By Todd Traub
Leader sports editor
Coaches are always making adjustments within a game.
But for Tuesday’s Sugar Bowl between Arkansas and Ohio State, coaches, and just about everyone else, were making adjustments so they could watch the game.
Basketball programs unfortunate enough to have a Jan. 4 playing date on their schedules took some creative measures early in the week to clear viewing time for the Razorbacks’ first appearance in a BCS bowl game.
The Abundant Life boys and girls were supposed play a 5-2A Conference game against Poyen at Abundant Life on Tuesday, but the only action taking place in the gym at the scheduled 6 p.m. start was a few younger players wrapping up practice with a shootaround.
That’s because Abundant Life and Poyen moved their games up to Monday in order to free up Tuesday for Sugar Bowl viewing.
“I was a little hesitant to be the one to suggest it,” Abundant Life girls coach and athletic director Justin Moseley said. “Because I knew it would take a lot of phone calls to make sure everything was adjusted with referees and security and concession workers and all that.”
Moseley said he didn’t want to pressure Poyen, situated west of Little Rock and looking at a scheduled bus trip.
“I just kind of said ‘Let me wait and see if Poyen calls me or if any of them ask,’ ” Moseley said. “It wasn’t but within an hour or two and all of a sudden my phone rang and it was their coach and I knew exactly what he was going to ask me. I said ‘I’m open to it.’ ”
Moseley said his decision was met with almost universal approval at Abundant Life, though one Notre Dame fan, boys basketball coach Chris Horton, wasn’t quite caught up in the hoopla.
“He kind of made fun of me for it. We just told him ‘Tough,’ and went ahead with it,” Moseley said jokingly.
With the concession workers, ticket takers, security and other support personnel on board, Abundant Life posted a pair of victories. The girls won 46-32 to improve to 3-2 in conference and the boys won 55-53 to improve to 4-1.
Riverview plunged ahead with its 2-3A Conference opener at Rose Bud, though school officials moved the tipoff of the girl’s game from 6 p.m. to 4 p.m., officially. Moseley said conference foe Conway St. Joseph did the same thing.
“They actually started it about 15 minutes earlier from that,” Riverview coach Jon Laffoon said. “The officials worked that. They were the ones who wanted to start it early.”
The Rose Bud school district called in late December, after the bowl pairings and dates were announced, looking to reschedule the games, but Riverview’s only available date fell during the Christmas break.
Monday was not an option at Riverview because a junior-high tournament was being held on campus.
So the programs cooperated as best they could on Tuesday’s accelerated schedule and got a break, if Rose Bud could call it that, when the boys game got out of hand in the first half with Riverview building a 52-14 lead.
“I’ve been on the other end of that,” Laffoon said. “We were able to get some other kids playing time.”
A 30-point lead entering the third quarter triggers the high school “mercy rule” in which the clock runs almost continuously the rest of the game. However, coaches have the option of deciding mutually whether or not to start the clock earlier.
In this case, the coaches chose to run the clock from the start of the second half, a decision that was more than likely met with unanimous approval throughout the gym.
Laffoon had planned to record the Sugar Bowl and watch it later, but the early night at Rose Bud allowed him to catch most of it live.
That meant Laffoon was home in time to see the Razorbacks, apparently playing their last game with NFL prospect quarterback Ryan Mallett, rally from a 28-7 deficit only to lose 31-26 after an eventful final 1:09.
“You could tell we had been off a month — we meaning Arkansas,” Laffoon said. “We didn’t look sharp. But I liked the defensive effort in the second half. I thought the defensive pressure they kept on Mallett was key, kind of like how we press somebody in basketball.”
Ohio State led 31-26 when Arkansas’ Colton Miles-Nash blocked a punt and Julian Horton recovered at the Ohio State 18 to set up coach Bobby Petrino’s offense led by Mallett.
But after All-American tight end D.J. Williams dropped a pass, Ohio State’s Solomon Thomas intercepted Mallett at the 17 and the Buckeyes had the victory.
The blocked punt got Laffoon’s attention and, unfortunately, his wife’s as well.
“I actually woke my wife up jumping and shouting,” Laffoon said. “I thought Petrino and them would be able to punch it in from there. I was a little disappointed just like everyone else, but you have to give Ohio State credit.”
A similar episode took place in the Moseley household.
“I was worn out from the day but I stayed up,” Moseley said. “I had to nudge my wife when we blocked the punt. Thirty seconds later I said ‘Oh, you can go back to sleep.’ ”
— Sportswriter Jason King contributed to this report.
