Sadly, as you may have already seen, we did some damage to ourselves this weekend. Up until today, our right hand looked (and felt) broken at least to a certain extent. While the swelling has gone down, the signs of some kind of deep bruising have gone up. Pain is at a minimum so we’re going to pound this write-up out. Apologies to anyone who wanted more in-depth coverage and specifically to Jojah, who was kind enough to invite our services, not expecting us to be debilitated by the end of Saturday.

We’re going to do things a little bit differently than usual since, by now, you surely know how the tournament turned out.

Florida

Much to the chagrin of any Gator Haters out there, Florida looked pretty strong this weekend. However, UF certainly did not look untouchable.

Pool Play

While Florida looked strong, they certainly didn’t look unstoppable. They were challenged in Pool Play by Virginia and South Carolina. UVA forced the Gators to take a nailbiting double game point victory home while USC kept the game close at 12-10.

The last time the Gators saw Night Train on the field was last season and the boys from Charlottesville suffered a 13-7 pounding at the hands of the eventual National Champs. The Gamecocks took an even heavier beating two seasons ago at Florida Warm Up, getting thrashed by UF 13-1.

Needless to say, Florida is missing Brodie Smith and Chris Gibson. However, the Gators look athletic all over the field and names like Nathan Sage and Glenn Lenberger are going to be commonly spoken over the course of the season.

Bracket Play

Whatever meaning we take away from the close games on Saturday for Florida, we have to take away some meaning from the blowouts on Sunday. Alabama never stood a chance and the Gators took home a 15-7 victory in quarterfinals. Texas closed the gap at the end of the game to make its semifinals loss look respectable at 15-10 but UF held up to a 7 point lead at certain points. Finally, in Finals, Virginia looked to be on its heels a lot more than the score shows. However, Night Train did better than most teams at forcing Florida into hucks that the Gators didn’t like. Unfortunately, when your team is athletic enough, margin for error on throws gets a lot larger.

As we say in the video (and others have said already) this seems to be a minorly different team when it comes to sportsmanship. However, we heard plenty of complaints about Florida calls. You can take both of those viewpoints for whatever you’d like.

This is a strong team up and down the roster. Cole Sullivan, Alex Hill and Alton Gaines are not going to create the mismatches all over the field that Brodie Smith and Chris Gibson did. However, UF showed that it was ready to use the bottom half of its roster when necessary and that bottom half showed that it was capable of making plays when called upon.

Virginia

Anyone who is surprised by UVA’s finish clearly wasn’t familiar with Night Train’s roster from last season and which players carried over into this season. Virginia graduated very few players and the advent of The Virginia Squires along with other valuable club experience indicates that UVA should have high hope for this season.

Pool Play

Virginia started off the day on a pretty sour note. According to the Twitter feed that was updating UVA’s status all weekend, a dispute about the time cap led to a double game point victory for South Carolina without either teams being aware of end of the game. Night Train apparently used its bye to collect itself afterwards and rolled Georgia Southern and Tennessee in the next two rounds. The momentum carried over into the final round as UVA received on double game point against Florida. Though Virginia didn’t pull out the win, it surely was a turn around game from the opening round.

Bracket Play

Virginia’s style of play is clearly dependent upon players who buy into the system and are multi-faceted in their skill sets. Though Matt King and Jim Boley are typically behind the disc, Night Train’s cutting style allows for other players to fill in at the handler spot. UVA also attempts to leave the middle of the field wide open for cutting space. This worked well for them all Sunday as they rolled former Regional rivals Georgia Tech and Georgia in prequarterfinals and quaretefinals, respectively.

However, when UNC-W came knocking, things got a little shaky. Virginia commanded a three score game for most of the game but when the Seamen brought their straight up/Clam defense to the field Virginia began to struggle. UNC-W forced its way back into the game and eventually tied things up at 10-10. Night Train put itself together in time to score two straight as that hardcap went on just before the final scoring huck went off, giving UVA the 12-10 victory.

Texas

We have to admit that we were very surprised to see Texas do as well as they did. That being said, TUFF showed that if Colorado thinks that it is going to walk to a Regional championship in Region 3, it has another thing coming.

Bracket Play

TUFF really wasn’t challenged at all throughout bracket play. This, doubtless, was in large part thanks to the play of Will Driscoll. Driscoll will clearly be key player for TUFF this year and his summer with Doublewide obviously put him in a position to affect play this season. His height and quickness makes him a tough matchup for any team. Obviously, the teams in Pool D had some difficulty matching up with him and the rest of Texas’ roster as no one got within 3 of Tuff the whole day.

Bracket Play

In the quarterfinals Texas handled upstart James Madison fairly easily but clearly ran into a wall when it finally met a team that could match up with it athletically, Florida. Florida’s defense put the brakes on the Texas attack and UT was out of the game early.

Texas is athletic and will challenge teams with its height and team discipline. As we mentioned in the preview, watching its vertical stack in action is a thing of beauty. It appears that last season is by no means the norm for TUFF.

UNC-Wilmington

The Seamen were the team that we actually had the biggest questions about coming into the tournament. Especially since coach Greg Vassar told us team leaders Jarrett Bowen and Stephen Bender were not going to be in Athens for the weekend. Imagine our surprise when they showed up on Saturday morning. It’s our theory that he was sandbagging us but the fact remains that Wilmington proved it was going to be a tough matchup with season.

