06-02-2023, 07:51 AM
(This post was last modified: 06-02-2023, 09:18 AM by Aneeqs. Edited 1 time in total.)
Welcome back good friends to another edition of the Wizard’s Orb! To no one's surprise we’ve seen a reduction in media output from myself since taking the reign of the Tijuana Luchadores GM position. My utmost apologies, however I’m serving a greater cause in the development of new users in the league. There may be more from me to come on that front as I’ve been working on something behind the scenes that may yet see the light of day. However! Until that time I’d like to make up for my lack of DSFL Predictions this season with a full recap of developments. Buckle in I’m about to touch on all the notable events from DSFL S41. I’ve only been in the league for 2 seasons now so there isn’t a vast wealth of memories to recall upon. However my favorite memory so far is the DSFL Season 41 in which the Tijuana Luchadores won the Ultimini!(Dear Graders I completely understand if you don’t count this for x2 media but I gotta shoot my shot).
Preseason:
Going into the preseason many agreed that the Tijuana Luchadores were primed to take the league by storm with an astounding 3000+ Effective TPE on the roster the Lucha’s opponents were going to be in for a rough time during the first half of the season. Behind capped second year players QB Lloyd Bannings, RB Kyle Crane, and WR Benji Aguilera the Lucha offense didn’t fail to meet expectations posting a 4-0 preseason record while putting up 30+ points in three of the four games.
Following close behind the London Royals sat around 2800 TPE and were the odds on favorite to win their respective Northern Conference. With a pair of returning capped Wide Receivers and a capped Tight End Nick Williams, the Royals start Quarterback…, uhm. Okay so maybe the Royals didn’t have a rostered QB entering the season, that shouldn’t be an issue right? After all three teams this season did not have a QB prior to the draft!
The Draft:
A total of 71 players entered the S41 DSFL draft with the Kansas City Coyotes picking at the top and defending Ultimini champions Bondi Beach taking up the rear. As has always been the case the class was loaded with Tight Ends that would inevitably position switch. With a total of 12 Tight Ends drafted, only 5 remain at or above 100 TPE entering the ISFL pre-draft. Speaking of position switches, we’d also see a number of rookie stars position switch prior to week 1 to fill out the numerous roster needs left by the previous seasons callups.
Rookie QBs:
As mentioned previously three teams, London, Bondi & Minnesota entered the season without a rostered Quarterback. Each of these teams hit some early growing pains but ultimately all would be in competition for playoff spot once the TPE deficit narrowed by week 7.
Josh Patterson - London - Position Switch CB -> QB
Former Cornerback and 4th overall pick Josh Patterson is the first of our rookie Quarterbacks we’ll be covering. Josh came out the gates in his rookie season with an eye on the season Touchdown record. A record of 39 passing touchdowns previously set by Kansas City Coyotes QB Queen Elizabeth was well within reach early on as Josh had amassed 25 Touchdowns through the first 7 games! A streak which included a DSFL single game record 7 Passing Touchdowns in a single game.
RE #38 - Bondi Beach - Position Switch DE -> QB
The former Right End started on his Left foot to kick off season 41. And who can blame him, Defensive End to Quarterback couldn’t have been the smoothest of position switches. Not to mention a lack of Receiving options on the Bucc offense after losing stars Kairo Knight and Plant Based to callups. RE #38 is nothing if not persistent though. Via aeonsjenni's rigorous training routine and a non-stop motor that only a Defensive End turned QB would have, RE #38 was able to help turn the Bondi Beach season around after a rough 0-5 start finalizing the season in a playoff berth.
Zisia Ojeisndiwoseodj - Minnesota - Position Switch N/A
Our third rookie Quarterback and honorable mention in the position switch category is Zisia Ojeisndiwoseodj - Minnesota. Ojeisndiwoseodj entered the draft as a Quarterback and avoided the dreaded position switch acting as the Grey Ducks starting QB from week one in absence of previous seasons callups New York’s Blaine Falco & Chicago’s Painted Penguin.
Rookie Runningbacks:
I’ve always been a proponent for banning the forward pass, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention two of the top S41 draft prospects that switched to Runningback early on in the season.
Martin Bachman - London - Position Switch TE -> RB
To pair with teammate Josh Patterson’s switch, the draft steal Martin Bachman had a stellar season complimenting the potent London air raid with a total of 1111 rushing yards at a rate of 4.9ypc to pair with 7 touchdowns on the ground. I wouldn’t be surprised if London shifts to a ground & pound style of offense next season with Bachman leading the charge.
