Ready to be graded, approximately 3500 words
One year ago, the San Antonio Marshals met the Tijuana Luchadores in what seemed to be an easy win for the Luchadores. As Tijuana racked up a quick ten points and San Antonio now faced a ten point deficit against the top defense in the DSFL. This looked like a hopeless situation and the Tijuana Luchadores were getting extremely close to another Ultimini berth. However, the Marshals didn't give up. They had beaten Tijuana in Tijuana this season. They were the only team that had beaten Tijuana all year and things started to click. For starters, the SA defense locked down the Tijuana offense for most of the game, allowing SA to stay in the game by not forcing them to score too many points. The Marshals closed the gap with a 40 yard field goal and the game was 10-3 at halftime. After fourteen minutes of scoreless football, the Luchadores lined up for a 40 yard field goal that was no good. Seemingly as motivation from this missed field goal, on the next play the Marshals and their running back Mathias Hanyadi ran 78 yards to the house to tie up the game. The game began to stall when three consecutive punts occured, but Tijuana's second punt gave SA good field position. Combined with an unsportsmanlike conduct call and an absolute bomb to McMahon, the Marshals were able to score and go up 17-10. Tijuana then drove down to the San Antonio 11 yard line. On 4th and 5, the Tijuana quarterback passed to Podolak, who came up just one yard short of keeping the drive alive for the Luchadores. The Marshals ran out the clock and the Luchadores incredible season ended in defeat.
In the year that followed, many changes occured to both of these teams. San Antonio rebranded to become the Minnesota Grey Ducks and moved from the DSFL South to the DSFL North, guaranteeing that the earliest Tijuana and San Antonio could play in the playoffs was in the Ultimini. The DSFL contracted to four non-bot teams, which sent many players from Norfolk and Kansas City around the league. And as usual, the DSFL Draft brought in a good amount of fresh new talent to the table. This article is for the DSFL fan who isn't really that caught up in what is happening in the DSFL right now; if you want to enjoy the Ultimini to the fullest this article will help you gain knowledge about the situation in Tijuana and Minnesota in advance of the S19 Ultimini on New Year's Day.
(When the two teams are being compared, Minnesota will be put first because they are the road team in the Ultimini this year.)
How They Got Here: The Road to the Ultimini
Minnesota Grey Ducks:
With the first overall pick in the S19 DSFL Draft, the Grey Ducks selected Darrel Williams, a running back out of LSU and a former member of the Myrtle Beach Buccaneers(who originally held this pick). Following the loss of both of their running backs after the end of S18, the Grey Ducks definitely needed help in the running game and picked the best RB in the class by a decent margin. He made his presence known immediately in Week 1 of the DSFL season, picking up 192 yards on 20 carries, along with two touchdowns. Arguably the best offensive performance of the entire DSFL season, this incredible rushing feat helped reassure the Minnesota GMs that their use of draft capital on Darrel was worth it. While this performance was great and this win helped boost confidence in the Grey Ducks, it almost didn't happen. In reality, Week 1 between the Grey Ducks and Coyotes actually ended in a tie. Tying with a bot team would have been devastating blow for hopes of home field advantage in the DSFL North Championship game, but thankfully for Minnesota the game was resimmed and Minnesota won their first game of the year. In Week 2, Minnesota played Portland in Portland in one of the most critical games of the year for Minnesota. After going down 16-3, the Grey Ducks came back and ended up winning the game on a long drive that ended in a Darrel Williams touchdown. Zack Vega, the Grey Ducks QB, also had a very strong performance in Week 2 and helped lead his team to their second straight victory.
Week 3 was the week of Vince Hammerson, the Myrtle Beach Buccaneers kicker. He knocked in six field goals, including a 56 yard kick that was just one yard short of the longest kick made in DSFL history. Hammerson helped the Buccaneers give the Grey Ducks their first loss and they moved to 2-1 on the year. After playing their first three games on the road, Minnesota had a tough test against Tijuana at home. While the game was tied 6-6 at the end of the first quarter, the Minnesota offense could only muster another three points and lost to the Luchadores by a score of 26-9. Minnesota was able to hold Avon Blocksdale Jr. to only 10/18 passing with 100 yards and no touchdowns, but Jed Podolak ran all over the Grey Ducks defense, getting 87 yards and two touchdowns on only 9 carries. Minnesota fell to 2-2 on the year. Minnesota then got to play the Coyotes at home, and were able to seemingly demolish them 31-6. However, looking at the box scores it's obvious that even against bot defenses the Grey Ducks seemed to struggle. Darrel Williams had one of his worst games of the year and Vega threw two picks. Their defense came up big and made this game look like more a blowout than a offense struggle.
