With a new season in the NDL, the smell of fresh cut grass and concession popcorn drift through the packed stadiums across the nation. A clean sense of opportunity for each team awaits them. New coaches, new teams, new conferences, new rivalries... Dreams of holding the Crystal Football tease the minds of many, but only the strong survive in this league. Who will it be? Who has what it takes to go through the gauntlet of the NDL, and raise the Coach's Trophy at the end of the year?
Throughout Season 27, we will spotlight one team per week, and will find out a little bit about what makes them tick as an NDL coach, and see who has the tools to take their team all the way to the promise land.
This week, we focus our attention on Pre-Season #23 Louisville Cardinals coach, razorback44.
Coach razor is starting his 7th season as an NDL Head Coach, and is leading Louisville for the 4th year in a row. In Season 26, he led the Cardinals to a 10-3 overall record, and was 6-1 in Conference. Here's a look at razor's schedule for Season 27:
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With a Quarterback like Teddy Bridgewater, it's hard to imagine that the razorback led Cardinals will be out of many games this season. A few key match ups on Louisville's schedule are vs UCF (ajalves), @ USF (nole4real) and @ UConn (driccio21). Coach ajalves had the #1 pick in the NDL 27 Draft, and went with the UCF Knights. They are a tough team, and this will be a great game for sure. I give the slight edge to Louisville here, especially because it's a home game. Louisville's game @ USF and coach Nole will be a difficult game to win. The fact that it is in South Florida would cause many to give USF the nod here. I, however, see Teddy Bridgewater pulling out some late game magic, giving Louisville the victory. Finally, The matchup between Lousiville and UConn... I just don't see UConn and coach driccio21 having enough firepower to keep up with the Cardinals. Louisville by 2 TDs.
Overall, Louisville is a contender, and coach razor is in a very good spot to make a run at a National Title. It won't be an easy road, and there will be some tight games along the way, but the Cardinals have a very good team and an experienced coach to do it.
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I had an opportunity to sit down with coach razor to ask him some questions...- How do you like the new American Athletic Conference Layout? Any changes you'd like to comment on?
I’m torn on how I feel about it. I’ve started watching a lot more “Big East” football since I took over Louisville two versions ago so I had kind of begun to get attached to the old roster. It is odd seeing all of these new teams on the schedule this season and just seems wrong.
However, I think UCF, Houston and SMU are good additions from a football standpoint if change has to happen. If you can’t keep Pitt and Syracuse then at least they added the three of the best available teams. I am excited to see the UCF-USF rivalry finally take off. It seems like there is a lot of bad blood between those two schools. That should be a fun one to follow in the future.
Video game wise, I’m absolutely stoked. The coaching roster for the AAC this season is phenomenal. I can’t see a bad game of on the list which is a great way to start of the year. All of the coaches are great people and play some good football. There should definitely be some exciting matchups all across the conference this season.
- Teddy Bridgewater will be an obvious weapon for the Cardinals offense in Season 27. Who are some other offensive players who some people may not know about yet?
There are playmakers all over the field this year for the Cards. I’m very excited to see what we can do with them schematically.
For starters, Louisville has a very nice pair of running backs in Dominique Brown and Senorise Perry. I like to rotate my running backs throughout the game so my opponents will definitely see both. Brown is my power back. He is my go-to guy first and foremost. He is the guy that is going to get the tough yards when I need them but he also has enough speed to break the long runs. Perry is more of the pure speed guy. He is dangerous out in the open with a wicked spin move.
We also have a pretty nice trio of wide receivers that we will try to spread the ball around to this season. They are all three great receivers, but DeVante Parker is the star of the group. At 6’3, 205, he has the size and speed to take over a ball game. He will definitely be Bridgewater’s favorite target this season.
- Who is your pick to take it all this year? (NDL Champ)
That’s a tough one. I think season one of a new game is always the hardest to peg. You just don’t know how the new changes made to the game are going to affect playing styles.
I’m an SEC homer even in the NDL so I picked Bama as my preseason #1. They are so ridiculously loaded this year that I think he will be very tough to beat.
My dark horse for the title would also be an SEC team. I wanted to say Twist at Arkansas originally but after his run to the NDL cup last year, I don’t think he will be sneaking up on anyone this season.
The coach that I plan on keeping an eye on this year is Sinacol at Texas A&M. I played him back when we were in the Farm together and he dealt me a loss in a very well-played game. I think between his skills and the talent on the A&M roster that he is definitely going to surprise some folks.
- Looking at your schedule, what is the one game that you have circled. Who are you REALLY trying to beat this year?
While I respect all of the new coaches in the AAC, the road to the championship obviously goes through UConn in this league. This is my fourth year at Louisville, and UConn has won outright or shared the title in all three previous seasons. Last year was my first time to beat him in three tries which allowed my Cards to tie the Huskies for the league title and go to Orange Bowl. I know he is going to come out gunning this year to avenge that loss. I’m going to have to play the perfect game to get past him again this year.
- Tell us a little about your football background, or sports in general. Where did you lace em up at? What positions? etc...
I am a huge college football fan. Some of my earliest childhood memories are of sitting on the coach with my dad on Saturday’s watching football from morning until bedtime. That only progressed after I went to Arkansas and was able to truly latch on to a team. Now I am a die-hard Hog fan and a Saturday afternoon in Razorback Stadium is my favorite place to be.
Growing up, I played football, basketball and ran cross country and track. In football, I mainly played fullback and a little bit of running back. My school was an old school wishbone offense minus the option. We just lined up and ran the ball 97% of the time between the tackles. 34 Dive, 43 Dive, 20 Belly. Really ground breaking schemes. Not fun to watch from the stands but I loved the ground and pound style of physically wearing down your opponent play-by-play.
That background has transitioned over to my gaming style. I prefer to play from under center and have a fullback on the field at all times if I can. However, unlike our offense in high school, I do prefer more of a balanced attack. Ideally, it would be a power run game complimented with the play action pass but that function has long been broken in the game so I stick to more of just traditional drop backs.
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I want to thank each of you for reading the 1st edition of the Season 27 NDL: Spotlight. I enjoy writing these, and contributing to the league. I'd also like to send a special thank you to coach razorback44 for taking some time out of his life to answer some questions for us. Be sure to read each edition of the Spotlight columns this season, and let me know what you think!
-Twist