Ace Anderson - Dallas - Position Switch OL -> RB
A post week 1 switch Ace Anderson traded places with GM Bot Whiskey Retriever transitioning from Offensive Line to Runningback. Racking up 1053 rushing yards and 4 touchdowns on the season with a Dallas offense that had some early struggles. Anderson is my early dark horse pick for S42 DSFL Offensive Player of the Year.
Eldroh Kove - Portland - Position Switch N/A
And of course honorable mention to Eldroh Kove an absolute work horse as the sole back for the Portland Pythons this season leading the DSFL with 1479 yards on the ground. Position switch not applicable but absolutely worth mentioning here!
Weeks 1-5:
North:
To everyone’s surprise the league last in Effective TPE Coyotes shot out of the gates like a rocket sporting an early 4-1 record carried by a league best rushing attack lead by 2nd year Quarterback Jake Jefferson and true rookie RB Heiiajs D. Owidhuse. TubaDeus’s method of replicating the 1985 Chicago Bears Defense paired with a Justin Fields-esque Offense caught the league by surprise. We wouldn’t see Kansas City slowing down anytime soon.
London and Minnesota started off neck and neck in the first 5 weeks each with a respective 3-2 record behind their Rookie Quarterbacks. An early sign of things to come we’d see these teams competing with each other down the stretch for the 2nd playoff spot in the DSFL North. Meanwhile Portland’s week 1 loss to Minnesota along with losses to respective conference leaders Kansas City & Tijuana would put them in an early deficit for that second playoff spot starting off just 2-3. Never count the Pythons out early though! They weren’t down for the count yet though as we’d see them make a late push for the last playoff spot in weeks 11-14.
Standings:
Kansas City 4-1
London 3-2
Minnesota 3-2
Portland 2-3
South:
On the South side to nobody's surprise the roster loaded Luchadores started off on a hot streak racking up five straight wins three of which were on the road. The trademarked D-Juana squad was stalwart with a league leading pass defense commanded by 2nd year Cornerback Synystyr Gates who racked up 6 interceptions in this short span. Supported by the Runningback by Committee duo of Kyle Crane and Gucci Gurley, Tijuana wouldn’t put up less than 130 rushing yards in a game until week 7!
With three of the four teams in the North sitting at a 3 win or better record, the laws of binary systems dictated the records in the South were not going to be pretty. Norfolk’s 2-1 start would drop to 2-3 after facing the Southern powerhouses KCC & LON in weeks 4 and 5 respectively. As a team with only 2 rostered Wide Receivers the struggles of the Seawolves passing attack would be a sign of things to come. Meanwhile Dallas sat at just 1-4 having just barely squeaked out a 21-20 win over Bondi Beach. As a quick aside here apologies if this comes off too harsh! I do believe this Dallas team was much better than their record indicated, sim gonna sim sometimes.
Speaking Bondi. On the flipside of the Luchadores start, Bondi Beach just couldn’t get anything going on the Offensive side of the ball behind RE #38. A disappointing 0-5 start for the Buccs was resultant of an offense that put up 20 or fewer points in four of the five games. Going into week 6 against undefeated Tijuana the Buccs season surely over having to face the D-Juana power house(foreshadowing).
Standings:
Tijuana 5-0
Norfolk 2-3
Dallas 1-4
Bondi Beach 0-5
Weeks 6-10:
South:
Watch out for the Buccaneers! Bondi solved their offensive woes and went on a tear winning four straight games including knocking out the undefeated Luchadores in Week 5 with a last minute Touchdown pass by Rookie Quarterback RE #38 to GM Bot Kairo Carnivorous. They’d suffer a single score loss to the Pythons at the end of their streak, but Bondi Beach was back on the map and the treasure of a playoff spot was marked with an X as they would match Norfolk’s record of 4-6. Norfolk would do fine in this space going 2-3 again. I haven’t fully checked in the index but Gumbas constant ranting about banning kickers leads me to believe they lost because of a missed field goal at some point here.