Heading into Week 6, Portland and Minnesota were tied at the top of their division, both sporting 3-2 records. In one of the most exciting games of Minnesota's season, the Grey Ducks went down 13-0 in the first quarter and rallied back to win the game. Juan Marston had an impressive 101 yard kickoff return and Darrel Williams ran for 116 yards on 22 carries along with a touchdown. This was another huge win over the Pythons that propelled Minnesota to first in the division once more. Week 7 was the first matchup between Minnesota and Norfolk, and it was another impressive showing by Darrel Williams. He scored three touchdowns and Vega played well enough to lead the Grey Ducks to their third straight victory. In the toughest game of their season, Minnesota went to Tijuana and their offense struggled all game. The Grey Ducks were only able to muster 3 points against Tijuana and Darrel Williams was completely shut down. Vega played well enough to win if his running game was behind him, but the Grey Ducks only averaged 2.5 yards per rush and that was too little offense to get any real drives going. The Grey Ducks defense played well against Tijuana; they only let up 17 offensive points and gave their team a chance to win, but a pick six and a complete disappearance of their run game led to a regular season sweep of this series by Tijuana.
Following this loss came the most disappointing game of the entire Grey Ducks season; the offense once again struggled, but this time against Kansas City. The Coyotes were able to pick off Vega four times during this game, and this set up great field position for Kansas City to get field goals, which was the difference in this game. After a early touchdown drive by the Grey Ducks, they were not able to score again. Two of Vega's interceptions came in field goal range, and with the Grey Ducks losing by 13-7 they were just unacceptable if they wanted to win this game.
The offense did not improve at all when they traveled to play the Pythons in Week 10, in which once again the Grey Ducks offense only put up 3 points. While Vega didn't throw any interceptions this week, he only threw for 4.6 yards per attempt while Jay Cue threw for 7.1. The Grey Ducks had no turnovers, had less penalty yards than the Pythons, and still just lost due to offensive inability to get the ball down the field consistently. The Grey Ducks schedule lightened up at this point; they now had three home games and only one road game over their last four, and the one road game they had left was at Norfolk, who at this point was 0-10. In a late season matchup with Myrtle Beach in Minnesota, the Grey Ducks tried to get back to what worked for them and starting running the ball a lot more. The team combined for 237 rushing yards and were able to get 16 points in this matchup, and their defense held the upstart Buccaneers to only 10 points. Minnesota moved to 6-5 on the season, but the Pythons were still 8-3 and were only a win against Minnesota in week 12 away from winning the division.
In Week 12, Portland came to Minnesota needing a win to lock up home-field for the DSFL North conference championship, but they felt the Minnesota offensive struggle as they only put up 7 points in this game. Baby Yoda tried his best to lead his Pythons to victory, but he only received seven carries in Week 12 and wasn't able to do much. Darrel Williams again had a field day and racked up 149 yards on 27 attempts. Once again, Juan Marston returned a punt for a touchdown and helped Minnesota win 17-7. Minnesota now needed to win out and have Portland lose one of their last two games in order for Minnesota to get home field for the playoffs. Minnesota upheld their end of the bargain, as they got to play two bot teams and beat them both well. Portland traveled to Kansas City, and just like the Grey Ducks, lost to the Coyotes 23-20. After another crushing loss 26-7 to the Buccaneers, the Grey Ducks clinched home field for the conference championship game.
