Final Four

OK, great weekend of women’s football! We hosted the 9-0 Seattle Majestics at our place on Saturday. We beat them in Seattle last year, 36-20, but that was last year, you know? As the OL coach, I was extremely concerned about their defense, especially one of their defensive tackles, Kase Tukutau and their MLB, Holly Custis – both really, really good players.

Seattle recovered an onside kick to start the game, drove down the field and scored. We came out, and on our second play threw an interception. They went back down the field and scored, making it 13-0. It wasn’t looking good for the home town team. Fortunately, we blocked the extra point and returned it for a 2-point conversion. I found it interesting that we’ve only done that twice, and both times it has been against Seattle. Last year, the block & return dampened what could have been a psychological hit going in just before the half. This year it gave us a little bit of momentum.

Last year, we found our stride in the second half with the run game. This year, although I don’t think it was our initial idea, we relied on the run game from the start, and it paid off big time. We rang up 405 yards on the ground…..that’s Wisconsin, Stanford, Arkansas type numbers! We averaged 6.5 yards a carry, so although that is below our season average, when you’re playing against a talented defense that gave up only 30 points in 9 games, I’ll take it. Besides, at this point in the season, a win is a win….no need for style points.

Two of the other games went as expected – Dallas repeated their walloping of Kansas City and DC dominated Atlanta. The game that really surprised me was Chicago beating the heck out of Boston. Yeah, I knew that DC beat them pretty badly, but that was in DC. I’m not so surprised that Chicago won, but the utter domination they displayed was. I know Chicago expended a bit of pent-up revenge factor and that victory was a long time coming, but I didn’t expect that to happen in Boston. So….now the title will be passed.

To who, I have no idea. That’s why my personal expectation is to make it to where we are right now – the Final Four – each year. But what happens at this level of competition is really hard to predict. Both of the games on July 18 should be great ones. We’re going down to Dallas to face the Diam….ooops, sorry – the Elite. People on both sides of the ball will have faced each other over the years since 2004. Dallas got us in ’04, ’05 and ’06. We got them twice in 2007. We didn’t see them again until 2011 and 2012, where we won both times. So the series is in our favor 4-3. I think we may be the only team to have a winning record against them, and you know they’d love to even things up.

Chicago is going to DC. Wow, I have ZERO idea how this will end up, but I’m 99.98% sure it is going to be a great game! The Force may be peaking at the right time, and DC will be looking for their first title trip since 2009 (?), so you know they’re hungry. DC has the biggest (both in numbers and in size) roster I’ve seen since the old Houston Energy heyday…..all their OL look over 6’ and they’ve got some real height at receiver, and just athleticism that borders on ridiculous. I haven’t watched a lot of them yet this year (but don’t worry – we have people that have), but in the past they were sort of generic on both offense and defense – giving you nice, “clean” looks. They just beat the heck out of you with their talent. They execute at a very high level. Chicago, on the other hand, gives you more in the way of things to prepare for and then they beat the heck out of you with their talent.

One thing that I am surer of this year than any other, is that the best four teams in the country are playing for the title. There is no weak sister in this bunch at all. Any of the four could conceivably win it all, and I don’t think anyone would raise an eyebrow. That’s the way a Final Four should be.