Oof Tijuana lost their confidence a bit during this stretch with 2 losses and a tie against conference last place Dallas. As the Rookies on other teams started catching up in TPE we’d see the Tijuana power house start to show signs of being mortal. Speaking of Dallas, all star Kicker LeHarm James would switch from Kicker to Defensive End. While Dallas would still struggle because sim gonna sim, others have blamed Portland Python fans for spiking LeHarm James’ gatorade with a muscle relaxer that impacted his play greatly during this stretch! For those who don’t know, after the position switch LeHarm James’ strength was still mistakenly set to 1 in the sim. Unfortunate circumstances but I think he handled it much better than most would have!
Standings:
Tijuana 7-2-1
Bondi Beach 4-6
Norfolk 4-6
Dallas 1-8-1
North:
Woof woof! The Coyotes were out to prove their 4-1 record was not a fluke as they’d go 4-1 again over this stretch including a dominate 20-6 win over Tijuana where Safety Matthew Fryars put himself on the map for Defensive Performance of the year with a 2 interceptions 3 pass deflections and a Defensive Touchdown. What else is there to say about Kansas City Jake Jefferson was showing the league Running QBs still have game.
London continued to have success with Rookie Quarterback Josh Patterson leading them to 3 wins and 2 losses including a DSFL Record of 7 yes 7 Touchdown Passes in a single game against Dallas in what was a 51-31 shootout literally for the records. On the opposite end Minnesota would fall victim to London and Bondi Beach’s hot streaks coming out the otherside at 4-6. Never count your ducks before they hatch though! Minnie wasn’t out of contention for a playoff spot quite yet. Finally Portland, as inevitable and consistent as always for playoff contention climbed to 5-5 after handing KCC just their second loss of the season in week 9 with work horse rookie Running Back Eldroh Kove as quick on his way to being a household name posting multiple 100 yard games.
Standings:
Kansas City 8-2
London 6-4
Minnesota 4-6
Portland 5-5
Weeks 11-14:
North:
Playoff spots were in hot contention down the stretch in the North! Between London, Minnesota, and Portland all three teams had a shot going into the final week of the season. Minnesota was the talk of the town as they won four straight games to close out the season with the Offensive Trio of QB Zisia Ojeisndiwoseodj, RB Reginald Shrubbery, and TE Hank Mardukas putting up an average of 34 points per game! Portland was just as hot with a 3 game win streak from week 9 to 11, but a tough loss to the Dallas Birddogs would end up being the difference for getting to that 8-6 record for a playoff spot.
London’s record breaking offense started to look stoppable after being held to just 6 points against Bondi Beach in week 11. However Ice in my Veins Josh Patterson would pull through with the support of league leading receiver Don Tollibeo! London closed out the regular season with pivotal wins over Portland and Norfolk to secure the 2nd seed in the North in the final game of the season. Finally Kansas City was business as usual posting a league best 11-3 record guaranteeing a one seed and home field advantage throughout the playoffs.
Standings:
Kansas City 11-3
London 8-6
Minnesota 8-6
Portland 7-7
South:
Despite some mid season struggles and a 1-3 slide in week 11-14, Tijuana’s 5-0 start all but secured them a playoff spot and the first seed in the south. The real story of the South at the end was whether BBB could use the jumping point of their 4-1 record midseason to supplant Norfolk as the 2nd seed. The Week 11 win against Kansas City wasn’t a bad start to making the playoffs! And MOP front runner Malik Brook’s 106 yards and 2 touchdowns in a win against London didn’t hurt either! With Norfolk losing twice to close out the season Bondi Beach was set for a playoff date against Tijuana.
Standings:
Tijuana 8-5-1
Bondi Beach 6-8
Norfolk 5-9
Dallas 2-11-1
Conference Championship:
South:
In the South we had a defensive battle for the ages. Bondi Beach would drive early and often in the game, eventually succumbing to the suffocating Tijuana Defense settling for three field goals and an early 9-0 lead. Never be without faith in the Banhammer though. A series of Laser accurate passes from the Tijuana passing game along with a huge 59 yard streaker to Benji Aguilera brought the Luchadores ahead 17-9 going into the fourth quarter. Tijuana would hold in the 4th to come out on top 24-9 securing their 17th Ultimini appearance.
North:
We had come to expect nothing less from the London Royals than another exciting Offensive shootout for the ages. Against a stout KCC defense the Royals would go up 28-21 early in the third quarter behind 3 Patterson Touchdowns and an impressive 4.6 ypc from Rookie Runnignback Martin Bachman. But if we’ve learned anything this season it’s that you don’t bet against the Coyotes. Kansas City would pivot from being behind to scoring 20 straight points with a surprisingly efficient passing attack and 5 touchdowns through the air from Jake Jefferson.