In the DSFL North Conference Championship Game, hosted by the Minnesota Grey Ducks, there was a ton of action. Darrel Williams and Baby Yoda each scored a rushing touchdown early on, but then Minnesota began to dominate the second quarter. Darrel tacked on a second rushing touchdown, Silver Banana, the Grey Ducks kicker, booted a 44 yard field goal, and Juan Marston continued his ridiculous returning season as he returned another punt all the way to the house, and this one was a 86 yard return. Portland was able to reduce the deficit down to 24-10, but this lead would be tough to overcome in Minnesota. Portland quickly drove down the field in the third quarter and scored a rushing touchdown by Paco McTaco, and Minnesota responded with a field goal to push the score to 27-17. In the early part of the fourth quarter, however, Zack Vega was tackled in the endzone for a safety by Willie Hardagain, pushing the score back to 27-19 and making it a one-score game. Jay Cue threw a touchdown pass less than five minutes later and the conversion was good. Tied up with 9 minutes to go, the teams traded punts before the Grey Ducks began to drive down the field, using their three running back tandem of Logan Noble Jr., OJ Littlewood, and the aforementioned Darrel Williams. Silver Banana only had to make a 26 yard field goal to effectively end the game, and did so with ease. Banana squibbed a kick that McTaco caught and ran 18 yards to try and save the game, but he was not able to return it for a score and Minnesota was Ultimini bound.
Tijuana Luchadores:
Heading into S19, the Luchadores kept most of their offensive core back for the season. Their biggest additions from the S19 Draft included Randy Vuxta, Kyle Idlewyld, and Victor Moreno. After the conference championship game loss in S18, the Luchadores came back hungrier to win an Ultimini. However, the Luchadores knew that matching their S18 regular season record would be very difficult, so the goals were obviously to clinch home-field throughout the playoffs and hope that their team showed up come playoff time. The Luchadores started their season at home against the reigning DSFL champs, the Portland Pythons, and the Luchadores quickly found themselves down 10-0 at home. They were able to come back and tie the game, but with nine minutes left Portland kicked a field goal to take a 13-10 lead in the game. Blocksdale Jr took control of his offense and threw two touchdown passes to secure the Week 1 victory; this game showed the world that once again, Tijuana was back and ready to dominate.
Following this victory, another huge game was on the schedule; Tijuana had to play the Myrtle Beach Buccaneers, who would be their main competition in the southern division of the DSFL for the entirety of the season. In this matchup at Tijuana, however, the Luchadores made short work of the Buccaneers and demolished them 43-10. Once again Blocksdale Jr. dominated, throwing three touchdown passes and having one of the best games by a quarterback in the entire year. The Coyotes came to town for Week 3 and most Luchadores fans were preparing for a fun and easy game. However, this was not a fun and easy game. Tijuana scraped by Kansas City by only three points. Tijuana's rushing attack was as potent as ever, but Blocksdale Jr. seemed to have completely forgotten how to throw the football after his first two dominating performances, as he went 12/33 with two picks against a bot team. Tijuana was saved by their 247 rushing yards and still won the game 10-7.
After a previously mentioned Week 4 domination over the Grey Ducks, Tijuana traveled to Myrtle Beach and faced much stiffer opposition than their first matchup. Kacey Dream picked off Blocksdale and took it to the house, Brock Phoenix was throwing dots all over the field, and Tijuana's 250 yards of rushing offense was not enough to save them from a 34-17 defeat and their first loss of the year. The Luchadores then headed to Norfolk and let their running backs do most of the work; as this was another game that more than 2/3rds of Tijuana's total offense was done on the ground. After this Week 6 victory, Tijuana moved on to Kansas City, in which the Luchadores once again took control of this game through a strong running attack. They did allow a field goal and a touchdown late in the fourth quarter, but the Luchadores still won 15-10 and finished the first half of the season at 6-1. They then got to host the Grey Ducks, and dominated them for the second time this season to notch another victory against a quality opponent. Tijuana then traveled to Portland, and the Pythons quickly took a 17-3 lead over the Luchadores. While Tijuana was able to close the gap to a more manageable 17-13, Jay Cue threw two touchdowns in the fourth quarter and sealed up a 33-23 victory for the Pythons. In Week 10, Tijuana then hosted Myrtle Beach and once again found themselves behind 10-0. Randy Vuxta caught another touchdown pass from Blocksdale to cut the deficit to 10-7, and Tijuana then notched another ten points through a 39 yard field goal and another touchdown pass. A huge victory over the Buccaneers pushed Tijuana to 8-2 on the year.
