Today was the opening day here at NDSU for intramural flag football. The Stockbridge Stallions took the field at 5:10 PM, and played until 6:00 PM, twenty minute halves, two of them.

We had seven guys to start the game, so seven-on-seven got tiring after a while. It was a precarious conversation for the whole team, and most importantly myself. I've been doing a strict upper body workout every M-W-F for the past week, and this past Monday and Wednesday were no exception. I wasn't in the mood to play quarterback with my arms and shoulders sore, but someone had to step up to the plate. . . so I did.

I was off to a rough start, the offense has four down lineman, and the defense has three. The other guys out muscled my offensive lineman and I was forced into throwing the ball away twice, and on my third throw I scrambled, started to panic and I threw the ball with two defenders in my face, one batted the ball away and the other caught the deflection and got the interception and took it back for a touchdown.

On defense I played defensive end. My friend (and resident) Nick at 5'4 lined up wide with me outside our nose tackle. I came across the quarterbacks blind side and rushed him right into Nick coming from the "power" end spot to get him for a 7 yard loss. Even at his size, Nick was able to make plays, and this was the first of three sacks. He's our Elvis Dumervil. Things took a turn for the worse when the defense was fooled on a lateral (cannot do regular hand offs) and we were caught off guard and the back scampered for a 20 yard touchdown.

I was a little pissed, I had been pancaked right after my hurry and Nick's sack on the last play because I opened my body up, but I knew that these guys who were athletic as hell were posers for the most part. I saw a weakness in the defense and I decided to pick on it. They left the middle of the field open for short dumps and patterns since they rushed three lineman and had the other four playing off the ball. I was able to go 5-7 on that drive and cap it off with a 15 yard strike on a crossing pattern over the middle and was able to convert the two point conversion on an option (lateral) to little Nick so we were up 7-6.

The game went back and forth for the rest of the first half and we ended it that way. Nick was able to register another sack and I had a few tipped passes at the line and several more pressures. Wasn't able to seal the deal like Nick though. I was calm and pleased with my first half performance. Unofficial, but I kept track in my head. . . I went 9 for 16 with a touchdown and an interception. I'd estimate about 75 yards too.

The second half proved to be detrimental to us. Some re-enforcements arrived but they were a little overwhelmed with the opposing offense. The opposing team were able to get up 12-7 on the opening possession, (twelve since they failed their conversion) and then we took the field. A new kid came and said he had some moves and could improve our offense, so I took his word for it and we did a little misdirection option and were able to get a good chunk of yards and a first down right away. A new center was in (I had four throughout the game) and a high snap went over my head and the ball was dead about 8 yards behind where we started. (Fumbles aren't live)

I wasn't able to get any completions and we were forced to punt. It's tough to pick up 20 yard first downs at a time when you have 28 yards to go and only two downs to realistically do it. But the great thing was, we stuffed their offense and Nick came up with his third sack and I finally got mine, so they had to punt, and they pinned us about 10 yards from our goal. We were able to pick up two first downs and we were halfway home until I was picked off a deflection from my own receivers hands in the endzone. I was disappointed, I yelled at my friend because I knew it wasn't a poor decision, he just couldn't haul it in.

I took myself and a few of the receivers out of the defensive rotation so we could sit and discuss a plan of attack next drive. Unfortunately, they were able to score, but didn't convert the extra point attempt so it was 18-7, so the game was within our reach.

We got the ball back, and on the second play of the drive after a successful lateral, I was able to hook up with my big receiver Joe for a 60 yard touchdown (45 of it was actually him running) on a nice comeback route after I escaped outside the pocket and hit him as the cornerback slipped and fell to the ground. We converted the extra point on a nice little dump off to Conrad so it was 18-14.

I probably made the stupidest mistake of the game, taking out my receivers (who played DB) out of the game again so we could draw up a play, and the defense was torched on a deep ball right after the return. Once again, they didn't convert, so we took the field down 24-14 with only four minutes left.

Unfortunately, I took a risk when I tried to hit Kameron on a deep post route that was picked off by the safety. It was about a 30 yard throw and I got a little too much underneath it and Kameron wasn't able to jump and get it. It was my fault, even though his jump was poorly timed.

I took myself out of the game, I didn't deserve to even play the last minute, and they scored right again when our defense took the field on another deep bomb that split our safeties, and they converted the XP.

31-14.

We had 20 seconds to go when Joe (the TD receiver) took my spot at QB and threw a deep ball to Kameron that he dropped on his way down the sideline. We lost then and there, but it was worth a shot to get our morale up.

I learned a lot today, and so did our team. I'm not sure whether or not I'll still be taking snaps at QB, even though I did lead us to the two TD drives (I left out some alternation drives where we had two other QB's) we scored. I just need to get comfortable with one center, and used to how he snaps. We also had only one guy over 200 pounds playing on the offensive line, so if we could get another big guy to protect my blind side, that'd be great.

Having to make throws on the run in flag football is too hard, since people will flow to that area of the field if you can't drop back a few steps and release. I wasn't necessarily pleased with my performance, but I surprised myself with pretty good pocket presence and the ability to move around and make plays.

This coming Tuesday before the game we're going to practice and get some solid plays down, and I'm going to work on some rapport with my center and receivers. If I can get a feeling for what they want to do, and what we should do - we'll be on the same page.

So yeah, 31-14 loss. Not too terrible, considering we played a bunch of super-athletics who admitted they had been practicing for two weeks and we were a rag-tag pick-up crew of 12 random guys.

I'll keep you guys posted. I thought you'd enjoy a little story here and there.

Wish the Stallions luck!