we had to make some stops, and we did. By halftime we were able to close the gap to 14-10 with a terrific touchdown drive by Vince (Young). Pro Bowl linebacker Keith Bulluck made another huge play, making a one-handed interception of a Peyton Manning pass, which gave our offense the field position to kick a field goal before halftime.
The second half was even more exciting than the first, as we took the lead and kept it until the Colts tied it up with 2:38 left in the game. Pacman (Jones) gave us a good return on the kickoff, Vince put a couple of nice plays together, as he did all season, and we were looking at a 60-yard field-goal attempt to win the game or we were heading into overtime.
I don't know if fans appreciate how long a 60-yard field goal really is. I saw from the sidelines and then from several camera angles on film, that is a long way to kick a ball. Nevertheless, Rob Bironas stepped up and blasted a 60-yard, game-winning field goal.
There are no easy victories in the NFL, and we have four tough games left in our season starting this weekend with the Houston Texans. We were able to beat them last time we played, but despite their record and statistics, they are a really good team. But we are confident heading into the last quarter of our season, especially coming off three consecutive wins.
Former UH lineman Travis LaBoy is chronicling his season with the Tennessee Titans for the Star-Bulletin