Week 11 was all Jed Podolak as he ran for over 100 yards and two scores on an impressive 7.3 YPC. Once again, the Luchadores played strong, solid football against the bot teams and picked up another victory. In Week 12, seemingly out of anger of the last home game played against the Coyotes, the Luchadores absolutely dominated the Coyotes offensively. 464 total yards of offense was racked up, and that resulted in three touchdown passes by Blocksdale(two being caught by Vuxta), along with another two touchdown runs by Podolak. In Week 13, the Luchadores were on the brink of clinching home field advantage throughout the entirety of the playoffs, and would do so if they beat the Buccaneers. However, Tijuana got a taste of its own medicine as they went up 13-0 and then their offense disappeared for the rest of the game. Their normally stout rushing attack only mustered 3.8 yards per rush total and the Buccaneers used Ricardo Rose for two touchdowns to secure the victory, 17-13. In the final week of the regular season, once again Blocksdale forgot how to throw a football against the bot teams as he finished 10/26 with another pair of picks. Podolak and Barker led the Tijuana offense to only 13 points, but thankfully for Tijuana their defense held up and they clinched home field throughout the postseason.
The culmination of back and forth battles between the Buccaneers and Luchadores finally happened in the DSFL South Championship Game, in which both offenses found themselves early. Tijuana took a 17-3 lead in the 2nd quarter, but Myrtle Beach came roaring back with a pair of their own touchdowns to tie up the ballgame. Unfortunately for Myrtle Beach, their offense disappeared in the second half, and Tijuana essentially locked up the victory with a late touchdown pass from Blocksdale to McCann III. Tijuana was now Ultimini bound.
That was almost 3000 words of what has happened in the past season of the DSFL. Now it's time to look back at the teams two match-ups in the regular season and see what went wrong for Minnesota and what went right for Tijuana.
Matchup Review: Week 4
Looking just at the scoreboard for this game, you might assume that this Ultimini is hopeless for Minnesota. They lost 26-9 on their own turf! However, the big problem in this game for Minnesota was the fact that they struggled mightily with finishing their drives with touchdowns, not field goals. Minnesota actually had more total yards this game than Tijuana, but their only points were three field goals. That's not going to get it done against a potent offense like Tijuana's. Another key for Minnesota is to find some way to stop the Big Three on Tijuana's offense; Podolak, Vuxta, and Blocksdale Jr. They were able to essentially stop both Vuxta and Blocksdale Jr in Week 4, but Podolak ran all over Minnesota and scored twice. One change from this game is that the backup running back for Minnesota then was OJ Littlewood, who had a terrible game of 47 yards on 15 carries in this matchup against Tijuana, but Littlewood has now been replaced by Logan Noble Jr.
Matchup Review: Week 8
The big thing that stands out about this matchup is that Tijuana was effectively able to stop Darrel Williams, the #1 player(by TPE) on the Minnesota offense. He only was able to put up 2.8 yards per carry, and Minnesota's offense runs through the ground game, like most DSFL teams. Whatever Tijuana's adjustments were for this game, they definitely need to do them again because they were truly able to shut down Darrel(and in essence, the Minnesota offense). If Tijuana comes out in run stopping packages, Vega needs to work Thompson, Gragg, and even Williams in the passing game in order to force Tijuana to stay back and give Darrel room to run. Vega also needs to limit his mistakes; Tijuana's offense actually didn't perform that well in this game but they still won due to an interception return for a touchdown and a continued inability to score touchdowns against Tijuana.
Overall, these two previous matchups showed that Tijuana can definitely shut down both the passing and running sides of the Minnesota offense. If Minnesota is going to win this game, it's going to be a combination of strong running by Williams, mistake-free football from Vega, and near-perfect performance in the red zone. Minnesota can't settle for field goals if they want to win this game. If Tijuana is going to win this game, they most likely need to focus on stopping Williams and the Minnesota run game in general. Vega has not proven that he can lead his team to victory by himself, and if Tijuana stops the run game like they did in Week 8 and the Luchadores play through their offensive stars Podolak, Vuxta, and Blocksdale, they should have no problem securing this victory.
This will certainly be an interesting Ultimini. Both teams have plenty of history back before the move from San Antonio to Minnesota; it's awesome that these two squads were able to still meet up in the playoffs anyway for old times sake. I'm definitely interested on how dedicated Tijuana will be to stop the run and how Minnesota plans to finally score a touchdown against the Luchadores. I hope you've enjoyed this Ultimini Preview! Enjoy the Ultimus and Ultimini tonight!
