The final whistle of the season has been blown and now we get to see some playoff football.
After weeks of playing at Darcy McGee and Arthur Therrien, we get to go back to our old stomping ground over at Le Ber and no one is happier than Willie. Yup, Willie will be eating pizza all day to make up for those lost weeks.
It’s been torture the last few weeks with the gosh darned heat and this weekend doesn’t seem to be much better, but it is only Monday and this turkey weather will change between now and then. I’m so burnt out from this heat, I can’t even put words to screen at this point, so Ill just jump into my recap for the week, which is just a rundown of D4 since that’s where I spent most of my day.
Recap
D1
Missed the 1 game being played.
Division 2
Missed out once again on a few exciting games.
Division 3
Phoenix vs Bines (13-39)
Ok, let me start by pointing out this was the last game of the day and we knew what needed to be done to get what we wanted in the playoffs. This game started with Bines scoring with ease from 33 yards out by David. Phoenix responded with a 31 yards TD to Justin with big scores from both teams, it looked like we might get a shootout. With their next drive, JF decided to show he could work the field and ate 7:30 off the clock while running 11 plays to score again. This is where I made a boo boo and cost Phoenix the game. To open the drive, I ran a play (ed’s note: bold strategy!) and on second down I thought the same route combination was going to be open on the other side, but it wasn’t. Albert and Simon switched what they were doing and because I stared the play down, it made an easy pick for Albert that he thought he was scoring on, but he got flagged on the 1. After Bines scored to make it a 20-7 game, I was thinking its OK we will go down score and get the ball to start the second half. That was all true except I left 27 seconds on the clock, which was enough time for Bines to score and put Phoenix over the 21 points so they could move up the rankings. At this point, the score was 27-13 Bines and with the second half underway I was trying different things, knowing it wouldn’t have any influence on the standings unless we gave up 58 points. Second half was a wash and didn’t matter for either team. (ed’s note: classic loser talk)
Division 4
Phoenix vs 28-3 (18-19)
This game was a shame as Phoenix had nothing to play for except beer that Nico pushed back until next season. Everyone knew nothing was on the line for us and when we went down and scored on our opening drive, in my head I was like this is easy and then 28-3 started to move the ball and make a few plays and before I knew it, they held a 19-6 lead with under 16 minutes left. After trading picks, Phoenix got back on track and scored on a 7 yard catch and run from Dave to cut the lead. Phoenix then forced a punt to get the ball back with under 8 minutes. This was a complete Vince drive, knowing I needed to get down and score but have time if we didn’t get the convert to get ball back. Vince scored his second TD of the game with 3:17 left. Time to play defense and get a stop to have a chance at it. When Nico ran for 7 yards to start the drive, it was a matter of letting clock run and allowing a first down on the next play then hope for a stop and use timeouts. That’s what we did, and we were able to get the ball back, but on the last play of the game Nico knocked the ball out of the air to get the win for 28-3.
Improbables vs Bandits (13-32)
Winner gets into playoffs and loser gets to stay home on Saturday and play NCAA 25 all day. Emmanuel put up a nice stat line going 13 of 19 for 129 yards with 3 TDs and 1 pick. What really helped Bandits win was their defense, Julian had 2 sacks and Franky and JP combined for 3 picks with each returning 1 for a TD. It also helped that they were able to double dip, meaning score before half and score to start the second half as well. This made the score 20-7 Bandits. As for Improbables, they didn’t go down without a fight. Mat did what he could and had it not been for those pick 6s the game was close. The game started to change in favor of Improbables when Nico started to rush for them. He got there fast with his hands up and ready to rack up a few sacks, two to be exact.
Drama Club vs FAD (27-24)
FAD has a new QB in Tristan who other than his 1 pick that Simon had and scored on was able to pick apart this Drama Club defense like it was government cheese (ed’s note: I have no idea what this means) as he completed 14 of 27 passes for 162 yards and 4 TDs to 1 pick. Ok, what makes it even worse for Drama Club was all the damage was done by Andre who scored 4 TDs and had 126 yards. An experienced team shouldn’t allow this. When it comes to Drama Club offensively they didn’t look great dropping a few key balls and not taking advantage when they should. What really worked for them, and it might be because FAD doesn’t have enough experience, but Simon was able to run at will and most of the times he ran there was green grass in front of him. I’ll tell you now that if FAD had more experience and knew what to do in key situations, they might have won this game.