Pool Play

Wilmington certainly seemed to suffer from a lack of calming leadership on the field during pool play. The Seamen played tight games against teams that they probably expected to beat soundly. We can certainly speak for LSU’s matchup with UNC-W when we say that the Seamen were making plenty of unforced errors during pool play. As a result, they squeaked out wins against LSU and JMU but recovered in time to manhandle Michigan State.

Bracket Play

UNC-W’s relatively easy win over South Carolina in the quarterfinals didn’t teach us much that we didn’t already know about the Seamen. They are still a cut above the rest of the NC/SC section but perhaps not as much a cut as they were last season. In the semifinals against Virginia, UNC-W lost a key regional matchup but also showed some lack of poise on the field as UVA jumped out to an early lead. However, just as they showed some lack of poise, they showed just as much fight, breaking out a tough to beat zone and clawing back into the game only to see UVA steal it away again at the end.

Wilmington will probably take away plenty of things to improve on from this weekend. Unfortunately for its Regional opponents, we have no doubt that under the leadership of Vassar and Tully Beatty, the Seamen will be much improved come springtime. The team has plenty of assets, using them was its only obstacle this weekend.

Obviously we didn’t have time to preview every team in the field. Our pools and seeds post discussed a little news on each team but we wanted to go ahead and give the briefest of thoughts in a more news-like manner on some of the more notable players, occurrences and oddities of the teams attending. In alphabetical order.

Alabama – We mentioned Tim Brady earlier and Bama will be looking to utilize a vertical stack that allows Brady to use space effectively. Gray Lloyd of Tanasi is coaching Bama and he has definitely implemented a system in Tuscaloosa. Brady is the playmaker and the players around him know best how to help him make plays. This creates a dangerous opponent for any team.

Clemson – The Joint Chiefs are missing Ben Slade this year and that will certainly hurt. However, Slade is still a prominent fixture at the program as a coach. I’d be surprised if he wasn’t on the sidelines this weekend and even more surprised if any of the members of the current team would be slow to cite his influence as a huge part of their success. Clemson is doing its best to build up a foundation for a program that should be long running and decently successful. Perhaps this is the year that Clemson breaks from the middle of the road teams and separates itself into a more elite status.

Emory - We only just recently found out why Emory’s team name is Juice. You should figure it out as well. Guaranteed to make you chuckle. Apparently, Juice picked up Michael Arenson from Minnesota and Michael Banning from Notre Dame this year. While that may create some confusion with all the Michaels running around, those two are enough to take Emory from a lower-level team to a potential Regional team.

Florida State – FSU lost Daniel Petronio and anyone who has played in the AC in the last couple of years will tell you that is a HUGE loss. Also, FSU’s record last season when he wasn’t around was starkly worse than it was when he was around. Hopefully, the adversity of playing without him while he was still eligible has prepared DUF for the adversity of playing without him for a whole season.

Kennesaw State – Taylor “Tree” Goforth is still there as well as not-at-all-identical twins Derek and Sean O’Kelley. KSU is bringing experience and talent back this season and will be a tough matchup for anyone. The Georgia/East Tennessee Conference tournament is going to be a brawl.

Louisiana State – Insider info tells us that LSU is not going to be at full strength by any means this weekend. The talent that Purple Haze has is pretty incredible considering the team didn’t even win its section (the historically weak Bama section) last season. It will be an interesting story line all season to see if LSU can put things together for a long enough time period to be contenders in its new Region.

Michigan State – Burning Couch is brining back just about everyone from the team that lost in Regional finals and then the game to go last season. This team is probably expecting big things and so they should be.

South Carolina – It’s hard to believe that this team only started its program 10 years ago. The Gamecocks finished third at the Wolfpack Invite and announced their arrival in a new conference and region. We’re more excited that they are attending CCC than any other team. (However, we may be slightly biased) USC lost two players that have been fixtures in its program for the last three years and it will be interesting to see how new leadership changes things this season.

Tennessee - The one word that comes to mind when thinking about Tennessee Ultimate is disciplined. Chris Mullinix and Phil Brock are apparently back and for a team that showed it is talented at UOA SECs, that is pretty dangerous news indeed. Agent Orange will be adding to the brawl at the Georgia/East Tennessee Conference tournament just as much as any other team. If UT can put everything together this season, they may have a shot at Nationals.

Virginia – We’re sure that we aren’t saying anything revolutionary when we say that Night Train was severely disappointed with its 5th in the Region finish last season. However, UVA is bringing back even more players from last season than we thought and some, like Andrew Wilkes with PoNY, with big-time club experience. There’s no doubt that UVA will be glad to not see Georgia and Florida at Regionals this year and it certainly has a good shot at Nationals. However, there is no doubt that some teams in North Carolina will have something to say about that.

Texas TUFF from 2009-2010 poses together. Photo courtesy of http://texasultimate.com

A short look at Texas’ history page will leave one wondering what happened to TUFF in 2010. Did the team disband? As far as the results are concerned, the team might as well have. After winning USAU South Regionals for five straight years, UT didn’t even make it to Nationals in 2010. It all started at CCC 2009, where TUFF began Saturday 0-3.