One year ago, the San Antonio Marshals met the Tijuana Luchadores in what seemed to be an easy win for the Luchadores. As Tijuana racked up a quick ten points and San Antonio now faced a ten point deficit against the top defense in the DSFL. This looked like a hopeless situation and the Tijuana Luchadores were getting extremely close to another Ultimini berth. However, the Marshals didn't give up. They had beaten Tijuana in Tijuana this season. They were the only team that had beaten Tijuana all year and things started to click. For starters, the SA defense locked down the Tijuana offense for most of the game, allowing SA to stay in the game by not forcing them to score too many points. The Marshals closed the gap with a 40 yard field goal and the game was 10-3 at halftime. After fourteen minutes of scoreless football, the Luchadores lined up for a 40 yard field goal that was no good. Seemingly as motivation from this missed field goal, on the next play the Marshals and their running back Mathias Hanyadi ran 78 yards to the house to tie up the game. The game began to stall when three consecutive punts occured, but Tijuana's second punt gave SA good field position. Combined with an unsportsmanlike conduct call and an absolute bomb to McMahon, the Marshals were able to score and go up 17-10. Tijuana then drove down to the San Antonio 11 yard line. On 4th and 5, the Tijuana quarterback passed to Podolak, who came up just one yard short of keeping the drive alive for the Luchadores. The Marshals ran out the clock and the Luchadores incredible season ended in defeat.
In the year that followed, many changes occured to both of these teams. San Antonio rebranded to become the Minnesota Grey Ducks and moved from the DSFL South to the DSFL North, guaranteeing that the earliest Tijuana and San Antonio could play in the playoffs was in the Ultimini. The DSFL contracted to four non-bot teams, which sent many players from Norfolk and Kansas City around the league. And as usual, the DSFL Draft brought in a good amount of fresh new talent to the table. This article is for the DSFL fan who isn't really that caught up in what is happening in the DSFL right now; if you want to enjoy the Ultimini to the fullest this article will help you gain knowledge about the situation in Tijuana and Minnesota in advance of the S19 Ultimini on New Year's Day.
(When the two teams are being compared, Minnesota will be put first because they are the road team in the Ultimini this year.)
How They Got Here: The Road to the Ultimini
Minnesota Grey Ducks:
With the first overall pick in the S19 DSFL Draft, the Grey Ducks selected Darrel Williams, a running back out of LSU and a former member of the Myrtle Beach Buccaneers(who originally held this pick). Following the loss of both of their running backs after the end of S18, the Grey Ducks definitely needed help in the running game and picked the best RB in the class by a decent margin. He made his presence known immediately in Week 1 of the DSFL season, picking up 192 yards on 20 carries, along with two touchdowns. Arguably the best offensive performance of the entire DSFL season, this incredible rushing feat helped reassure the Minnesota GMs that their use of draft capital on Darrel was worth it. While this performance was great and this win helped boost confidence in the Grey Ducks, it almost didn't happen. In reality, Week 1 between the Grey Ducks and Coyotes actually ended in a tie. Tying with a bot team would have been devastating blow for hopes of home field advantage in the DSFL North Championship game, but thankfully for Minnesota the game was resimmed and Minnesota won their first game of the year. In Week 2, Minnesota played Portland in Portland in one of the most critical games of the year for Minnesota. After going down 16-3, the Grey Ducks came back and ended up winning the game on a long drive that ended in a Darrel Williams touchdown. Zack Vega, the Grey Ducks QB, also had a very strong performance in Week 2 and helped lead his team to their second straight victory.
Week 3 was the week of Vince Hammerson, the Myrtle Beach Buccaneers kicker. He knocked in six field goals, including a 56 yard kick that was just one yard short of the longest kick made in DSFL history. Hammerson helped the Buccaneers give the Grey Ducks their first loss and they moved to 2-1 on the year. After playing their first three games on the road, Minnesota had a tough test against Tijuana at home. While the game was tied 6-6 at the end of the first quarter, the Minnesota offense could only muster another three points and lost to the Luchadores by a score of 26-9. Minnesota was able to hold Avon Blocksdale Jr. to only 10/18 passing with 100 yards and no touchdowns, but Jed Podolak ran all over the Grey Ducks defense, getting 87 yards and two touchdowns on only 9 carries. Minnesota fell to 2-2 on the year. Minnesota then got to play the Coyotes at home, and were able to seemingly demolish them 31-6. However, looking at the box scores it's obvious that even against bot defenses the Grey Ducks seemed to struggle. Darrel Williams had one of his worst games of the year and Vega threw two picks. Their defense came up big and made this game look like more a blowout than a offense struggle.
