League News Update 3-9

Week 9 passes in the NFA with some interesting contests and scores. We'll break it down, coming up. First off the Yukon, Portland game. I know you're probably wondering why I'm reporting about this when it probably was a blow out, and it was 61-10, but this is defenitely one of those games where the score does not say it all. Yukon's pass defence looked horrible, and I mean really bad. If they play like they did this game they will lose to any team with a good defence. Portland's QB Brad White was playing the whole game injured and threw for 293 yards and a touchdown with only 1 interception. He had a passer rating of 71.2 and a completion percentage of 51. These stats are phenominal for any QB when playing one of the top overall defences in the NFA. Torry Mathis also threw 2 interceptions in the first quarter, one to rookie Marc Wolford (SS) and one to former Bar Harbor corner Marc Stabler. Despite these somewhat demeaning interceptions, Mathis put on another show with a passer rating of 111 and 6 touchdowns. He also threw for a total of 371 yards with a completion percentage of 55. These stats led to him being awarded the AFC Offensive player of the week award, an award he's no stranger to. After Mathis threw his second interception Yukon's coach pulled him out in favor of Ben Harris. While Harris only threw the ball 5 times, he looked a tad shaky passing today, however his running skills continue to impress as his only run gained a nice 18 yards. Yukon does an excellent job of sharing the ball, and today really showed that. 5 players had rushing yards, both runningbacks, 2 of Yukon's 3 quarterbacks and the fullback and they all rushed for a number at least in double digits. Receiving wise was incredible for spreading the ball. The Yukon Yeti threw to every possible elgible reciever except for the 3rd string running back. All 5 wide recievers, all 3 tight ends, the halfback and the full back, all caught passes. T.J. Oliver once again led Yukon with 129 yards and 3 thouchdowns. Mack Pleasant had some big gains and Richard Cummings was excellent, especially on the first passing play of the game in which Mathis and Cummings improvised a short route to capitalize on the defensive scheme resulting in a 60 yard plus touchdown. Brad White's one interception was thrown to Rich Francis, who's proven himself to be worthy of 3rd string corner and he's defenitely been getting a good number of picks lately. Another thing that seems minor, but really impressed me was Yukon's punter. He punted an average of 54.3 yards and 2 of his 3 were inside the 10 yardline and one of them ended up forcing a safty after Portland's runningback was stuffed in the end zone. His 3rd punt was a touchback. This was still a pretty strong outing for Yukon's offence and run defence, but the pass defence was just plain ugly. When you give up 451 total yards to a team like the Flyers, you know you need to start changing something on defence. Let's see what Yukon does as they've got a Super Bowl rematch next week as they take on the Topeka Oilers. Around the league we have a huge accusition this week. Former Atlantic Tide star QB Thomas Logan was signed by the Hartford Lightning this week. Orland Plummer is now going to start seeing the bench, but this move may save any hopes for the playoffs. Meanwhile the Tide are going to have to live with a bad QB as Cade Lewis has been placed on the IR and is out for the season, but this hasn't slowed them down one bit in their recent game against the tough West Virgina Wizards as they took the victory 40 to 17. The Sante Fe Bandits also clinched their very first win of the season in a South West game versus the Tuscan Kings. Meanwhile let's have a look at the Bar Harbor, Montana game this week. Bar Harbor took this one in a pretty easy win. Montana is defnitely not looking good right now. Darren Poole threw for 253 yards and 4 touchdowns despite his 2 interceptions. He finished the game with a completion percentage of 51 and a passer rating of 91.3. However, Poole didn't play most of the second half, he was injured about midway through the 3rd quarter. I don't know what the Captains' game plan is, but it clearly invloves keeping Adrian Justice on the bench (for what reason I don't know, but there's some weird rumor going around about it being something to do with the way he throws) because they put in 3rd string QB Shawn Warren. Warren had a rating of 39.6 with only one pass completion for 11 yards. He only threw 4 passes though, so he did pretty well with a completion rating of 25. At runningback Bar Harbor has rookie star Luther Hodges who rushed for 60 yards and a total average of 2.8. The passing game once again played a big role with 1st string Antwaan Peterson getting a total of 131 reception yards along with 3 touchdowns. Bar Harbor's other's receivers fared alright with last year's rookie Alex Gilbert following Peterson with a total of 5 receptions for 45 yards. These recent successes in the passing game have ranked Bar Harbor at 5th for passing offence in the NFA. Defensively Bar Harbor did decently considering their recent performance. While Avery Holmes was able to throw for 279 yards and 3 touchdowns, Bar Harbor absolutely put on a dominating performance with their run defence holding Montana to a overall total of 8 rushing yards on 8 attempts. Back on the pass defence front Holmes did throw 3 interceptions. Ryan Diamond picked one of these for a touchdown, he also had 6 tackles on the game. Bar Harbor middle line backer star Terrance Bryant put on an excellent performance once again with 2 interceptions and 5 tackles. Antwaan Peterson was named the player of the game, as Bar Harbor seems to continue their recent stretch of wins. Bar Harbor faces the Tribe next week in what looks to be a very intense and closely matched game. Both teams have the same record and this could be huge for determining the playoff picture in getting a wild card spot assuming Yukon continues their constant success. Week 9 wraps up and there are still 2 undefeated teams around.