End of Season Summary

Well first of all, please let me apologize one final time for the delay since my last post. As I'm sure most of you guessed by my delay, we ended up losing our home playoff game to the Basel Gladiators. The final score was 26-15 in which our offense played easily our worst game of the season. It was a shame to end the season that way, but I am still so happy to have enjoyed this experience and it is definitely something that I will never forget.

My team here in Austria has opened my eyes to so many different types of people and places than I had ever known in the States. This is a place that I really enjoy being and thus far has been an experience that I will never forget.

Because of my love of this area and the people here, I have reached a contract agreement with the Cineplexx Blue Devils to stay here longer than originally anticipated. I will remain here until November helping to coach the youth team QB's, as well as becoming the offensive coordinator of the Swiss National Team, something that I am very excited about. I will return home in November for a couple of months to visit family and enjoy the holidays before returning again next season to serve as QB and OC once again for the Cineplexx Blue Devils.


Below is a link to a season highlight video of myself. Mike is currently working on a team highlight tape, so when that is finished, perhaps I will provide a link to that on here as well.

2011 Season Highlight

I want to thank everyone who read this blog throughout the season. I have been amazed how many people have been reading every week, even when I wasn't the greatest at updating on a regular basis. This will be my last post for a while, and I will consider writing another one next season if I feel the reading base will still be there next season.

Until then, thanks again for reading!

Go Blue Devils/Boys!
Mitch Niekamp

Blue Devils Will Host a Home Playoff Game

Rolling out against the Bern Grizzlies in our Week 10 game
at home.

Well sorry for missing my post last week after our game with the Bern Grizzlies (a 42-20 victory in our last home game of the regular season). Mike and I have had a couple of friends here from the States, and we have been pretty busy showing them around and I didn't have time last week to write a post.

This Saturday we played the Zurich Renegades on the road in the last game of the regular season. It was an extremely important game for both teams. If we won the game, we would get to host the first round of the playoffs at home against the Basel Gladiators, a team we split our regular season series against. If we lost the game against Zurich, we would have to go on the road against Basel for the first round of the playoffs. If Zurich were to win, they would make the playoffs as the last seed. However, if they lost the game against us, they would miss the playoffs entirely. This fact made the game very important for both teams.

Handing off to Tino, our RB who finished our 10 game league
schedule with over 1,000 rushing yards.

The game began with Zurich getting the opening kickoff and going three and out. We then proceeded to march down the field and take a 7-0 lead. With their next possession, the Renegades would score on a 30 yard pass play to tie the game at 7. After that, both our offense and defense really kicked it into gear and never looked back. The final score: Blue Devils - 46 : Renegades - 7. Zurich had UCLA's 3rd all-time all-purpose yards leader at RB and Syracuse's 5th all-time leading passer at QB. Despite that fact, our defense played magnificently and our offense keyed off of their strong performance to give us a great jump start into the playoffs.

On Sunday we play at home against the Basel Gladiators in a first round playoff matchup. The winner of that game will advance to Swiss Bowl XXVI in Winterthur, Switzerland on July 16. Below are the season stats after our 10 game league schedule and 1 game out of conference. The stats compiled are based upon what we actually captured on film, so anything that didn't make it onto the film is not figured into these stats. Approximately 95% of our games DID make the film, but there is probably about 300-400 total offensive yards and several touchdowns on offense that did not make the film, and therefore are not included on the stats.

Here is a link to a preview of our upcoming playoff game with the Basel Gladiators - http://safv.ch/2011/07/04/speed-vs-smash-revanche/ Keep in mind that everything is in German, and I'm guessing most of you who read this blog will need to translate it in order to read it (try www.translate.google.com for help with translations).  Please check back in next week as I give a report on our home playoff game against the Basel Gladiators.

Go Blue Devils/Boys!
Mitch Niekamp