Heading into Week 6, Portland and Minnesota were tied at the top of their division, both sporting 3-2 records. In one of the most exciting games of Minnesota's season, the Grey Ducks went down 13-0 in the first quarter and rallied back to win the game. Juan Marston had an impressive 101 yard kickoff return and Darrel Williams ran for 116 yards on 22 carries along with a touchdown. This was another huge win over the Pythons that propelled Minnesota to first in the division once more. Week 7 was the first matchup between Minnesota and Norfolk, and it was another impressive showing by Darrel Williams. He scored three touchdowns and Vega played well enough to lead the Grey Ducks to their third straight victory. In the toughest game of their season, Minnesota went to Tijuana and their offense struggled all game. The Grey Ducks were only able to muster 3 points against Tijuana and Darrel Williams was completely shut down. Vega played well enough to win if his running game was behind him, but the Grey Ducks only averaged 2.5 yards per rush and that was too little offense to get any real drives going. The Grey Ducks defense played well against Tijuana; they only let up 17 offensive points and gave their team a chance to win, but a pick six and a complete disappearance of their run game led to a regular season sweep of this series by Tijuana.
Following this loss came the most disappointing game of the entire Grey Ducks season; the offense once again struggled, but this time against Kansas City. The Coyotes were able to pick off Vega four times during this game, and this set up great field position for Kansas City to get field goals, which was the difference in this game. After a early touchdown drive by the Grey Ducks, they were not able to score again. Two of Vega's interceptions came in field goal range, and with the Grey Ducks losing by 13-7 they were just unacceptable if they wanted to win this game.
The offense did not improve at all when they traveled to play the Pythons in Week 10, in which once again the Grey Ducks offense only put up 3 points. While Vega didn't throw any interceptions this week, he only threw for 4.6 yards per attempt while Jay Cue threw for 7.1. The Grey Ducks had no turnovers, had less penalty yards than the Pythons, and still just lost due to offensive inability to get the ball down the field consistently. The Grey Ducks schedule lightened up at this point; they now had three home games and only one road game over their last four, and the one road game they had left was at Norfolk, who at this point was 0-10. In a late season matchup with Myrtle Beach in Minnesota, the Grey Ducks tried to get back to what worked for them and starting running the ball a lot more. The team combined for 237 rushing yards and were able to get 16 points in this matchup, and their defense held the upstart Buccaneers to only 10 points. Minnesota moved to 6-5 on the season, but the Pythons were still 8-3 and were only a win against Minnesota in week 12 away from winning the division.
In Week 12, Portland came to Minnesota needing a win to lock up home-field for the DSFL North conference championship, but they felt the Minnesota offensive struggle as they only put up 7 points in this game. Baby Yoda tried his best to lead his Pythons to victory, but he only received seven carries in Week 12 and wasn't able to do much. Darrel Williams again had a field day and racked up 149 yards on 27 attempts. Once again, Juan Marston returned a punt for a touchdown and helped Minnesota win 17-7. Minnesota now needed to win out and have Portland lose one of their last two games in order for Minnesota to get home field for the playoffs. Minnesota upheld their end of the bargain, as they got to play two bot teams and beat them both well. Portland traveled to Kansas City, and just like the Grey Ducks, lost to the Coyotes 23-20. After another crushing loss 26-7 to the Buccaneers, the Grey Ducks clinched home field for the conference championship game.
