The Tuskers remained unbeaten Thursday night with a 34-7 win over the Redwoods as QB Brooks Bollinger, the UFL's leading passer, continued his superb play.
Bollinger, who has completed better than 70 percent of his passes, threw for 224 yards and two touchdowns, bringing those 2009 totals to 759 and nine, respectively, with just one interception. Toss in the fact that he was pulled late in the third quarter when the Tuskers cruised to a 27-0 lead, and Bollinger again put up quite the impressive performance.
Despite the lopsided score, Bollinger said he thought things could have gone better.
"We know how good we can be," he said. "The record has nothing to do with it. The bar has been set high and we want to live up to that and raise it. At times tonight we didn't do that. I just feel like we can play better."
As Bollinger implied, the game was indeed a sloppy one. Not so much on the Tuskers' side of the ball — though Bollinger did have two fumbles — but the Redwoods looked terrible on offense, if the final score wasn't enough indication. Both Redwoods quarterbacks, Mike McMahon and Shane Boyd, were picked off twice and the UFL's leading rusher, RB Cody Ross, lost a fumble.
Despite the poor play on the offensive side of the ball, the Redwoods' defense looked good for the first half. Then it came unwound a bit as the offense just could not seem to keep them off the field.
"Defensively in the first quarter we were very good, and in the second quarter we still weren't bad," said Redwoods head coach Dennis Green. "But we needed some relief to come from the other side of the ball. Our defensive line, we batted a few balls down. We sacked (Bollinger), we forced some turnovers, it was a pretty good physical game."