The team went on to have what can easily be described as its most disappointing year in anyone’s recent memory. While being the only group of TUFF players to not go to Nationals since 2004 would typically be an extremely draining experience. UT’s squad kept the faith and knew that last season was a learning experience.

“While no one likes losing, I don’t think that the process of rebuilding wore on the team because the team had faith in their abilities and in the team’s leadership,” TUFF coach Calvin Lin wrote to us. “While we’ve lost some key players from last year, we’ll be sending a more experienced team to CCC this year, so we’re hoping for a few more wins this year.”

Where does that faith come from though. Amidst the losingest season in six years, how to new and experienced players keep plowing away, knowing that their season will essentially be lost to the TUFF record books in comparison to Semi or Quarterfinal finishes in 4 out of last 5 seasons? It’s easy, the Texas Ultimate Frisbee Friends knew something that everyone else didn’t.

“I think that most people didn’t realize how talented our team was last year,” Lin wrote. “Because of our inexperience and because of a slew of injuries to almost all of our most experienced players, we didn’t really put everything together until Regionals.  In fact, we still had some key players hurt at Regionals, and I really felt that if we had made it out of regionals, we would have surprised some people at Nationals.”

Of course, there were some people that noticed the talent on Texas’ roster. TUFF boasts both of the reigning Freshman of the Year players, Will Driscoll and Chris Brooks. Though Brooks is sitting out the fall with a torn ACL, Lin is confident that several players from Texas will be impressing spectators and opponents alike this weekend.

“Will Driscoll, has really improved after playing with Doublewide this fall,” Lin wrote. “Our two captains, Ben Hamilton and Andrew Klotz, will probably surprise people the most at CCC, just because most people outside of our team don’t who they are.”

Other than fresh faces, Texas will not be doing anything that surprises anyone this season. The team has well-known dedication to the vertical stack and Lin doesn’t expect that to change any time soon. TUFF will depend on its athleticism and tenacity to generate blocks in a hard man-to-man defense. Both of those qualities can be well observed from this video, a recap of Texas’ matchup with Wisconsin at 2009 Nationals.

TUFF has a tough road ahead of it. Texas has drawn a pool play matchup with Georgia Tech, the team that all of the brightest minds in Ultimate is picking to win the tournament. To say the least, this weekend will be a good measurement of whether or not TUFF’s dedication to its program and leadership was well placed or if last season was just the beginning of a dangerous downward spiral.

Georgia Tech poses after a winning 2010 USAU GA/SC Sectionals. Photo courtesy of Facebookstalking.

If there is one team in the new South Region that isn’t as worried about replacing big name players it’s Georgia Tech. In spite of the fact that Tech lost one player who currently is counted among the elite players on Chain Lightning’s roster, Tech will still have 3 of 8 main O-line players and a big chunk of its D-line players. With that knowledge in mind, Tribe is expecting big things from this season.

Part of those big expectations comes from having talent all over the board. It helps to have your big players who can pull through in any and every situation. It also helps to have your role players who know how to facilitate the top level guys and are generally mistake free. Finally, you need to have some scrubs that have the ability to get in for a couple of points every game and not do anything stupid, just to give those higher level players a couple of points on the sideline.

Tech has got all three of those categories covered. Firstly they bring captains Nick Lance and Hogan McHugh to the table.

Georgia Tech's Hogan McHugh makes his presence known in Finals at USAU GA/SC 2010 Sectionals. Photo courtesy of facebookstalking. Taken by Chad Borer.

McHugh is a deep threat that compliments the typically conservative Tech team well. It seems that, whenever a deep shot is going up from Tribe’s offense. McHugh is somewhere in the vicinity. He has been a staple in the Atlanta AFDC scene since early in his career and the time he spent around elite players rubbed off quickly. McHugh has throws to compliment his ups and his timing in GT’s bread-and-butter vertical stack is impeccable.

If it’s common to see McHugh in the endzone with the disc, it’s just as common to see Lance sending it there. Lance has evolved from an athletic freak to an all around player that was making waves in the club scene in only his second season with Chain Lightning.

“Nick Lance is a freak,” McHugh wrote to us. “I’ve never seen anybody cover him effectively and his throws and athleticism just keep getting better. A lot of our plays and zones are designed to let him either get the disc or be in position to generate Ds. Its invaluable to have somebody that you know will always be open and can put the disc anywhere on the field, regardless of the mark.”

Look no further than this tape from Georgia Tech’s matchup with Cornell at College Terminus 2010 to see Lance in action. (#11, white hat with red bill) Admittedly, this is a pretty sloppy game from Tech and Lance. However, it doesn’t take an expert to see that his play is pivotal to Tribe’s performance and that he has all the tools necessary.

In the middle of the pack on Tech’s roster reside a gamut of players who know how to play within in a system and do what it takes to generate a win. Multiple times during our exchange with McHugh he referenced Georgia Tech’s B-team (the video is a year old and the commentary is very… Georgia Tech ish? However, it’s clear the team has developed an identity and plenty of skills) and how its development of players has become a pivotal point to Tribe’s success.

