WFA - IWFL Opening Weeks

Thanks for all those who asked about missing last week’s post – there wasn’t one. In past years since I’ve written this blog (almost 2 years now), I’ve always had games with the Surge around this time, so had plenty to write about. This year is a little different, since we’re just gearing up for the start of practice with the Nighthawks. Since I didn’t have a lightning bolt of inspiration last week, I didn’t want to put a bunch of words together just to do it, you know? Anyway…..

Two weeks ago, in Week 1 of the WFA, the games all went the way I expected them to, except for one: The Indy Crash pulled off what I would consider a pretty major upset when they beat the Cleveland Fusion, in Cleveland. The Fusion were my dark horse pick to break into the elite of the WFA National Conference, so we’ll have to see exactly how that plays out from here on out. Great job Indy!

This week, there were a couple of games of note: The Kansas City Titans versus the St. Louis Slam, and in the Big Rematch, the Dallas Elite, who travelled to the DC Divas in a very rare cross-conference regular season game. Also out West, you had the Central Cal War Angels taking on the Pacific Warriors.

The shocker, at least to me, was the 40-19 Dallas victory over DC. I’m not so surprised by an Elite victory, but by 3 TD’s, in D.C.? That was the shocker…..I never thought a team as proud as the Divas would get rolled like that on their home field, especially in their first big test after their national championship win over the same Elite. Gotta hand it to Dallas – that was a heckuva win.

The Titans, as I expected beat the Slam. My opinion only, which means zilch is that I wish the KC/St. Louis split never happened. When they banded together in 2014, they were pretty damn good.

Also as I expected, the War Angels took out the Warriors. The War Angels, interestingly enough, seemed to pick up more former Surge players than anyone else. Well, they may be tied with the North County Stars of the IWFL, whose high number was to be expected.

Interesting to me was the Seattle Majestics final score of 13-0 over the Tacoma Trauma. If I remember correctly, Seattle has dominated that series in the past. Seattle has yet to be scored on, and with them missing one of their leaders on defense, Holly Custis, much credit has to go to coach Scott McCarron.

The Boston Renegades beat Cleveland 28-7. I was looking for the Fusion to take that next step this season, but opening up 0-2 isn’t helping them much.

Over in the IWFL, the game that got my attention was the Carson Bobcats going up to Sacramento and beating the Sirens 30-6. Apparently the Bobcats didn’t pick up as many of the Pacific Warriors as I originally thought/assumed, so to take a pretty much new team and go up to Sacramento and win is a tall order, and impressive. When we went up there in 2013 it wasn’t pretty at all! That sets up what hopefully should be a good game this coming Saturday of the Bobcats versus the NC Stars. I’m looking forward to seeing that especially because two of my former Surge OL are playing for the Stars.

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With the Nighthawks, our OTA’s (basically non-padded, once-a-week practices) are going well. I’d say we’ve got about 80% of the offense installed and are just getting reps on it. We had 7 OL at practice last week, and I can’t remember the last time that happened with the guys. Everyone is looking to push each other to get better, and even injured guys are coming out and taking mental reps so they don’t get too far behind. That’s the sign of a team that is willing to put in the work.

The backs and receivers are out there getting their reads down, and just trying to play as fast as possible. All of those reps are going to come into play once we get the pads on early next month.

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Finally, because I figured that I don’t have enough to do, I’ve started working with Dual Threat Athletics as an Offensive Lineman specialist/trainer. They’ve got a pretty good skill position program set up already but are looking to expand into all positions. It’s time that some of the big kids get some love too, you know? The one-on-one training sessions I’ve been doing with the local high school OL have been going really well – he’s going to be pretty good, so now it’s time to get more OL out there. So far, I’ve gotten pretty good at coaching 9^th & 10^th grade WR how to stalk block!