In the DSFL North Conference Championship Game, hosted by the Minnesota Grey Ducks, there was a ton of action. Darrel Williams and Baby Yoda each scored a rushing touchdown early on, but then Minnesota began to dominate the second quarter. Darrel tacked on a second rushing touchdown, Silver Banana, the Grey Ducks kicker, booted a 44 yard field goal, and Juan Marston continued his ridiculous returning season as he returned another punt all the way to the house, and this one was a 86 yard return. Portland was able to reduce the deficit down to 24-10, but this lead would be tough to overcome in Minnesota. Portland quickly drove down the field in the third quarter and scored a rushing touchdown by Paco McTaco, and Minnesota responded with a field goal to push the score to 27-17. In the early part of the fourth quarter, however, Zack Vega was tackled in the endzone for a safety by Willie Hardagain, pushing the score back to 27-19 and making it a one-score game. Jay Cue threw a touchdown pass less than five minutes later and the conversion was good. Tied up with 9 minutes to go, the teams traded punts before the Grey Ducks began to drive down the field, using their three running back tandem of Logan Noble Jr., OJ Littlewood, and the aforementioned Darrel Williams. Silver Banana only had to make a 26 yard field goal to effectively end the game, and did so with ease. Banana squibbed a kick that McTaco caught and ran 18 yards to try and save the game, but he was not able to return it for a score and Minnesota was Ultimini bound.
Tijuana Luchadores:
Heading into S19, the Luchadores kept most of their offensive core back for the season. Their biggest additions from the S19 Draft included Randy Vuxta, Kyle Idlewyld, and Victor Moreno. After the conference championship game loss in S18, the Luchadores came back hungrier to win an Ultimini. However, the Luchadores knew that matching their S18 regular season record would be very difficult, so the goals were obviously to clinch home-field throughout the playoffs and hope that their team showed up come playoff time. The Luchadores started their season at home against the reigning DSFL champs, the Portland Pythons, and the Luchadores quickly found themselves down 10-0 at home. They were able to come back and tie the game, but with nine minutes left Portland kicked a field goal to take a 13-10 lead in the game. Blocksdale Jr took control of his offense and threw two touchdown passes to secure the Week 1 victory; this game showed the world that once again, Tijuana was back and ready to dominate.
Following this victory, another huge game was on the schedule; Tijuana had to play the Myrtle Beach Buccaneers, who would be their main competition in the southern division of the DSFL for the entirety of the season. In this matchup at Tijuana, however, the Luchadores made short work of the Buccaneers and demolished them 43-10. Once again Blocksdale Jr. dominated, throwing three touchdown passes and having one of the best games by a quarterback in the entire year. The Coyotes came to town for Week 3 and most Luchadores fans were preparing for a fun and easy game. However, this was not a fun and easy game. Tijuana scraped by Kansas City by only three points. Tijuana's rushing attack was as potent as ever, but Blocksdale Jr. seemed to have completely forgotten how to throw the football after his first two dominating performances, as he went 12/33 with two picks against a bot team. Tijuana was saved by their 247 rushing yards and still won the game 10-7.
After a previously mentioned Week 4 domination over the Grey Ducks, Tijuana traveled to Myrtle Beach and faced much stiffer opposition than their first matchup. Kacey Dream picked off Blocksdale and took it to the house, Brock Phoenix was throwing dots all over the field, and Tijuana's 250 yards of rushing offense was not enough to save them from a 34-17 defeat and their first loss of the year. The Luchadores then headed to Norfolk and let their running backs do most of the work; as this was another game that more than 2/3rds of Tijuana's total offense was done on the ground. After this Week 6 victory, Tijuana moved on to Kansas City, in which the Luchadores once again took control of this game through a strong running attack. They did allow a field goal and a touchdown late in the fourth quarter, but the Luchadores still won 15-10 and finished the first half of the season at 6-1. They then got to host the Grey Ducks, and dominated them for the second time this season to notch another victory against a quality opponent. Tijuana then traveled to Portland, and the Pythons quickly took a 17-3 lead over the Luchadores. While Tijuana was able to close the gap to a more manageable 17-13, Jay Cue threw two touchdowns in the fourth quarter and sealed up a 33-23 victory for the Pythons. In Week 10, Tijuana then hosted Myrtle Beach and once again found themselves behind 10-0. Randy Vuxta caught another touchdown pass from Blocksdale to cut the deficit to 10-7, and Tijuana then notched another ten points through a 39 yard field goal and another touchdown pass. A huge victory over the Buccaneers pushed Tijuana to 8-2 on the year.
