Finals Preview

12 weeks and 22 games later, we are down to just one: one game, on one night, to determine who gets to etch their names into the record books as the very first FPF Co-Ed Division champions.

In the red corner: Confirmed Positive. Finishing the regular season 7-1, CP blew past Party Mix 31-18 in the semis, and feature both the QB of the Year (Vanessa Birri) and Defensive Player of the Year (Pat Jérome) along with a wealth of All-Stars.

In the blue corner: It’s a Match. Having clawed and scratched their way to a 3-5 regular season record, Match slipped past a tough Served With Girls team 14-12 despite having no individual award winners and all of two All-Stars (Alexis Labonté and Lovinski Gélin). (Who needs any of those accolades when you’re a win away from the highest reward of all, right?) 

Only one will remain standing come 6:30 p.m. this Saturday April 8 in Brossard. But before we go any further into previewing this game, let’s take a quick look back at how we got here.

 

Recaps

It’s a match… It’s still a match… and now it’s an upset!

I can’t sit here and say I’m anything other than stunned by It’s a Match’s win over Served With Girls in the semis. Even if you had told me top receiver JD Chevalier would be absent in this one, as he was, there was simply still no way I could’ve predicted a Match win.

But win they did, doing just about everything I thought they would’ve needed to do so. Primary among said things was to defend QB Karl Lavallée’s deep ball. The former Div C QB made a habit of tossing 40-bombs all season long, but he was able to complete only one of them in this game (more on that in a bit).

Meanwhile, despite playing solid D, Match were nonetheless anything but pretty on offense, hampered by some big drops on otherwise easy completions. Still, they were able to overcome them en route to an 8-point lead late in the game thanks to a pair of TDs from Henry Dam and Alexis Labonté.

It seemed as though the W was all theirs when they marched into the red zone with five plays left. But they exited said red zone empty-handed four plays later following a big goal line stop from the SWG defense, leaving Lavallée and company with one final play to potentially send the game into overtime.

And naturally, because this is the FPF playoffs, Lavallée was finally able to hit that long-awaited 40-bomb, finding Charlie Loignon to cut Match’s lead to two. But, in your weekly reminder that defense wins championships, Labonté picked off the ensuing two-point convert attempt to seal the deal for Match.

It’s a Match move on. Served With Girls go home.

 

Confirmed: Party’s Over… For Good

My high hopes of a good game seemed justified for – stop me if you’ve read this one before – all of about one half in Confirmed Positive battle versus Party Mix. Party Mix took the opening drive the distance only to suffer an easy drop in the end zone on 4th down. CP suffered the same fate on the ensuing drive but the result coming differently, with a big PD from Laurent Boudreault keeping the game notched at 0-0. Back and forth scores from that point on saw the game tied at 12-apiece entering the second half.

And that’s when, as they seemingly have done all season long, CP were able to turn the tide in their favor. A TD, a 4th down stop on D, and another TD made it 24-12 in the blink of an eye thanks to some big throws from QB Vanessa Birri.

Still, it wasn’t entirely over just yet, with Party Mix able to get back within six points following QB François Deslauriers’ third TD of the night.

But the Confirmed Positive trained rolled on, adding one final TD to put the game out of reach 31-18. An interception by Deslauriers, followed by one final first down from CP, sealed the deal.

Confirmed Positive move on. Party Mix go home.

 

Finals Preview

Confirmed Positive (1) vs. It’s a Match (3)

Previous matchups: Confirmed Positive 19, It’s a Match 6; Confirmed Positive 36, It’s a Match 6

 

The Story: 

I hate to harp on the whole David vs. Goliath storyline, but it’s tough to peg this one as anything else.

From their struggles with consistency performance-wise (two wins, followed by two losses, followed by three losses, followed by one win – with blowouts both for and against sprinkled all throughout); to consistency at the QB position (I’m convinced Alexis Labonté and François Éthier played heads or tails five minutes before their games to determine the starter of the day), Match were the ones who faced all the adversity this season. Their offense seemed allergic to the end zone most weeks; their defense, seemingly either extraordinary or abysmal.

And yet, despite all of that, they’re headed to the finals. I’m sure they’re confident – wouldn’t you be if you overcame all of that to be one win away from a championship?

Of course, confidence is important, but It’s a Match would be best served to ensure that doesn’t become cockiness, especially against a team stacked with studs from left to right, top to bottom.