Ultimini:
This game took about 3 years off my life, and if it had gone into double overtime I’m sure that number would’ve tripled. This game was excruciating to watch as the two teams battled for field position via a series of punts throughout the first two quarters. It wasn’t until with 9 minutes remaining in the second that Tijuana was finally able to break through the KCC secondary with a 15 yards pass from Bannings to Prince to take a 7-0 lead. Coming out of the half we saw another back and forth battle as teams combined for 19 punts this game! Finally on the first play of the 4th quarter Tijuana connected on a pass to Tight End National Treasure to take a 14-0 lead, and 8 minutes later went up 17-0 off a Wing Wang kick. Tijuana had all but secured victory as KCC took possession with 8:03 on the clock. But I’ve said it time and time again never bet against the Coyotes! Kansas City would consecutively drive down the field scoring twice to narrows the score to 17-14 with just 28 seconds on the clock! Their only hope was an onside recovery and hail mary pass, and that’s just what they did. Owidhuse recovered the onside and a quick 21 yard completion from Jefferson to Hernandez allowed the Coyotes a last second field goal to send the game into overtime.
Despite the ending to regulation both teams were quick to remind us about the first 3 quarters of this game. Overtime saw the following drives:
KCC 3 & Out
Tijuana Turnover via Interception
KCC Punt
Tijuana Punt
KCC Punt
Tijuana Punt
Finally with just under a minute left in Overtime we’d see the most sim gonna sim end to a Ultimini this league has ever experienced.
0:52 1st and 10 KCC - 16 Pass by Jefferson, J. to Davis jr. ®, D. falls incomplete.
0:46 2nd and 10 KCC - 16 Pass by Jefferson, J., complete to Akara, K. for 9 yds. Tackle by Gates, S..
0:46 3rd and 1 KCC - 25 Jake Jefferson spikes the ball to stop the clock.
0:36 4th and 1 KCC - 25 Pass by Jefferson, J. to Alpha (BOT), -. is incomplete. Broken up by McBobface, L..
Turnover on downs.
0:31 1st and 10 KCC - 25 Pass by Bannings, L., complete to Gurley, G. for 9 yds. Tackle by O'Kudah, B..
FUMBLE by Gurley, G., recovered by Gurley, G..
0:14 2nd and 1 KCC - 16 33 yard FG by Wang ®, W. is good.
Well that was a series of plays huh? And as the Wing Wang kick went through the uprights, Tijuana was able to claim their 10th Ultimini Championship! It was a great game played by both teams, and sincerely I think Kansas City was robbed with that ending. Thanks for reading and until next season, adios from Tijuana!
Preseason:
Going into the preseason many agreed that the Tijuana Luchadores were primed to take the league by storm with an astounding 3000+ Effective TPE on the roster the Lucha’s opponents were going to be in for a rough time during the first half of the season. Behind capped second year players QB Lloyd Bannings, RB Kyle Crane, and WR Benji Aguilera the Lucha offense didn’t fail to meet expectations posting a 4-0 preseason record while putting up 30+ points in three of the four games.
Following close behind the London Royals sat around 2800 TPE and were the odds on favorite to win their respective Northern Conference. With a pair of returning capped Wide Receivers and a capped Tight End Nick Williams, the Royals start Quarterback…, uhm. Okay so maybe the Royals didn’t have a rostered QB entering the season, that shouldn’t be an issue right? After all three teams this season did not have a QB prior to the draft!
The Draft:
A total of 71 players entered the S41 DSFL draft with the Kansas City Coyotes picking at the top and defending Ultimini champions Bondi Beach taking up the rear. As has always been the case the class was loaded with Tight Ends that would inevitably position switch. With a total of 12 Tight Ends drafted, only 5 remain at or above 100 TPE entering the ISFL pre-draft. Speaking of position switches, we’d also see a number of rookie stars position switch prior to week 1 to fill out the numerous roster needs left by the previous seasons callups.
Rookie QBs:
As mentioned previously three teams, London, Bondi & Minnesota entered the season without a rostered Quarterback. Each of these teams hit some early growing pains but ultimately all would be in competition for playoff spot once the TPE deficit narrowed by week 7.