Week 11 was all Jed Podolak as he ran for over 100 yards and two scores on an impressive 7.3 YPC. Once again, the Luchadores played strong, solid football against the bot teams and picked up another victory. In Week 12, seemingly out of anger of the last home game played against the Coyotes, the Luchadores absolutely dominated the Coyotes offensively. 464 total yards of offense was racked up, and that resulted in three touchdown passes by Blocksdale(two being caught by Vuxta), along with another two touchdown runs by Podolak. In Week 13, the Luchadores were on the brink of clinching home field advantage throughout the entirety of the playoffs, and would do so if they beat the Buccaneers. However, Tijuana got a taste of its own medicine as they went up 13-0 and then their offense disappeared for the rest of the game. Their normally stout rushing attack only mustered 3.8 yards per rush total and the Buccaneers used Ricardo Rose for two touchdowns to secure the victory, 17-13. In the final week of the regular season, once again Blocksdale forgot how to throw a football against the bot teams as he finished 10/26 with another pair of picks. Podolak and Barker led the Tijuana offense to only 13 points, but thankfully for Tijuana their defense held up and they clinched home field throughout the postseason.
The culmination of back and forth battles between the Buccaneers and Luchadores finally happened in the DSFL South Championship Game, in which both offenses found themselves early. Tijuana took a 17-3 lead in the 2nd quarter, but Myrtle Beach came roaring back with a pair of their own touchdowns to tie up the ballgame. Unfortunately for Myrtle Beach, their offense disappeared in the second half, and Tijuana essentially locked up the victory with a late touchdown pass from Blocksdale to McCann III. Tijuana was now Ultimini bound.
That was almost 3000 words of what has happened in the past season of the DSFL. Now it's time to look back at the teams two match-ups in the regular season and see what went wrong for Minnesota and what went right for Tijuana.
Matchup Review: Week 4
Looking just at the scoreboard for this game, you might assume that this Ultimini is hopeless for Minnesota. They lost 26-9 on their own turf! However, the big problem in this game for Minnesota was the fact that they struggled mightily with finishing their drives with touchdowns, not field goals. Minnesota actually had more total yards this game than Tijuana, but their only points were three field goals. That's not going to get it done against a potent offense like Tijuana's. Another key for Minnesota is to find some way to stop the Big Three on Tijuana's offense; Podolak, Vuxta, and Blocksdale Jr. They were able to essentially stop both Vuxta and Blocksdale Jr in Week 4, but Podolak ran all over Minnesota and scored twice. One change from this game is that the backup running back for Minnesota then was OJ Littlewood, who had a terrible game of 47 yards on 15 carries in this matchup against Tijuana, but Littlewood has now been replaced by Logan Noble Jr.
Matchup Review: Week 8
The big thing that stands out about this matchup is that Tijuana was effectively able to stop Darrel Williams, the #1 player(by TPE) on the Minnesota offense. He only was able to put up 2.8 yards per carry, and Minnesota's offense runs through the ground game, like most DSFL teams. Whatever Tijuana's adjustments were for this game, they definitely need to do them again because they were truly able to shut down Darrel(and in essence, the Minnesota offense). If Tijuana comes out in run stopping packages, Vega needs to work Thompson, Gragg, and even Williams in the passing game in order to force Tijuana to stay back and give Darrel room to run. Vega also needs to limit his mistakes; Tijuana's offense actually didn't perform that well in this game but they still won due to an interception return for a touchdown and a continued inability to score touchdowns against Tijuana.
Overall, these two previous matchups showed that Tijuana can definitely shut down both the passing and running sides of the Minnesota offense. If Minnesota is going to win this game, it's going to be a combination of strong running by Williams, mistake-free football from Vega, and near-perfect performance in the red zone. Minnesota can't settle for field goals if they want to win this game. If Tijuana is going to win this game, they most likely need to focus on stopping Williams and the Minnesota run game in general. Vega has not proven that he can lead his team to victory by himself, and if Tijuana stops the run game like they did in Week 8 and the Luchadores play through their offensive stars Podolak, Vuxta, and Blocksdale, they should have no problem securing this victory.
This will certainly be an interesting Ultimini. Both teams have plenty of history back before the move from San Antonio to Minnesota; it's awesome that these two squads were able to still meet up in the playoffs anyway for old times sake. I'm definitely interested on how dedicated Tijuana will be to stop the run and how Minnesota plans to finally score a touchdown against the Luchadores. I hope you've enjoyed this Ultimini Preview! Enjoy the Ultimus and Ultimini tonight!