Finally, Tech is located right in the heart of one of Ultimate’s hotbeds, Atlanta. While Atlanta doesn’t offer quite the club scene that Seattle does, it does contribute to the team in a couple of facets. One being the final component of talent, rookies who can spell vets without making big errors.

“We gained some freshmen who played a little in high school which is awesome,” McHugh wrote. “They all have a lot of potential, improve every practice, and will get to play a good amount this season.”

The pieces are falling together for Tech and Tribe knows that this year is an opportunity to shine. After falling to in-state rival UGA in the game-to-go to Nationals on double game point last year at Regionals, GT is hungry for more this year. McHugh minces no words about where Tribe’s eyes are set.

“Nationals is definitely the goal,” McHugh wrote. “Also, we really want to defend our sectional title. Last year we won the section for the first time it at least 10 years. With the new regions, and each only having one definite bid, we need to have a strong regular season and try to help get another bid. I think there is a lot of parity in the new region, so it will be exciting to see how everything plays out.”

Caleb Edwards sends a backhand around his defender at CCC 2009. Photo courtesy of Chad Borer.

Just like a couple of other previews we’ve mentioned, the preview of Georgia’s Ultimate team is going to be more focused on who isn’t there anymore than who is still there. Jojah has become a staple of the Nationals scene and seems to reload on talent every year no matter who leaves but there is no question that last year’s graduating class was one of its best in recent history.

We won’t tell you everyone Georgia is missing this year but for starters there is Rob Herrig, if you saw Georgia play any time in the last two seasons, than you saw the older of the two Herrig brothers picking up the disc. Herrig was a confident thrower for the team and a dependable reset. On top of that, he was a leader on the field that saw just as much playing time as anyone else on the team. Don’t take our word for it, take a look at these two videos (here and here). We’ll give you one guess who it is that’s picking up the disc in both of them.

Jojah will also be missing Taylor Nilan. Nilan has seen and done it all for the UGA program over the last five years. He began his career on the B-team and worked his way up to the A-squad as a d-liner before finally becoming one of the more prominent players on the team. As a cutter, defender and thrower Nilan was hard to match. He’s gotten long looks from the club scene too, being the last player cut from Chain’s roster both of the last two seasons. Once again, don’t take our word for it, look for #20 in the black arm band… the one that gets punched in the face and uncorks the 80 yard back hand to beat Oregon in this video. (UGA footage starts at 14:00 but you probably should just watch the whole thing.)

Finally there is Peter Dempsey, we could go on and on about how much Georgia is going to miss this and this or we could tell you how high he finished in the Callahan voting or the fact that he has been first team All-Region for the past three years but really, these things start to get repetitive. Suffice it to say that Dempsey belongs in the same category as the Deavers, Tunnells, Hammonds and Swansons as one of the greatest Ultimate players to ever come out of UGA.

Of course, all of this is old news to the Jojah players that have been left behind. All in a seasons work for new captain Caleb Edwards.

“We definitely lost some big time players, but that happens to every team at some point,” Edwards wrote to us in an e-mail. “Fortunately, everyone that is not a rookie has experience playing at nationals and knows what it takes to make it there.  Everyone is putting in the work to make it to Nationals again.”

Well, not everyone loses players of that caliber every season. Seeing as not everyone has players of that caliber every season. However, Edwards makes it clear that he still believes UGA has the players to make it back to Nationals. Starting with senior Matt Bailey who, though studying abroad this weekend, is ready to play a huge role on Georgia’s team this season.

Edwards, Charlie Herrig and Tom Ball are all equally prepared to step up their contribution to the team but Edwards considered this to be the best tryout for UGA-A in recent history and expects it to show on the field.

Tryouts went great and we had a hard time making the final cuts,” Edwards said. “High school ultimate is really growing in the Atlanta area, so a lot of guys already have a lot of experience when they came to tryouts.  Also, our B team has been doing a great job developing players and getting them ready to play for the A team.”

The host team has a lot to prove as it will be meeting with a new Regional rival during pool play in Alabama, last year’s Bama Sectional Champion. Edwards believes that his team, despite not playing in a competitive tournament yet this fall, is ready for that challenge.

“We have been working hard at practice,” Edwards wrote. “The whole team is pumped to get to play at CCC.”

UNCW poses together after qualifying for Nationals at 2010 AC Regionals. Photo courtesy of Greg Vassar

You’re going to begin to notice a theme among our previews for former AC Regional teams, that theme is a reloading of talent. Most of the top teams at CCC are going to be missing faces that have become staples around the college scene. UNCW is definitely one of those teams. The Seamen lost Rusty Ingold-Smith and Todd Doroski to graduation. While Doroski might not be as familiar of a name to some readers, no one can deny the Seamen are going to miss this.

“Rusty is irreplaceable,” UNCW coach Greg Vassar wrote to us. “He was a really special player and there’s no way we can ask anyone to fill his shoes.  Todd Doroski was such an experienced player and an incredible athlete.  We may have players with that kind of athleticism but only a few players have the experience he had.”

Ingold-Smith has been the driving force behind UNCW’s recent success but Vassar and the rest of the team are taking a different approach to rebuilding than Florida. Instead of trying to find people to fill the gaps that graduating players left, the Seamen plan on creating a system that fits the players they have now.