Josh Patterson - London - Position Switch CB -> QB
Former Cornerback and 4th overall pick Josh Patterson is the first of our rookie Quarterbacks we’ll be covering. Josh came out the gates in his rookie season with an eye on the season Touchdown record. A record of 39 passing touchdowns previously set by Kansas City Coyotes QB Queen Elizabeth was well within reach early on as Josh had amassed 25 Touchdowns through the first 7 games! A streak which included a DSFL single game record 7 Passing Touchdowns in a single game.
RE #38 - Bondi Beach - Position Switch DE -> QB
The former Right End started on his Left foot to kick off season 41. And who can blame him, Defensive End to Quarterback couldn’t have been the smoothest of position switches. Not to mention a lack of Receiving options on the Bucc offense after losing stars Kairo Knight and Plant Based to callups. RE #38 is nothing if not persistent though. Via aeonsjenni's rigorous training routine and a non-stop motor that only a Defensive End turned QB would have, RE #38 was able to help turn the Bondi Beach season around after a rough 0-5 start finalizing the season in a playoff berth.
Zisia Ojeisndiwoseodj - Minnesota - Position Switch N/A
Our third rookie Quarterback and honorable mention in the position switch category is Zisia Ojeisndiwoseodj - Minnesota. Ojeisndiwoseodj entered the draft as a Quarterback and avoided the dreaded position switch acting as the Grey Ducks starting QB from week one in absence of previous seasons callups New York’s Blaine Falco & Chicago’s Painted Penguin.
Rookie Runningbacks:
I’ve always been a proponent for banning the forward pass, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention two of the top S41 draft prospects that switched to Runningback early on in the season.
Martin Bachman - London - Position Switch TE -> RB
To pair with teammate Josh Patterson’s switch, the draft steal Martin Bachman had a stellar season complimenting the potent London air raid with a total of 1111 rushing yards at a rate of 4.9ypc to pair with 7 touchdowns on the ground. I wouldn’t be surprised if London shifts to a ground & pound style of offense next season with Bachman leading the charge.
Ace Anderson - Dallas - Position Switch OL -> RB
A post week 1 switch Ace Anderson traded places with GM Bot Whiskey Retriever transitioning from Offensive Line to Runningback. Racking up 1053 rushing yards and 4 touchdowns on the season with a Dallas offense that had some early struggles. Anderson is my early dark horse pick for S42 DSFL Offensive Player of the Year.
Eldroh Kove - Portland - Position Switch N/A
And of course honorable mention to Eldroh Kove an absolute work horse as the sole back for the Portland Pythons this season leading the DSFL with 1479 yards on the ground. Position switch not applicable but absolutely worth mentioning here!
Weeks 1-5:
North:
To everyone’s surprise the league last in Effective TPE Coyotes shot out of the gates like a rocket sporting an early 4-1 record carried by a league best rushing attack lead by 2nd year Quarterback Jake Jefferson and true rookie RB Heiiajs D. Owidhuse. TubaDeus’s method of replicating the 1985 Chicago Bears Defense paired with a Justin Fields-esque Offense caught the league by surprise. We wouldn’t see Kansas City slowing down anytime soon.
London and Minnesota started off neck and neck in the first 5 weeks each with a respective 3-2 record behind their Rookie Quarterbacks. An early sign of things to come we’d see these teams competing with each other down the stretch for the 2nd playoff spot in the DSFL North. Meanwhile Portland’s week 1 loss to Minnesota along with losses to respective conference leaders Kansas City & Tijuana would put them in an early deficit for that second playoff spot starting off just 2-3. Never count the Pythons out early though! They weren’t down for the count yet though as we’d see them make a late push for the last playoff spot in weeks 11-14.
Standings:
Kansas City 4-1
London 3-2
Minnesota 3-2
Portland 2-3
South:
On the South side to nobody's surprise the roster loaded Luchadores started off on a hot streak racking up five straight wins three of which were on the road. The trademarked D-Juana squad was stalwart with a league leading pass defense commanded by 2nd year Cornerback Synystyr Gates who racked up 6 interceptions in this short span. Supported by the Runningback by Committee duo of Kyle Crane and Gucci Gurley, Tijuana wouldn’t put up less than 130 rushing yards in a game until week 7!
With three of the four teams in the North sitting at a 3 win or better record, the laws of binary systems dictated the records in the South were not going to be pretty. Norfolk’s 2-1 start would drop to 2-3 after facing the Southern powerhouses KCC & LON in weeks 4 and 5 respectively. As a team with only 2 rostered Wide Receivers the struggles of the Seawolves passing attack would be a sign of things to come. Meanwhile Dallas sat at just 1-4 having just barely squeaked out a 21-20 win over Bondi Beach. As a quick aside here apologies if this comes off too harsh! I do believe this Dallas team was much better than their record indicated, sim gonna sim sometimes.
