On Monday at Garin Higgins’ radio show, ESU quarterback Andre Sloan El answered questions about his injured ankle.
Sloan El said he would sit out practice the next two days and then start practicing Wednesday and be ready for Saturday’s game.
Higgins couldn’t help but interrupt, joking with Sloan El that he was making coaching decisions. Higgins is finally getting what he wants out of his quarterback this year, an extension of the coach on the field... and off.
Sloan El, who like Higgins is in his second season with the Hornets, has run the offense like a veteran. His numbers don’t jump off the page — 205 rushing yards and three touchdowns on 41 carries, 45-of -70 completions, 594 yards and five touchdowns passing — but he’s running an offense that has scored at least 20 points every game, ranks 35th in the country in rushing offense and 30th in pass efficiency. Plus, the Hornets have only one turnover all season and that was a Zach Rampy interception last week against Fort Hays State.
“If you look at how clean he is when he plays, as far as protecting the football, passing efficiency the high percentage, moving the offense,” Higgins said. “I just think that he’s a lot smarter football player than he was last year, but there’s still time. I don’t think he’s as good as he can be... There’s still some things he needs to learn with this offense.
“In the future, maybe he can have a little bit more — instead of looking over at the sidelines all the time — maybe he has the capability to put us in the right place.”
Sloan El had the Hornets in the right place quite often last Saturday. The Hornets scored all 24 of their points in the first half and Sloan El played most of the half until leaving the game late in the second quarter because of his ankle.
“I’ve just been going out there, trying to get off on a good start, focusing on the other defense and studying them earlier on in the week,” Sloan El said. “The guys out there are helping me out, the receivers and the o-linemen and the running backs, we’re just all playing together.”
Sloan El definitely has more weapons, but he’s also no slouch. Before he limped off the field against the Tigers in the second quarter, he ran eight times for 76 yards and a touchdown, and connected on 7-of-10 passes for 90 yards. Emporia State also went the entire half without punting.
“The game that he had against Fort Hays in the first half was probably the best he’s played up to this point,” Higgins said, “because we were really rocking and rolling, moving the ball pretty well in the first half.”
Last year, Sloan El battled injuries. Other than his ankle injury this year, he’s been pretty healthy. It also helps that Higgins has a viable backup in Rampy. Rampy finished the first half against the Tigers and had a touchdown pass and then played most of the second half when the Hornets continued to move the ball. Rampy, a redshirt freshman, was prepared to handle the offense because Higgins made sure to give him several series in the first two weeks of the season.
“It was good to get my feet wet, get in there and see what the speed of the game was like,” Rampy said. “Going into the season, we’d be practicing but we hadn’t been live, so I didn’t really know how fast it was going to be and it was nice to get a few series in just in case I had to go in.”
Last year at this time, the Hornets were 3-1— just like this year — but the record is the only resemblance. Higgins has a quarterback with a year of experience for the first time since 2003 when he had Patrick Crayton, who now plays receiver for the Dallas Cowboys. Crayton took him to the NAIA National Championship that year.
In Week Five last year, the Hornets were coming off a loss to FHSU instead of a win, and their struggling offense had only scored more than 17 points once. They would go on to lose their last eight games. Yeah, they were a 3-1 team, but Higgins has said he felt fortunate to be 3-1 team and they had a lot of question marks, quarterback being one.
“Last year when things got really bad, I think we were searching for answers from an offensive standpoint, trying to figure out what our identity was going to be,” Higgins said. “We knew what we wanted it to be, but we knew we couldn’t get it there because of our talent level where it was at. You’re just grab bagging, and nothing is really consistent offensively. And that’s one thing I can talk about this year from an offensive standpoint, we’ve been very consistent as far as what we’re doing. Nothing really changes from week to week.”