“We don’t really want people to try and replace other people,” Vassar wrote. “Instead, we look for players to bring their skills to those positions and put them on the field to gain experience and develop into their own.”

However, one thing that you can guarantee will be the same is the fiery passion that Wilmington brings to the field every game. While Vassar is trying to help the team form to its players, the players are getting indoctrinated with the competitive spirit that keeps UNCW in every game and often flusters opponents.

“As far as intensity goes, I think that comes from being competitive and that’s also something we try and teach in practice,” Vassar wrote. “We usually have at least one competition type drill per practice, if not more.  That’s a great way to see who has the intensity you need to have success come tournament time.”

Aside from intensity, Vassar knows that the strength of his team is going to be based on the play of his veteran handler crew. Seniors Dave Macurak, James Hill, Steve Taylor and graduate student Russ Causley represent an experienced and cohesive unit that keep the disc consistently moving upfield. Other than those players though, Vassar knows that the Seamen have a long way to go before they’re ready to make another run at Nationals.

“I think we can put out a line that will compete with anyone for a game but how good we are will depend how we develop the new and second year players we have,” Vassar wrote. “We’ve also got a long ways to go to develop balance and not rely on 50/50 deep throws and athleticism.”

This weekend will be a good measurement for UNCW to see how far they’ve come in preparing those second year players for success. Ingold-Smith and Vassar and many others put in a lot of time into rebuilding UNCW into the elite level team that it once was. It’s hard to believe that just the departure of a few players could tear down that work. If we were facing the Seamen at any point this year, we would be prepared for a battle.

Update: We’d like to add a note to this preview. Greg Vassar wanted us to mention Tully Beatty, who has also been coaching UNCW for the last couple of years. According to Vassar, Beatty is just as responsible for the team’s recent success as anyone else. Vassar tried to take the blame for letting that slip his mind, however, having met Beatty and knowing that he was the Coach of the Year in the AC last year, we certainly should have had the wherewithal to mention him.

Pools and seeds are up and this is going to be a tough one to predict but we’re going to take a stab at it anyway. All we know, is that for a team to win this tournament someone is going to have to put their team on his back… though.

Out of all the pools in this tournament, this is the one that we think is most likely to go exactly to seed. Obviously, we know little to nothing about any of these teams as Florida is recovering from losing Brodie Smith and Chris Gibson and UVA is working on replacing its top player and former captain, Tyler Conger.

We would imagine that the 1v2 game and the 4v5 games are going to be barn burners. Expect UVA to come out disciplined against Florida in hopes of putting itself in a good position for Sunday. Georgia Southern and South Carolina have been long time Sectional rivals but the redraw changes all of that. That being said, the two always play each other well and despite USC’s strong early showing this season, one can’t help but believe that Southern will be attempting to avenge its season ending loss at the hands of the Gamecocks from last season.

We will all but guarantee that Florida and UVA will advance and the third place spot that will send a team to prequarters comes down to whether or not USC or GSU will be able to upend Tennessee. The schedule favors Southern as the Eagles will be facing Agent Orange off of a bye at the end of the day. To be honest, we don’t see it happening. Don’t get us wrong, Tennessee can be had but between club experience with Tanasi and overall experience, UT has the edge over the other two programs.

Advance:

Florida, Virginia, Tennessee

UNCW is another team that is looking to replace a couple of big name players coming in to this season. On the other hand, Michigan State is bringing just about its entire roster back from last season. Burning Couch has to make a long trip and one would assume that some of its team won’t be along for the ride which makes it tough to call this a potential upset but the Seamen will be relying on several players to lead the team that haven’t had to take up that role yet. With that in mind, UNCW did roll the competition at The Wolfpack Invite. It appears that so far, its new leadership has done just fine.

LSU and FSU have a chance to take out either of the top two teams. Both DUF and LSU are teams that, when on, are tough to deal with no matter what team lines up across from them. If Burning Couch comes out flat to start the day or the Seamen let James Madison stick around too long either team could be facing an early upset.

11:00 AM is going to be awfully early for FSU and LSU to start battling it out for third but both teams will recognize the importance of a win against their new regional rival. There is a chance for a lot of parity in this pool and the dogfight is going to start early.

We don’t know much about James Madison but at the Wolfpack Invite JMU won the games it should have by a lot and lost by slim margins. The team is also high after advancing to UOA Nationals in two weekends. While that may distract, we can’t imagine that the Hellfish will lie down for anybody in this pool and if LSU or Florida State overlook this five seed it could spell trouble.

Advance:

UNCW, Michigan State, LSU/FSU (Coin Flip)

Insider info tells us Georgia is going to be missing some big guns this weekend. That spells trouble for Jojah who is going to have a completely different look from the last two years with Peter Dempsey, Taylor Nilan and Rob Herrig departed for greener pastures. If a one seed is going to go down on Saturday, it very well may be the host team.

As if that wasn’t enough trouble for you, UNC has looked downright terrible relative to Darkside’s typical expectations so far this fall. UNC has lost big to several teams that are seeded much lower at this tournament, including South Carolina, Clemson and Florida State.