Speaking Bondi. On the flipside of the Luchadores start, Bondi Beach just couldn’t get anything going on the Offensive side of the ball behind RE #38. A disappointing 0-5 start for the Buccs was resultant of an offense that put up 20 or fewer points in four of the five games. Going into week 6 against undefeated Tijuana the Buccs season surely over having to face the D-Juana power house(foreshadowing).
Standings:
Tijuana 5-0
Norfolk 2-3
Dallas 1-4
Bondi Beach 0-5
Weeks 6-10:
South:
Watch out for the Buccaneers! Bondi solved their offensive woes and went on a tear winning four straight games including knocking out the undefeated Luchadores in Week 5 with a last minute Touchdown pass by Rookie Quarterback RE #38 to GM Bot Kairo Carnivorous. They’d suffer a single score loss to the Pythons at the end of their streak, but Bondi Beach was back on the map and the treasure of a playoff spot was marked with an X as they would match Norfolk’s record of 4-6. Norfolk would do fine in this space going 2-3 again. I haven’t fully checked in the index but Gumbas constant ranting about banning kickers leads me to believe they lost because of a missed field goal at some point here.
Oof Tijuana lost their confidence a bit during this stretch with 2 losses and a tie against conference last place Dallas. As the Rookies on other teams started catching up in TPE we’d see the Tijuana power house start to show signs of being mortal. Speaking of Dallas, all star Kicker LeHarm James would switch from Kicker to Defensive End. While Dallas would still struggle because sim gonna sim, others have blamed Portland Python fans for spiking LeHarm James’ gatorade with a muscle relaxer that impacted his play greatly during this stretch! For those who don’t know, after the position switch LeHarm James’ strength was still mistakenly set to 1 in the sim. Unfortunate circumstances but I think he handled it much better than most would have!
Standings:
Tijuana 7-2-1
Bondi Beach 4-6
Norfolk 4-6
Dallas 1-8-1
North:
Woof woof! The Coyotes were out to prove their 4-1 record was not a fluke as they’d go 4-1 again over this stretch including a dominate 20-6 win over Tijuana where Safety Matthew Fryars put himself on the map for Defensive Performance of the year with a 2 interceptions 3 pass deflections and a Defensive Touchdown. What else is there to say about Kansas City Jake Jefferson was showing the league Running QBs still have game.
London continued to have success with Rookie Quarterback Josh Patterson leading them to 3 wins and 2 losses including a DSFL Record of 7 yes 7 Touchdown Passes in a single game against Dallas in what was a 51-31 shootout literally for the records. On the opposite end Minnesota would fall victim to London and Bondi Beach’s hot streaks coming out the otherside at 4-6. Never count your ducks before they hatch though! Minnie wasn’t out of contention for a playoff spot quite yet. Finally Portland, as inevitable and consistent as always for playoff contention climbed to 5-5 after handing KCC just their second loss of the season in week 9 with work horse rookie Running Back Eldroh Kove as quick on his way to being a household name posting multiple 100 yard games.
Standings:
Kansas City 8-2
London 6-4
Minnesota 4-6
Portland 5-5
Weeks 11-14:
North:
Playoff spots were in hot contention down the stretch in the North! Between London, Minnesota, and Portland all three teams had a shot going into the final week of the season. Minnesota was the talk of the town as they won four straight games to close out the season with the Offensive Trio of QB Zisia Ojeisndiwoseodj, RB Reginald Shrubbery, and TE Hank Mardukas putting up an average of 34 points per game! Portland was just as hot with a 3 game win streak from week 9 to 11, but a tough loss to the Dallas Birddogs would end up being the difference for getting to that 8-6 record for a playoff spot.
London’s record breaking offense started to look stoppable after being held to just 6 points against Bondi Beach in week 11. However Ice in my Veins Josh Patterson would pull through with the support of league leading receiver Don Tollibeo! London closed out the regular season with pivotal wins over Portland and Norfolk to secure the 2nd seed in the North in the final game of the season. Finally Kansas City was business as usual posting a league best 11-3 record guaranteeing a one seed and home field advantage throughout the playoffs.
