Maulers come up short for 1st win

Remain USFL’s only winless team after late drive stalls at Generals 40

With his Pittsburgh Maulers team trailing the New Jersey Generals, 14-10, at halftime Saturday, coach Kirby Wilson passionately addressed his players, aware of the opportunity before them.

“Let’s play with discipline,” Wilson said, as picked up by NBC cameras in the locker room. “You’re right there.”

Wilson was right. For the second time in four games this season, the Maulers were in position to pick up what has been an elusive first victory. But yet again, they came up short.

Six days removed from a dispiriting 24-0 thumping at the hands of the Michigan Panthers, the Maulers looked better — or, at the very least, more competitive — but ultimately lost, 21-13, at Protective Stadium in Birmingham, Ala.

The Maulers remain the USFL’s lone winless team.

They had their chances, with Wilson stating multiple times after the game that his team was three or four plays from being in a spot where they could have won.

A one-yard Garrett Groshek touchdown run in the final minute of the second quarter got the Maulers within four at halftime. With 10 minutes remaining in regulation, a 39-yard Ramiz Ahmed field goal got the Maulers back within a score, 21-13. After New Jersey missed a 43-yard field goal attempt on its ensuing drive, the Maulers had a chance to send the game to overtime.

After getting to a 2nd-and3 at the Generals’ 40 with 1:14 left, however, Maulers quarterback Kyle Lauletta threw three consecutive incompletions, the last of which gave the ball back to New Jersey with one minute to play.

“We fell short again today,” Wilson said. “It wasn’t because of a lack of effort, but a lack of execution.”

The Maulers, who entered the day as the USFL’s worst statistical offense, again struggled to move the ball, finishing with 256 total yards, the third time in four games they’ve failed to gain at least 300 yards. Still, there were signs of improvement.

After scoring a touchdown just once in seven redzone trips in their first three games, the Maulers capitalized on their only appearance inside the New Jersey 20. They had no turnovers. They limited the Generals, the league’s top rushing attack, to just 3.5 yards per carry.

“They just did a nice job,” said Generals coach Mike Riley, a former Oregon State, Nebraska and San Diego Chargers coach. “We thought this might be the best defensive line we’ve faced so far. It wasn’t surprising to me that they were harder to run against than other teams we’ve played.”

Perhaps most electrifying was Maulers wide receiver Tre Walker, who had nine catches for 110 yards, accounting for 65% of the team’s 169 receiving yards in a losing effort.

“He’s made plays when he’s been given opportunities and he’ll continue to make them because those are things as a coach that you’re always looking for – things you can’t coach,” Wilson said. “He has that. That’s why we want to feature him as much as we can.”

After splitting snaps last week with Josh Love, Lauletta got the start and was the only quarterback the Maulers used. The team’s first-round USFL draft pick was 15 of 32 for 169 yards, an average of just 5.3 yards per attempt.

The Generals easily could have won by a more comfortable margin except for what Riley described as his team leaving a lot of points on the field, with a pair of missed field goals, an untimely botched snap and some penalties on the Maulers’ lone touchdown drive.

“There were fewer mental errors and missed assignments,” Wilson said of his team. “There were enough to correct, but we allowed ourselves to play one opponent … Any time you can play one opponent, you can have a chance for a victory. We seemed to do that, but at the end of the day, we have to execute better and someone has to make a play.”