Kennesaw State is always a darkhorse to do well and that’s largely due to the presence of Taylor “Tree” Goforth. Goforth spent this summer learning from some bright minds after he made the roster of Chain Lightning. We had the displeasure of being sky’d on numerous occasions by Goforth during our short time at South Carolina and he may be the best individual player in the field this year. He certainly will create some serious matchup problems for Alabama and Georgia. Not to mention, if his time with Chain has made him half as dangerous behind the disc as he is downfield, he could be a lot of fun to watch.

We’ve heard that teams in the new South region are glad to be rid of NC and Virginia in exchange for the Bama section but if Georgia or UNC thinks they are going to walk all over the Crimson Tide then they’ve got another thing coming. Since Alabama’s football hopes were thrown out the window last weekend, we’d imagine most of the team will be making the trip to Athens and that includes one of the better individual players at the tournament, Tim Brady. Bama knows where its bread is buttered and if Brady can consistently get the disc, he will be distributing it all over to the rest of the boys from Tuscaloosa could make some noise in what appears to be the weakest pool in the tournament.

Finally, we don’t anything about William and Mary other than the fact it struggled mightily at 2010 AC Regionals. There’s plenty of parity at the top of this pool but W&M would have to have a pretty surprising performance to eek out a win on Saturday.

Advance:

Kennesaw State, Georgia, Alabama

Pool D is a little easier to call in our opinion. There’s nearly no doubt that the 1,2,3 spots will fall to the teams that are already seeded 1, 2 and 3. Nick Lance from Georgia Tech looked unreal at points for Chain this season and his ability to put the disc anywhere on the field, any way you want it, opens up GT’s offense like few in the college game. Meanwhile, Texas is back after a tough season with the first and second team FOTYs from the former South Region in Chris Brooks and Will Driscoll. Finally, Clemson has shown that it is ready to challenge anyone in its new region by taking on all comers at the UOA ACC tournament earlier this fall.

On the other hand, Emory and Vanderbilt just don’t have the fire power to stick with that top three. These two will likely present a good match for each other too see who stays away from being at the bottom of this pool.

Advance:

Georgia Tech, Clemson, Texas

This gives us an A Bracket made up of:

Florida, Virginia, Tennessee, UNCW, Michigan State, FSU/LSU, Kennesaw State, Georgia, Alabama, Georgia Tech, Clemson and Texas

Prequarters:

Virginia vs. Texas, Michigan State vs. Alabama, Georgia vs. FSU/LSU and Clemson vs. Tennessee

Quarters

Florida vs. Tennessee, UNCW vs. Georgia, Kennesaw State vs. Michigan State and Virginia vs. Georgia Tech

Semis

Florida vs. Georgia Tech and UNCW vs. Michigan State

Finals

Georgia Tech vs. Michigan State

Champs

Georgia Tech

Boom, there’s really not even a point in playing the tournament because now you know how it’s going to go. This is our first time ever prognosticating out an entire tournament on paper. Hopefully this made sense and hopefully we get some predictions right. Feel free to discuss and riot in the comments.

And then it ended with more hype.

However, the fall of 2010 has been a bit quieter for the Gators. Anyone would be hard pressed to find a team from Nationals that lost a larger percentage of its scoring this offseason than Florida. The departure of Chris Gibson and Brodie Smith will hurt UF tremendously. Just take a look at this video around the 2:25 mark to see what Smith did last season during his team’s Championship run. No one is more aware of this negative impact than the remaining third of Florida’s 3-headed monster, graduate student Cole Sullivan.

“We have seven of our ten players who saw playing time at nationals coming back, so on paper that looks promising,” Sullivan wrote to us. “However, two of those [three departed players were] our best two players.”

That being said, Florida still has faith in its athletes’ ability to work the disc. Though there are plenty of people who expect very little from the Gators this season, Sullivan doesn’t expect things to look very different from last year.

“As of now, we are still trying to do the whole, ‘our 3 best players touch it as much as possible’ thing,” Sullivan wrote.

He does know that the rest of the Ultimate scene doesn’t expect a whole lot from the Gators this year, especially considering the team is still not even six months removed from a National Title. Sullivan is just fine with that.

“I love to fly under the radar. We talked shit and won everything [in the regular season] in ’09, and where did that get us?” Sullivan wrote. “Every team played they hardest against us, even if they were outmatched, just to prove a point, and it took a toll on our ability to play long days. Last year, we got crushed at Centex, and crushed at Stanford, and people thought we were a joke going into the series. PERFECT. That’s what we really want. I hope teams assume that since we lost Brodie and Chris, that we are chumps this year.”

Though things might not be changing when tournaments start, there are some major differences surrounding Florida’s college season this year. The first being the college players prevalence on Gainesville club team Vicious Cycle this season. There are few things that help college players get better than competing in the club series with a good team. The Gators recognized an opportunity to do just that and took advantage, winning Florida Sectionals and finishing one spot away from Nationals at South Regionals.

“We wanted to make a push for the three seed out of our region, knowing it was either us or Tanasi,” Sullivan wrote. “We beat them in the first game, but they won when it counted and took the 3-4 backdoor game. A lot of college guys played on that team and got some great experience for the upcoming year, myself included. We only had about 4 local Gainesville guys play with us, so it was still a great learning experience for about 10 or so of our returning and new guys.”