Standings:
Kansas City 11-3
London 8-6
Minnesota 8-6
Portland 7-7
South:
Despite some mid season struggles and a 1-3 slide in week 11-14, Tijuana’s 5-0 start all but secured them a playoff spot and the first seed in the south. The real story of the South at the end was whether BBB could use the jumping point of their 4-1 record midseason to supplant Norfolk as the 2nd seed. The Week 11 win against Kansas City wasn’t a bad start to making the playoffs! And MOP front runner Malik Brook’s 106 yards and 2 touchdowns in a win against London didn’t hurt either! With Norfolk losing twice to close out the season Bondi Beach was set for a playoff date against Tijuana.
Standings:
Tijuana 8-5-1
Bondi Beach 6-8
Norfolk 5-9
Dallas 2-11-1
Conference Championship:
South:
In the South we had a defensive battle for the ages. Bondi Beach would drive early and often in the game, eventually succumbing to the suffocating Tijuana Defense settling for three field goals and an early 9-0 lead. Never be without faith in the Banhammer though. A series of Laser accurate passes from the Tijuana passing game along with a huge 59 yard streaker to Benji Aguilera brought the Luchadores ahead 17-9 going into the fourth quarter. Tijuana would hold in the 4th to come out on top 24-9 securing their 17th Ultimini appearance.
North:
We had come to expect nothing less from the London Royals than another exciting Offensive shootout for the ages. Against a stout KCC defense the Royals would go up 28-21 early in the third quarter behind 3 Patterson Touchdowns and an impressive 4.6 ypc from Rookie Runnignback Martin Bachman. But if we’ve learned anything this season it’s that you don’t bet against the Coyotes. Kansas City would pivot from being behind to scoring 20 straight points with a surprisingly efficient passing attack and 5 touchdowns through the air from Jake Jefferson.
Ultimini:
This game took about 3 years off my life, and if it had gone into double overtime I’m sure that number would’ve tripled. This game was excruciating to watch as the two teams battled for field position via a series of punts throughout the first two quarters. It wasn’t until with 9 minutes remaining in the second that Tijuana was finally able to break through the KCC secondary with a 15 yards pass from Bannings to Prince to take a 7-0 lead. Coming out of the half we saw another back and forth battle as teams combined for 19 punts this game! Finally on the first play of the 4th quarter Tijuana connected on a pass to Tight End National Treasure to take a 14-0 lead, and 8 minutes later went up 17-0 off a Wing Wang kick. Tijuana had all but secured victory as KCC took possession with 8:03 on the clock. But I’ve said it time and time again never bet against the Coyotes! Kansas City would consecutively drive down the field scoring twice to narrows the score to 17-14 with just 28 seconds on the clock! Their only hope was an onside recovery and hail mary pass, and that’s just what they did. Owidhuse recovered the onside and a quick 21 yard completion from Jefferson to Hernandez allowed the Coyotes a last second field goal to send the game into overtime.
Despite the ending to regulation both teams were quick to remind us about the first 3 quarters of this game. Overtime saw the following drives:
KCC 3 & Out
Tijuana Turnover via Interception
KCC Punt
Tijuana Punt
KCC Punt
Tijuana Punt
Finally with just under a minute left in Overtime we’d see the most sim gonna sim end to a Ultimini this league has ever experienced.
0:52 1st and 10 KCC - 16 Pass by Jefferson, J. to Davis jr. ®, D. falls incomplete.
0:46 2nd and 10 KCC - 16 Pass by Jefferson, J., complete to Akara, K. for 9 yds. Tackle by Gates, S..
0:46 3rd and 1 KCC - 25 Jake Jefferson spikes the ball to stop the clock.
0:36 4th and 1 KCC - 25 Pass by Jefferson, J. to Alpha (BOT), -. is incomplete. Broken up by McBobface, L..
Turnover on downs.
0:31 1st and 10 KCC - 25 Pass by Bannings, L., complete to Gurley, G. for 9 yds. Tackle by O'Kudah, B..
FUMBLE by Gurley, G., recovered by Gurley, G..
0:14 2nd and 1 KCC - 16 33 yard FG by Wang ®, W. is good.
Well that was a series of plays huh? And as the Wing Wang kick went through the uprights, Tijuana was able to claim their 10th Ultimini Championship! It was a great game played by both teams, and sincerely I think Kansas City was robbed with that ending. Thanks for reading and until next season, adios from Tijuana!