Ottawa Semi-Finals Recap / Finals Preview (D2)

Hey what’s up everybody? I am Brent ‘Bad News’ Bodkin, and I’m back once again to give you the 411 on FlagPlus Football in the nation’s capital.

March Madness is under way once again, and I’m trying my best to watch as many games as I can without failing any classes or getting fired from my day job. My bracket took a bit of a beating during round one, but I am back in the game thanks to round two. How’s yours coming along?

Speaking of the madness, unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably noticed that round one of the FlagPlus Football playoffs kicked off with a bang…and a touch of confusion this past week-end in Ottawa. I’ll get to the latter in a bit.

I must admit that I predicted otherwise, but the Barracudas have advanced to the D1 championship game. Although I am confident they will get beat by the Tailgators if the Gators can advance past the Sharks this Sunday night in the Semi-Finals. The ‘Cudas were quite impressive this past week-end in their blow-out victory over the Heavy Hitters.

The ‘Cudas finally got their act together and played liked the team that they I thought they were earlier in the year, this past Sunday. Defensively they were fantastic, as they were able to virtually shut down the Hitters three headed receiving attack of Belony, Belony, and Cates. (Yeah I know it sounds like a law firm, but what the heck)

On offense after taking the last couple of weeks off, the real Barracudas pivot came to play again, putting up Tom Patrick-like numbers for the first time in a few weeks. (Two interceptions don’t look that great for a pivot, but five touchdown passes more than make up for it!) Patrick even put in work in the ground game running for over 10 yards a carry.

A performance like this makes you wonder, what would the playoff rankings be like if the ‘Cudas had played like this when played the Tailgators in week 9? Would the Gators be going into their semi-final game against the Sharks with a perfect record? We’ll never know!

Moving on to Division Two action. After pulling off the upset with their semi-final win over the heavily-favored Browns in a last second thriller this past week-end, the Federal Express find themselves in the D2 championship game against the Wise Guys. W.G will look to impose their will on the Express as they try to go for the four game sweep.

Heading into the game, the Guys have the advantage in this one after being idle this past week-end. The week off should have given W.G enough time to rest their players and scout-out the Express’ strength and weaknesses. Additionally, in the three defeats to W.G this season, the Express failed to reach the 20 point mark.

For the Express, the advantage they have coming into this one has been the hot play of Quarterback Francois Bordeleau. F.E’s pivot was a monster last week in the semi-final win over the Browns. Whether it was through the air or on the ground, Bordeleau simply got it done. In his last four games (two of which came against W.G) Bordeleau has thrown for 511 yards, nine touchdown passes, only four interceptions, and 111 yards with a major on the ground. In fact in their week 8 contest, Bordeleau actually outplayed Wise Guys’ quarterback Tommy Solarik. In that game Bordeleau was 15 of 18 for 165 yards and two touchdowns, while Solarik struggled mightily going 12 of 24 for just 82 yards and one TD pass.

 Despite pulling off the upset against the Browns last week-end, I think the Express will fall just short of doing it this week. The Guys are just too good of an offense to be shut down like the Browns’ attack was. The glass slipper will be gone, and the W.G will be the last ones laughing when the final whistle blows. Final score 30-22 Wise Guys.

Now for the confusion…for those of you who were at Ben Franklin Field this past Sunday night, you might have noticed that the tilt between the Tailgators and the Sharks ended a little early. With exactly three minutes to five plays in the first half, with the Sharks in the midst of shocking the world with a 6-0 lead, the game was called due to a conflict with the field booking.

I’m told this type issue has never occured since this league began in 2005, so it was surely somewhat confusing for the league to fix up. FPF decided to continue the game (think game 5 of the Rays/Phillies World Series from this year) at the East End Superdome (Admit it, this venue just sounds way cooler than Ben Franklin Field) In the interest of fairness, this is a neutral field so both teams are on equal footing (okay, now I’m going too far!).

Will the Gators, who have to be at least a little thankful that the game was paused, be able to bounce back from their shaky start, or will the Sharks prove that they should be the defending champions, and knock off the Gators en-route to their destiny. We’ll find out for sure this Sunday night.

I’ll tell you right now, if the Sharks pull it off the unimaginable, they are my pick to walk away with the D1 championship. With all due respect to the Barracudas, the Sharks, at least in the first half of Sundays’ game, showed that they aren’t intimidated by the Gators. They walked right up to the defending champs and punched them in the mouth (not literally, of course), and the Gators were surely stunned, and must be a bit less confident heading into the second part of the game, to say the least.

If the aforementioned Gators can get off he ropes and come through in the clutch (so far they haven’t shown us a reason not to believe that they won’t) then I’m going with the Gators to beat the Barracudas as well. No matter who they roll out at quarterback, they just can’t be stopped. They are the true definition of a championship team. When their backs are against the wall, and they are without their top pivot in Craig Matthews, they still find a way to pull out the win.

For the people that think I’m blinded by the Gators record, and feel that I’m showing no love to the Cudas, the 37-0 whooping that they laid on the Cudas with their back-up quarterback Paul Segin in week 9 showed me all I needed to see. Tailgators make it back-to-back 36-23.

Well that’s it for my round one playoff review. I’ll see you guys next week.

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PEACE!!!