Another difference this season will be the presence of players in the Gainesville area like Brodie Smith. Although some of Florida’s greats have moved on to different places, Smith and a few others have stuck around and occasionally lend a hand to the team in preparing for the season.

“We still have some old guys from ’08 and ’07 who are around, but they only come out every so often,” Sullivan said. “Brodie stuck around from last year, but he is taking a back seat and letting Alton [Gaines], Alex [Hill] and I run the show. He’ll cleat up and come out and just trash the n00bs every now and then, so then the three of us can point to him and say, “See, that’s what you all have the potential to do, and what you will be competing against.” Of course I doubt they will ever see a match-up like Brodie, but it gets them pumped up and willing to learn.”

Even with all that on his team’s side, Sullivan still thinks that the Gators have a mountain to climb when it comes to preparing new players to contribute.

“We take people who have never played before, stick a jersey on them, and expect them to know the space on the field and how to defend different types of throws and cuts… it’s a lot for them to handle,” Sullivan wrote. “We just recruit raw talent, and just hope that something clicks for them sooner or later (sooner is preferred). There are no youth leagues down here so all we get are people who don’t even know what a flick is, but they are fast as hell or 6’3 with some hops. Our goal is that hopefully one or two of them will be able to contribute by spring, and something will click in our sophomores and juniors heads that will get us up to a solid 10-12 man rotation by May.”

Seeing as Florida has yet to play in a fall tournament it will be measuring its new look against outside competition for the first time this weekend. While the questions will abound and the team itself isn’t exactly sure how things are going to look until they step on the field, one thing is for sure, out of all the teams that are going to be playing at CCC and every other tournament this season, Florida is the only one that finished its season last year by taking a picture like this:

Photo courtesy of facebookstalking

You can take that hype for whatever it’s worth.

Photo courtesy of UGA Ultimate

It’s that time again folks. The boys at Georgia have invited us back to cover their premier tournament, The Classic City Classic. This time we’re playing but hopefully that won’t hamper coverage too much.

We have plenty of previews on the way. We plan on bringing you round by round score updates on Saturday and, when/if LSU drops from competition on Sunday, point by point score updates. There will also be tournament recaps but those might fall to early next week if playing leaves us too tired to work them out on Saturday and Sunday nights.

Also, be sure to use Leaguevine as a way to keep track of what’s going on in Athens. The site worked beautifully during the club championships and, while it may not as thorough for CCC, we can only imagine it’ll do the same this weekend.

It looks like the tournament is going to be as great as it usually is and if the weathermen know anything (they usually don’t) we won’t have to deal with anything like we did last year.

Here’s the forecast for those of you too lazy to look it up yourselves.

Courtesy of http://weather.com

HERE WE GO!

Apologies for the delay in the recap. We were hoping to find some photos of the observers and players in action. Alas, it was not to be. We did, however, find the above video. It’s a highlight reel from Auburn from the weekend. You can get a glimpse at the observers in action in various shots.

This weekend was, in our opinion, a good showing of some of what Ultimate could potentially become if all the powers-that-be get their heads and acts together and take the best of all worlds. It’s clear that Ultimate is moving towards a more observer based officiation system. Anyone who plays Ultimate at any kind of competitive level should be for this. It makes NO sense to avoid it.

Now, the current question is: How much of the UOA’s system should or should not be adopted into the future of Ultimate?

The General Feel

We were surprised by the general feel of the tournament. We had never played under any kind of experimental rules or observer roles. We half expected to be able to feel like we were in the middle of a revolution or that we were playing an entirely different game.

This was simply not the case, the tournament felt like every other tournament we’d ever played in, if not less important simply because of the reduced size. The observers were in the back of our mind for the vast majority of the tournament and that’s the way that it should be.

It’s possible that Mike Geric’s reputation and vocal nature on RSD simply preceded him and led us to believe that the observers would be much more “in-your-face” with their new rules and regulations. Our experience was quite the opposite though. The rule changes, when implemented, were quite subtle and easy to adjust to.

Team Performance

As far as assessing the strength of the teams at the tournament, the fact that pool play finished with a three way tie only shows that the top teams attending were all relatively evenly matched.

From the LSU perspective, we felt it was clear that LSU was the best team in the field on Saturday. The score against Tennessee doesn’t really tell the story of the game. In the second half LSU had a 10-5 lead before allowing five straight breaks from Agent Orange on the following turnovers, turf, drop, drop, turf, overthrow (not on a huck). Tennessee took advantage and got back into the game before LSU closed out the game on a 5-2 run.

However, LSU couldn’t hang with opposing teams on Sunday. It might have been legs, it might have been the absence of a few key players but Sunday LSU dropped two 15-12 games that didn’t feel as close as the scores.

Alabama is strong again this year. The Tide is a team that already knows it’s identity, get it to Tim Brady early and often, and that could be a threat to other teams that are still working to discover what works for them. Bama score its first three points on the exact same play off the pull against LSU.

Brady receives huck, outlet to another handler, vertical stack downfield with one of several fast, long receivers at the back of the stack, second handler breaks mark to Brady who breaks mark quickly and effectively for a near full field breakmark huck.

