The Appalachian representive, the Texan Bruisers, have been one of the favorites for Ballistic Bowl X most all season, but a month ago the idea that the team would face the D Crownholders seemed completely ridiculous. As we all know, that's no longer the case. Over the past three games, the Crownholders have seemed like a completely different team compared to the one that struggled through the last half the season and didn't clinch the GFD final playoff spot until the final week, backing in with a Zima loss. Are they really a different team? Let's accept the premise that trends and splits from the entire regular season won't show us how the "real Crownholders" might do against Texan this week. In that case, we need to answer two questions:
1) Which aspects of the Crownholders postseason performance represent significant improvement, and which aspects just show the team going back to their performance level at the end of the regular season?
2) What are D's current strengths and weaknesses, if we expect their improved postseason play to continue into the Ballistic Bowl, and how do these match up against the strengths and weaknesses of the Texan Bruisers?
Those are the two questions we're going to try to answer in the rest of this Ballistic Bowl preview.
In an attempt to answer our questions about the Crownholders, we will split the season into four parts:
•Weeks 1-6: This is when D was playing very well. The Crownholders went into week seven at 4-2.
•Weeks 7-9: Crownholders cooled down a bit, getting handled by Appalachian opponents, going 1-2
•Weeks 10-13: The Crownholders collapse, getting stomped on by Zima, Frost, and Pardue while beating the hapless Boot Hill Balut.
•Weeks 14-15: Crownholders get their act together in run through the GFD playoffs, beating Temp and frost to advance to the Ballistic Bowl.
The chart below show the teams performance broken into four seperate parts of the season. We've also taken those week-to-week ratings for Bruisers and separated offense and defense points as well, so you can get a better idea of how the teams played in each facet of the game during different parts of the season. We are not running the basic stats for the teams, because that will can easily be found in the official stat section. Unlike D, Texan has been basically the same team for the entire season. (The Bruisers graphs also represent total offense and defense)
The Crownholders have won two postseason games in two different ways. They beat Temp by playing a strong defensive game (67). The Frost game was all about decent defense (37.5) and decent offense (103.5), especially considering the poor play from Frost. When we look at the Crownholders offense over the course the season, it seems pretty clear that the offensive game has never really suffered an extended slump. What is interesting is weeks 7-9, the teams non division part of their schedule. In those weeks their offensive production was the best and their defensive output was their second best. They went 1-2 in those games.
The Texan Bruisers won this year with defense, although only ranked in the middle of the pack with 484 points, as you can see by the chart, they needed it to win. On weeks where the defense didn't perform well the team usually loss, a sharp contrast to the Crownholders. Weeks 7-9 they were 3-0, and the playoffs 2-0, all their best defensive performances fell into those games.
Let's look at each teams Value Rank based on each offensive and defensive position:
Texan's offensive value rank of 10.575 was evident in weeks 7-9 and the playoffs, resulting in all five games as a win. Even with a defensive value rank this season of 4.9, the teams offensive play was able to overcome those numbers and get wins, only with in depth analysis can one see the defense stepped up on those weeks. Compare those value ranks with this weeks opponent, the Crownholders was a 10.92 and 4.25 respectively. However, the teams defensive output varied little, but was at its best in weeks 1-6 in which the team was its best 4-2. It's pretty safe to say that the team that will win will have it's defense outplay the other by a significant margin.
Each team finished the season in overall Value rank, Texan at four (58.1) and D at five (54.2). The greatest margin of position for Value rank belongs to the Crownholders at the running back, leading all eSFL teams in that area with a 21.2 rating. The Texan team was also led by the running back position, however, their ranking was a mere 10.2, pretty weak compared to that of the Crownholders.
So, you ask how can the Crownholders have finished with a poor 6-7 regular season record with all these great numbers and seemingly a huge advantage in this game? They did and the don't. They finished 6-7 simply because their team performance relies on the 5th best ranked quarterback and the number 1 ranked running back, and the 9th rated tight end, period. Brady and Johnson are the only threats on the team, and a huge game is needed from the defense and tight end position for the upset win in Ballistic Bowl X.
The Texan Bruisers will feature the 4th ranked quarterback, the 2nd ranked tight end, 2nd ranked linebacker, 5th ranked defensive back. A solid core of mid ranking teammates round out a strong team that should easily handle the Crownholders, unless they get 50 from each from Johnson and Brady.
Enjoy this weeks games, I believe the Appalachian division will win their first Ballistic Bowl, 163 to 148.
Merry Christmas.
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