Bouchers vs 100 Genies (19-32)
Felix had a monster game this week hauling in 13 passes for 80 yards along with 2 TDs and 1 1-point convert to go with his 3 tackles and 1 pick on defense. Gabriel Mercier was a beast once again throwing 5 TDs, running with power looking to truck a few defenders on his way to gaining 48yards on 5 carries, he also had 1 pick on defense. What makes Gabriel so dangerous is his arm as he can throw it 45 yards on a rope while running and you might think that he can only go deep, well when he goes short the ball is normally on target, it’s just a matter of if his players catch it or not. I don’t remember this, but the stats don’t lie, Clara had 2 picks on defense. Othmane is a force you need to be worried about on both sides of the ball. He collects sacks as if they were cans on the street. This week he was held to none, but made his presence felt scoring a 45-yard bomb to make it a 25-12 game with under 2 in the half. Lukas was able to march the 45 yards to score to make it a 6-point game for 100 Genies at half. Second half was boring no big plays and the only score was Kim from 6 yards out.
Mustard Tigers vs Warriors (30-12)
Let me start by giving a big shout out to Scott who turned 112 last week and looked good. Not only did Brian want to get him involved in the game, he was thinking he might get him his first ever TD. Well Brian ruined it and got Scott 2 TDs and from what Elliot was telling me, Scott hasn’t shut up about his impressive performance and its been 3 days since its happened. Look, at the end of the day Warriors made this a game in the first half because of their defense scoring twice on picks. Then in the second half they made a change at QB, and the backup ended up throwing 4 picks and kept giving Brain and his team a short field. Best play of the game had to be the pick by Olivier who as the rusher picked the quick slant off and was able to walk in for the score since we all know Brian isn’t chasing anyone down. Next season if Warriors come back, they need to pick who will be QB and leave it like that because switching in game doesn’t help anyone out.
Division 5
Missed out once again on a few exciting games.
Women’s
Missed out once again on a few exciting games.
Sorry about missing so many divisions this week. I was passed around so much in D4 this week that I now know (ed’s note: the rest of this sentence is redacted)
Studs & Duds
If you were expecting to see your name on my list this week you better have done something remarkable and stood out from the rest of the players. That or you can take the Hope route and just have senior moment and forget what you are doing temporarily. Yes, Kris, I’m calling you old. Now to see who made my list.
Studs
Division 1
- Alexis Ferrand 8 catches 85 yards, 1 TD, he made 2 tackles and had 2 picks on defense.
Division 2
- Alexandre Vallières 4 TDs and 100 yards on 8 catches.
Division 3
- Lucas Coveyduck 4 TDs on 11 catches for 63 yards.
Division 4
- André-Philippe Bertrand 4 TDs, 126 yar
ds and on defense he had 1 sack and 2 picks as well.
Division 5
- Remi Faugere 5 TD passes no picks and over 150 in the air as well.
Women’s
- Élisabeth Pelland 4 catches 4 TDs, 2 1-point converts with 76 total yards.
Duds
Division 1
- Rob White only getting 1 PD and wearing a shirt all day so his fans aren’t happy about that.
Division 2
- Stephen Harripersaud for monkeying up what could have been perfect game and throwing a pick to start the second half.
Division 3
- Kevin Kousaie for throwing 3 picks and not staying focused on this game and not looking towards next week.
Division 4
- (ed’s note: this was blank for some reason, so I will Kevin Kousaie is the D4 dud for leaving this blank)
Division 5
- Sniffers once again with the forfeit for not showing up.
Women’s
- Drama Club as a team losing 3 straight going into playoffs.
These are the last Studs of the season, but don’t worry, if your team made the playoffs and you ball the Canada goose out you might get to see your name on the list next week. Or you can not show up at all and just phone it in. Either way someone is going to ball out and someone is going to suck balls, who it will be depends on you and your performance.