LSU found that a straight up mark minimized the effectiveness of this attack plan but Brady is one of those players that you have to accept is going to get open and is going to break the mark, what you do with the other six men on the field is the key to your success. Sadly, LSU was unable to do that and Bama avenged its season-ending loss from 2010 College Regionals by taking LSU down 15-12.

Point differential was enough to move LSU into finals against Tennessee but LSU struggled to play Agent Orange evenly the second time around. UT jumped out to a large early lead on the wings of having multiple players who are equally solid receivers, throwers and defenders. The Tanasi effect is clear, with three of Agent Orange’s top seven taking a trip to Sarasota at the end of the month.

LSU felt like we matched up well with Agent Orange, being equally tall and athletic but Tennessee was definitely more mentally sound and more physical than we were and it showed as Agent Orange jumped out to an early lead (potentially as much as 6-2). LSU battled back and wouldn’t go down quietly, making some big plays and taking advantage of several UT miscues before eventually tying the game at 11-11 (we think). UT closed out pretty strongly before taking the championship home 15-12.

These three teams will certainly be among those hoping that the Regional redraw along with with the graduation of names like Dempsey, Brodie, Nilan and Gibson will leave the top of the new South Region wide open.

Alabama's Will Drumwright sends a flick into the endzone with Mike Gerics arm chopping in the background. Photo courtesy of Quint Northen.

Things We Liked

Stall Count

As far as the things we enjoyed about the tournament, the list is certainly topped by active stall counts.

It took a game or two to stop saying, “Stall one…” after an opponent’s catch but there’s no denying an improved mark when one doesn’t have to think about counting. We didn’t think it would be that big of a deal but it is a HUGE deal. Not only that but a consistent stall count is AMAZING.

We were marked by an opposing player in the Mississippi State game who insisted on stalling along with the observer. All game, every time we touched the disc, he was two counts ahead of the observer by stall five.

We couldn’t shake the feeling that occasionally the stall count was started a little late due to the distance from the play to observer (think “warning track power” hucks). However, it’s still undeniable that the count, whether late or not, was still consistent. That is worth a lot on its own.

Spirit of the Game

It’s interesting how spirit improves during observed games. A lot of people think that an increased observer role is positioned opposite of a better Spirit of the Game (SotG). In fact, when implemented correctly, they go hand in hand. There were a number of questionable up/down calls and foul/contests that could have detracted from the enjoyability of the game during a regular tournament that observers settled quickly and quietly.

We, personally, lost our cool after a questionable bid during one of our games that ended with our defender on top of us. In an odd twist of fate, Gerics was quick on the scene to tell us to chill out, calm down and play on. Perhaps, without observers, we would have said something that we regret even more than how much we regret our current actions.

In the UOA model, players still control the game which is something that we believe has to be maintained in order for Ultimate to maintain the essence that draws us to it. However, Ultimate’s evolution to a more competitive level has required that there be moderators to assist in maintaining that essence.

Things We Didn’t Like

Lots of Space

This is obviously a logistical issue. Even Gerics couldn’t convince 8 observers to make it out this weekend which meant that one game every round went unobserved. However, for observing to be a (near)perfect system there must be more observers.

Basketball, in a much smaller and action centered playing space, employs three officials on the court. Ultimate needs to get to a point where we have the resources to employ more observers… at least three and possibly four. Stalling, travels, marking fouls and fouls on dump cuts are an awful lot for one person to be paying attention to. Hopefully, Gerics and other observer advocates understand this and are working towards getting more observers on the field per game.

Once again, this is wholly a logistical issue at the moment and baby steps are better than no steps but it must be in the back of our minds.

Foul Penalties

Though we regret losing our cool in the aforementioned foul, we still believe it was an egregious violation of the rules of the game and worthy of a greater penalty than the stoppage of flow for our offense and the allowance of the defender to set the mark.

A second example (once again, this is from an LSU perspective, excuse the bias), Arkansas put up a floaty hospital pass on a dump that was brought down by one of our teammates, in anticipation of the catch block we had already started for the endzone. There was a foul called on the turnover that was overturned. During the debate we had, easily, 20 yards of separation but were 5 yards outside of the endzone and Arkansas took note. As soon as the disc was put in play, a clear intentional foul was delivered. The nearest defender caught up 5 yards as we had nowhere deeper to go. The disc was put in play again, another intentional foul, another 5 yards lost. This was repeated one more time and the mark received only a verbal warning. By the time the verbal warning was delivered, LSU’s advantage had been lost.

We would like to have seen a more serious penalty for such a clear, intentional violation of the rules. This isn’t to trash Arkansas, certainly there are plenty of teams that would have done the same in Ludicrous Speed’s position. However, in order to stop play like that, serious penalties have to be instituted. We’d like to see even UOA observers hand those out more liberally.

In Sum

This was a great weekend full of competitive play and exciting innovation. We hope that Gerics keeps this up. The only thing we are wary of is Gerics’ end goal. We would hate to hear that he’s trying to usurp USAUltimate’s position as the authority on college Ultimate. Hopefully, he’s trying to prove that he’s serious about these changes and can implement them and USAUltimate will see this as an opportunity to adopt already proven changes.

We hope this recap was coherent.