Another One In The Books

The WFA National Championship was held last week, and I’m happy to report that it was a great game, with the DC Divas coming out on top, 30-26. I wasn’t able to see it, as my men’s team was playing about a half hour away, but from all indications it was a game worthy of a national championship.

In the earlier games, the National (East) All Stars beat the American (West) All Stars 26-0, while the Central Cal War Angels cemented their spot as a legit Top 10 team by beating Atlanta 28-8. I saw that a ranking system had Atlanta in the Top 10, while Central Cal was down around 15, and I never bought into that.

I was also able to watch the IWFL championship. Interesting game, for sure. Pittsburgh showed more power than I thought they had – their lines commanded both sides of the ball, especially in the second half. Early on, Utah’s speed gave the Passion some problems, and also occasionally in the second half as well. Utah got some nice matchups in the Pittsburgh secondary. As I suspected, Pittsburgh QB Lisa Horton was able to hit her targets, and they did a great job of holding onto the ball – their receivers are pretty darn good.

After all that, my personal Top 10 doesn’t change, except I do think that Dallas deserves to move up to #2. They gave DC all they could handle. All in all, it was a great year in women’s football!

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As I mentioned, my Bears team was also in LA, to face a talented SoCal Apaches squad. The Apache’s DC, Ed Rycroft, is somewhat a legend in the semi-pro ranks, and he is one of the few coaches I really look forward to going up against, because I know I’m going to have to be firing on all cylinders to have a chance. We won, 18-0, but it wasn’t the offense’s best moment. Our defense had two INT’s for TDs – one from 60 yards, and one from 102 (the 102 was by one of my receivers, but give credit to the defense)! Once again, we were oh-so-close to breaking things open. We rolled up there with only four OL, so grabbed a DT to fill in, and he played the whole game, and gave it his all.

There was one series I’d definitely like to have back, that I don’t think I handled as well as I could have. We were up 18-0, with about 12 minutes left in the game. We’d made them fairly one dimensional on offense, and we wanted to run the ball to take time off the clock. However, I strongly dislike going into a shell too much before about 4 minutes left as I think that players tend to relax if they sense that is what is happening. We started off somewhere around our 20 or 25. Had a nice mix of runs and passes, and then hit about a 40 yard pass to get down to their 20 or so. Had a decent run (5 or so yards) on first down, and was getting ready to just pound the ball. Then we got hit with a false start, to put us back to 2^nd and 10. 

Here’s where I started to screw up…..I thought a short pass would be OK and safe. It was, but it was dropped. So now 3^rd and 10. I knew I was in 4 down territory (once again, the kicker didn’t show, just like last week). I ran the ball on 3^rd, got about 3 yards….clock is running, now down under 6 minutes. I got the great idea to call a timeout to make sure we got into the best play possible on 4^th. I got so excited that I called the TO right then, instead of letting the play clock wind down. Probably cost us 30 seconds. Then the 4^th down pass was intercepted……sure, it was inside the 10, so they were going to have to drive 90 yards and score three times in 5 minutes, but still – I was mad at myself for those mistakes, even if hardly anyone else noticed. As it was, they ended the game on our 5. If I’d managed that series a little better, the game would have ended on their side of the field.

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Had the opportunity to do a little community service Monday night. One of my old QB’s is coaching an Under 8 team, and he asked me to come out and go through some basic drills with his OL and for his OL coach, who is just starting out. So of course, I went out. It was fun – remembering how to relate a little bit to 8-year olds was a blast! We did about an hour and 15 minutes, and held their attention for the most part, so it was a win.

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OK, I’ll be out on vacation next week, so the week after that, it is all about The Camp! Still slated for November 14-15, I’m hoping to have full details ironed out by August 26 – still 11 weeks to go, should be plenty of time.