I'll cut to the chase and tell you that we lost. We really lost by 6 points, but I'll get to that later.
The pre-game was unbelievable since we played at home. They announced the whole team and they had fireworks and turned out all the lights in the arena. They followed everyone with a spotlight as they ran out onto the field.
We had a good crowd there. I think the final count was 6,700 or close to there. The crowd was awesome.
Anyway, we got the ball on our first possession and ran 6 out of our first 8 plays. Again, I don't know why we ran the ball that much, but we did and there was really nothing I could do about it. From most of my arena watching experience there has been a majority of passing plays. But. I have heard that the NIFL is notorious for running the ball because in the NIFL you only have to have 4 guys in the box instead of 5 guys in the box in Arena. Therefore, there would be more running in the NIFL because of less guys around the line of scrimmage. It also allows more teams in the NIFL play zone defense, whereas in the Arena leagues they almost have to play man to man. Let me tell you it is a lot easier throwing the ball against man to man than it is against a zone, especially in the indoor game where there is not as much space, obviously, than the outdoor game.
Back to the game, our first drive stalled inside the 10. We ran twice and play-action once and everything was a no go. Our first FG in Franchise history, blocked!!!
They took it right down and scored. Then we ended up scoring on our next possession on a running play. The game was kinda see-saw going back and forth but the Drillers had the advantage most of the game.
They took more of a lead in the second half. We had the ball down 6 with about 5 minutes left to go in the game and drove it down to inside their 10 again. But we didn't have any luck again near the goalline, and I'll take the blame for not scoring inside the 10 yard line. They ended up blitzing on 4th down right up the middle and smacked me just after I got the pass off, but the DB for Beaumont made a good play and knocked the ball down.
Then Beaumont decided they weren't done and instead of just running the clock out, because we didn't have any timeouts left. They kneeled the ball on the first 3 downs and called timeout with 2 seconds left in the game up 6 points. Then proceeded to throw a bomb into the endzone for a TD. It didn't piss me off too bad at the game, but it pissed a lot of other people off from Cincinnati and on our team. It made our coach mad too. But we go and play them down at their place in a few weeks, so we'll see what happens.
There is no excuse for losing a game at all. However, I think we will be all right as a team, because we only had 3 guys on our team that had ever played indoor ball before, and none of our coaches have ever coached the indoor game before, yet we were right there at the end with a chance to tie and take the lead. The team we played has had most of their players for 3 years and just got their receiver back that played in NFL Europe, Shockmain Davis, if anyone in Finland has ever heard of him.
So I was proud of our team and how we preformed in our first game ever, and I think we will be all right this season, after we get a few more games under our belts.
Next week we play another experienced team from St. Louis? River City at home on Saturday at 7:30.
Oh by the way, last week former NFL star Michael Irvin, from the Dallas Cowboys, stopped by to talk to our team. Our receivers' coach and offensive coordinator, Ax, coached him when he was at the University of Miami, and when we was at Dallas. It was cool to see a guy that I watched play football growing up walk into practice. I even got to toss a few balls to him. That was definitely a special treat.