Indeed, from QB Vanessa Birri, to tackling machine Sabrina Gervais, to two-way monster Pat Jérome, the CP roster is as much an offensive powerhouse as it is a shutdown defense. What else is there to say about team featuring the top scoring offense, the defense with the fewest points against, a couple of individual award winners, and a couple more All-Stars?

 

The Matchups: 

QB François Éthier vs. Confirmed Positive Secondary

It’s a Match’s biggest issue versus CP in their first two matchups, and indeed virtually all season long, has been their immense difficulty to put up points. If they have any hope to win this game, they’ll likely need more than just a lone score. That means the pressure is on QB François Éthier to keep mistakes to an absolute minimum. Against a secondary as built to defend the long-ball as CP are, that especially means going with short, easy, high-percentage throws so as to keep the ball away from the long-reaching arms of DBs Pat Jérome (7 INTs, 4 PDs), Marc Lachapelle (3 INTs, 5 PDs) and company.

It should be mentioned that while the pressure is primarily on Éthier, it’s not all on him. The Match receiving corps has had its fair share of ups and downs this season, and by that I mean the ball literally bouncing up and down in the air en route to being dropped. Against some secondaries, the worst-case scenario is the ball falls harmlessly to the turf. Against CP, bobbled catches are all but assured to get intercepted.  

 

It’s a Match’s rusher vs. QB Vanessa Birri

On the other side, an It’s a Match W here will likely require the defensive performance of their lives, or not far from it. And that starts with an amazing rush from the opening whistle all the way through the last. If you rush Birri at 50% and you give her too much time in the pocket, she will effortlessly hit those intermediate and deep throws she so loves, and you lose. If you rush her at 100% and she sidesteps you, she will dump it off to the likes of Maxime Patterson who will take care of the rest, and you lose.

The key is to find the sweet spot that has the potential to get her panicking and ultimately force a bad pass on a poor read – although believe me, that is a lot easier said than done versus a QB with the football IQ of Birri. Match have seen about a half-dozen different players record a sack for them this season, and the team may choose to go with just about any one of them to rush this weekend. Whoever it’ll be, I say good luck to you: your task will not be fun, nor easy. But it will be key.

 

QB Vanessa Birri vs. herself

FPF’s first-ever female award winner was more than deserving of her QB of the Year trophy. She’s got everything you want to see in an FPF QB: the cannon arm, the escapability, the leadership. She can march the field just as easily as she can burn you on a perfectly thrown deep post pattern. All that being said, she isn’t without her imperfections (regardless of how far and few between they are). Indeed, one of Birri’s main strengths is sometimes her biggest weakness. Her penchant for Brett Favre-like gun-slinging – particularly when under pressure – has resulted in many a touchdown this season. But it has also led to a number of inaccurate passes that at times end up deflected away, if not picked off. Still, it should be noted the TDs (41 through the air in 9 games so far) greatly outweigh the INTs (8).

Simply put, if the Birri that completed just 43% of her throws and finished with a 3:3 TD-INT ratio back in Week 7 shows up, It’s a Match have a legitimate chance. If the Birri who completed 70% of her passes and finished 6:0 the very next week shows up, chances are this game will be over by halftime.  

 

The Prediction

From a football fan perspective, it would be awesome to see It’s a Match take down the giants that are Confirmed Positive – I mean, who doesn’t love an underdog? But the gut and the brain are taking over the heart for me here. Even if everything goes Match’s way – and that’s quite a stretch – I simply can’t bring myself to predict anything but a CP win.

No doubt, Match deserve all the credit in the world for taking down Served With Girls. But Confirmed Positive are a different beast entirely.

Some unforced errors and the absence of some key players on the CP side played a role in the relatively tight battle the first time these two teams met up. You could probably say unforced errors and absent players on the Match side equally helped the second matchup be so lopsided in CP’s favor.

But with both teams expected to be at full strength the moment they hit the field, it seems clear to me given their advantages in size, speed and experience that all signs point to a Confirmed Positive win.

Prove me wrong, Match.

Prediction: Confirmed Positive 25, It’s a Match 13

 

***

That wraps up this inaugural season of the FPF Co-Ed Division. Questions, comments, criticism? Let me know on Facebook or on Twitter @JBlanchFPF. For those of you heading out to the finals on Saturday/Sunday (Co-Ed kicks off on Saturday at 5:30 p.m.), see you then. Otherwise, thank you, thank you, thank you, and thank you again for reading. It’s been a blast covering this division. Until next season, Blanchard out!