Saturday wrap up

History was made Saturday night at the Prairie Capital Convention Center as the Springfield Stallions opened play against the Kalamazoo Explosion. The Stallions fought hard but lost 49-17. The game was much closer than the final score would indicate (more on that later). Overall the experience my family had at the game Saturday night was pretty positive. The boys had a great time during both the game, and watching the “Brawl between the Walls” wrestling matches after the game.

I’ll go through and grade each segment of the experience from Saturday night…

PCCC (grade: A)

We sat in the mezzanine – section 115, row C. My observations during the scrimmage were correct. The mezzanine is the best place to watch the game. I would have liked to have been closer to the center – but overall our seats were pretty good. The PCCC is going to make a good place to watch indoor football. The field was pretty cool looking – but needs a couple extra coats of paint in spots.

Concessions (grade: C-)

Concession prices were pretty reasonable. Hot dogs were $2.50, soda’s $2.00, pretzels $2.50. That’s a pretty comfortable pricing level for this kind of entertainment. The hot dogs were really good. Either that or I was really hungry. LOL. Either way, I was impressed with the quality of the food. My family each had a hot dog and soda and I got a couple of more soda’s and some pretzels before the wrestling. Everything was pretty good.

BUT. And that’s a big BUT.

MORE CONCESSION STANDS ARE NEEDED.

Wow. The lines most of the night were crazy. There weren’t any concessions on the second floor (bad move people), so we had to walk downstairs every time we wanted something. It looked like there was only one concession stand open. I may be wrong – but that’s what it looked like. And there weren’t ANY vendors in the crowd selling anything. Someone walking around selling soda or beer would have been nice. Team management needs to get on top of this and address the issue with the Convention Center folks ASAP. I would expect this issue to get rectified before the next game. If not, then the team will need to expect to lose some fans. People don’t want to spend half their night standing in line for concessions.

Atmosphere (grade: A+)

One of the things I noticed when researching the CIFL was their stated intention to create a family friendly atmosphere. This played big with me since I have two young boys. Previous professional franchises in the Springfield area have failed for this main reason (in my opinion). They’ve lost site of the demographics of the area. The atmosphere at the Stallions game on Saturday was great. The boys loved the fact that they played music from some of their favorite shows (Sesame Street, Spongebob). Our two year old giggled when the Sesame Street song came on. The cheerleaders did a decent job at halftime and during various parts of the game. I’d have liked to have seen more crowd interaction to keep fan interest in the game. Our section was trying to get “The Wave” going but didn’t have much success. The cheerleaders were giving out T-Shirts most of the night – although none made it up to the mezzanine from what I saw. They may want to try to change that for next game. Give everyone a shot at the free merchandise. They had some kids try to kick field goals at halftime for a shot at winning some cards to Kicks. That was fun to watch. The “Brawl between the Walls” wrestling event was fun. The boys really enjoyed the wrestling show. Some of the language used by the wrestlers was a little more PG-13 than I would have liked, but standard fare for that type of entertainment. The Stadium announcer really did a great job during the game. He had a high energy level for the entire game. I was really impressed. That added to the atmosphere immensely.

Team

Coaching (grade: B)

Coach Gade put a pretty good product on the field Saturday night. I won’t really argue with too many play calls – but I would like to see the running game used a little more next week vs. Port Huron. I think that QB Johnnie Cooper was expected to do a little too much on Saturday and as such it forced him to make some bad decisions. Overall the team was pretty disciplined. There seemed to be an issue with Cooper getting plays late in the game. Not sure what that was all about. That seemed to hurt the offensive flow in the 3rd quarter when the team was trying to mount a comeback attempt.

Defense

Line/Linebackers (grade: B-)

The final score wasn’t truly indicative of the play of the defense…..especially the D-Line and Linebackers. Several turnovers by the offense late in the game gave KMZoo really good field position and resulted in a couple of easy scores. Big props go out to the D-Line and Linebackers. Several key pass knockdowns by Winston Taylor and Donnie Moore contributed to some important defensive stops. The run defense was pretty impressive. I don’t have any numbers – but I would guess that most of the Explosions offense came via the air.

The Defense looked really tentative the first couple of plays – I guess that’s understandable being the first game. Things improved as the game went on.

DBacks (grade: C-)

I’m splitting the defense because were it not for the poor play of the defensive backs, the Stallions would have had a better chance to win the game. Several coverage lapses on deep routes/end zone routes allowed the KMZoo QB to get easy pickings on a couple of TD passes. I’m not sure what caused the coverage lapses – but it appeared from my viewpoint to be due to a lack of communication between the backs. I’d anticipate Coach Gade focusing on the DBacks this week in practice.

Offense (grade D)

To say that QB Johnnie Cooper had a tough game would be making an understatement. 5 interceptions and only 76 yards of passing just isn’t going to cut it. As I stated in my short summary after the game, some of the same timing issues that I saw during the Green/White Scrimmage surfaced Saturday night versus Kalamazoo. Cooper just appears to be holding on to the ball too long. Granted, the O-Line needs to do a little better job holding the pocket…but in this brand of football you just don’t have the time to take 5 step drops and make 3-4 reads. At most you have two steps and time to either pass or run. That’s it. I’m hoping that backup QB Dom Salvo gets a chance to show his stuff this next game against Port Huron. Salvo showed better decision making in the Green/White scrimmage. He wasn’t overly impressive in his very short stint Saturday night, but by that time the game was over…..he didn’t even get a chance to shake off the nerves.

Running Back George Wilson (#4) impressed me again during the game. He looked really good in the Green/White scrimmage a couple of weeks ago and didn’t disappoint Saturday night. I’m not sure how many carries he had – but it wasn’t near enough. As I said in the opening, I’m hoping that Wilson gets more looks next game. He’s got unbelievable talent. He takes hard hits and keeps on going as evidenced by his one touchdown run he had late in the game.

It’s lunchtime for me. I’ll finish later.