Sunday, April 3rd saw the Blue Devils post our second win of the season, a 34-18 victory over the Basel Mean Machine of Switzerland. We are now 2-0 on the year, and couldn't have gotten off to a better start. Sunday we switched gears a little bit offensively from the previous week and took what the defense gave us: lots of running room. The passing game was a little bit off on Sunday, as we had some mistakes through the air, giving us some very sub-par passing statistics. But that doesn't matter when your O-line and RB's do what ours did on Sunday. They combined to have one of the best running attacks I have ever seen in a game as a player or as a spectator. We got the ball first and scored on our first possession, a TD pass to Mike Jennings from myself, and we never looked back. We never trailed in the game, and the game was really never in doubt. Were it not for a few offensive/defensive mistakes on our part, the score could have been worse, but we will never argue with a win. The stats from the game are below:
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| Mike said this "was not a hold", and luckily, the officials apparently agreed. |
Coach Mader has let me call most of the offensive plays throughout the first two games, and I plan on that trend continuing throughout the season. It has been really great to be able to call my own plays as a QB, as I get to call what I feel comfortable with and what I think will help the team most. Believe me, it wasn't easy for me to call 37 runs to only 18 passes (with 3 of those passes being hail mary/desperation type calls at the end of the first half), but that is exactly what our team needed to win the game, and I was happy to call those plays in order for us to come away with the win.
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| I was actually the recipient of this pass on a 2 pt conversion play, believe it or not. Unfortunately, a block in the back by Mike nullified the play, and we missed the 2 pt from 10 yards further back. This would have been the first catch in my football career. You can bet that I will make up for it later on this year. |
For those of you who don't know, let me explain to you a little about how the game works over here in the Swiss league we are playing in, the NLA (National League A, the highest level in Switzerland. Keep in mind we are the only Austrian team in the Swiss league). Each team is allowed to have only 4 total Americans, Canadians, Mexicans, and Japanese players on the team, and only 2 may be on the field at any given time. Any player who has a dual passport with USA/MEX/CAN/JAP and another country does not count towards this number. We are lucky enough to have a MLB from Florida State who also has a Jamaican passport, so when he is on the field, we may have 2 other Americans aside from him on the field also. We currently have 5 imports who are listed as only Americans, so one of us has to sit on the sideline each week. It is up to each team to decide how many USA/MEX/CAN/JAP imports they bring in. If they don't have the funds, some teams can't bring as many Americans. It all depends on the monetary backing the team has. Imports from any other country in the world aside from the four listed above do not count towards the number, and an unlimited number of the may be on the field at the same time. I hope I have explained this clearly, as I realize it is a little bit tricky.
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| Tino running for some of his 264 yards. |
This week, we play a game in the EFAF (European Federation of American Football) Cup against the Kragujevac Wild Boars from Serbia. This game is at home, thank goodness. I don't think any of us would have been too excited to take the train into Serbia to be quite honest. This is a playoff style bracket played throughout the season with select teams throughout Europe being included in the playoff. If we win this Sunday, we will play another team from somewhere within Europe at a later date in the season. If we were to lose on Sunday, we would be eliminated from the EFAF cup and on the dates where the following EFAF games would have been played, we will have a bye week. In EFAF games, teams are allowed to dress only 3 Americans, but they may also all be on the field at the same time. This leaves our team in a dilemma this weekend, as we have 5 Americans, but only 3 may play. I am interested to see who the coaches decide to play in this game.
I would also like to send out a big CONGRATULATIONS to Jacob Tucker of our alma mater, Illinois College. For those of you who didn't see it, Jacob won the NCAA dunk contest against 6 DI athletes in Houston on Final Four weekend last Thursday. That was big news here in Austria, and I can't imagine how much buzz is going on around the IC campus right now. What a great thing for our school, and what a great thing for Jacob. I always liked Jacob because every summer while a few of us football guys would stay in Jacksonville to work out together and prepare for the season, Jacob would do the same, and I would always see him in the gym working on his game. I always appreciated the work he put in when no one was watching, and it truly paid off for him. GO IC.
Well, that's all for now. I hope all is well back in the States, and check back in next week for an update on our game against the Wild Boars
Go Blue Devils/Boys!
Mitch Niekamp
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