Centex Recap

Since I am graduating in May, I need to find a replacement. Rookies provide a good source because they are eager and resilient. No matter how many times you tear them down, they just keep coming back for more. This post is brought to you by Kennedy. I'm not going to lie, it needed a lot of editing. A LOT. But learning always happens best when done first hand. I like what I see in my young apprentice and I hope he continues to churn out more articles, so I can just sit back and take all the credit.

Centex Day 1:

Illinois left Chambana Thursday night, with the last car leaving about 8:30. Everyone traveled all night and arrived by 2 Friday afternoon. Each car seems to have some kind of story tell when we all got to the hotel.

Wego’s car ended up running out of gas with Miles and McLain going for a nice 3 mile jog in the middle of Arkansas at 3:30 in the morning. This was after they stopped to take a picture at the sign for Friendship, a city in Arkansas. I just wish they would have taken a picture of McLain’s face when he heard he was going to get to go for a jog. From what Simple Jack said, it was priceless. Then both of them received a car ride back by some strangers who didn’t seem to talk much. I am truly surprised that whoever these people were who gave Miles and McLain a ride back didn’t just kick you out the door. If this happened in Texas I would have been thinking Texas Chainsaw Massacre the whole car ride. The least they could have done is give you a little scare.

Brad’s car had to deal with Phenom coughing his lungs out for the whole 16 hour ride. Phenom is still alive somehow, anyone want to bet how long until the rest of the car gets sick? I put the over under at Thursday.

As for Simeone, I have learned that anytime after midnight he progressively become angrier about everything. To start off he was already flustered from the night before when he called the rental car agency to find out that all the vans were gone. There was one point in the night when he thought he would just finish the driving with only 9 hours left to go. BAD IDEA. Lucky for everyone in his car he reevaluated this and decided it was a bad idea. This would have ended in someone’s death. Also Hidaka slept the entire trip.

Denis’ car was boring and everyone is just relaxing at the hotel now. [editor’s note: Denis’ car was quite the opposite of boring. Zubair + Pavan + Denis + Walden = “You have to be there”.]

Most of the cars showed up to the hotel at around 12pm, but we couldn’t check in till 3. Thanks to Boston and his charm the hotel gave us our rooms early. For dinner the team went out to eat at Texas Land & Cattle Steakhouse. As long as your cool with eating steak on a Friday in lent it was an amazing meal. [editor’s note: the salmon was way better than the filet. Suckers.] Along with a great meal, there was plenty of time for tons of stupid things to be said. Simeone just couldn’t shut the valve off, “that’s not how my family plays mafia” and “come to Jesus O’Nazareth’s after a Saturday of beatin ye wife for some repentance”. [editor’s note: Simeone, I in no way thought anything you said was stupid or outrageous. Direct all reprisals towards Kennedy. Also, I’ve thought over your neighborhood watch deal. I’d like to chip in for it.]

Centex Day 2:

Weather: 80 degree high 10% chance of percip. It’s going to be a great day for some ultimate

We leave the hotel and Simeone’s car told Wego’s that they could follow us. That was all good until Noah tells Miles as he is walking into the gas station bye. Simeone waits for them, and they take off down the road and get onto the highway going south. We need to go north….they got there in the middle of warmups. For the first day

Illinois vs Washington “Sundodgers” (4-13)

Illinois was down 7-0 at half. We were not ready to play. Offense just wasn’t clicking and they were just scoring whenever they wanted. Hidaka was injured during the first half on a crappy layout by Washington, Phenom was still half dead and didn’t play at all the whole day, and Kurt had an allergic reaction to a bee stung. The second half was better for Illinois but not nearly good enough. 6-4 Washington. We saw in this game that we can put a few good points together in a row against a pretty good team. We just need to do that for the whole game, which is what we were learning all weekend.

Illinois vs Western Washington “Dirt” (13-12)

With everyone still upset with from the loss to Washington we came out and jumped on Dirt. We took half 7-5. After half we go up 10-6 but start to let them come back. The next score I remember is 12-11 with Dirt in the lead in a game to 13. Then Pavan goes crazy gets a huge layout only for the guy to call strip. Dirt gets the disk back then the rest of Illinois gets the D for Pavan and the score. Illinois ties it up. We are pulling downwind and put perfect pull in the back of their endzone as everyone hustles down, smelling the kill. Rip just runs right through his guy, catches the first pass off the pull, and then throws the short pass to Waldo for the score. We had high points and low points in this game but it was great to see that we came back. [editors note: Dirt had this hot-headed rookie named Jimmy that got really upset about everything we did. Every call or questionable play sent him into a temper tantrum of epic proportions. Seriously, his own teammates took him out of the game for his own good. Dude, it’s just a game. But seriously, his immaturity was quite entertaining.]

Illinois vs Maryland (11-10)

The comeback win from the Dirt game carried into this game. It was close throughout. We won the game on universe point due to hard cap. I forgot to write down anything from this game at the fields so I can’t remember anything else. [editor’s note: Kennedy, this blog doesn’t “forget” things. Next time make something up. People will remember what you tell them.]

Illinois vs UCSD (7-13)

This was a shit show. A long day in the sun, 3 games under our belt, and some people missing started to take its toll on the Illini. We lost this game mentally. There is no way this team is better than us. They scored more today but if we ever meet this team again it will be much different. This game is as much mental as physical. We can’t lose the mental edge and still expect to win.

We went 2-2 and learned that we are a very streaky team. We can score a bunch in a row and also go a whole half without scoring. Take it one point at a time and work on being consistent. These should be our goals moving forward.

Centex day 3:

Illinois vs UNC “Darkside” (6-12)

Again UNC jump on us early. There is something about our first game each day where we don’t come out full throttle. UNC took half at 7-3, and then won 12-6. Phenom is back, but Hidaka is still out.

Illinois vs Colorado “Mamabird” (5-13)

What worked for Colorado was throwing it deep into space and letting their height and speed just run it down. They gave us plenty of opportunities by turning the disc over all the time; we just weren’t able to manufacture those turns into goals.

Illinois vs Arizona “Sunburn” (13-2)

After a very long weekend, Illinois had had enough of its “close games” and embarrassing losses. We just wanted to murder someone. Arizona just happened to be the lucky ones. Yeah they were not a full team, but this win was more for our mental state then anything. Sidelines were in the game the entire game and everyone was rushing the field after every point. Simply put, we were having fun for an entire game. By no means was this a great game by us but it was good to end the tournament on a dominating performance.

Overall the weekend taught us that we need to be consistent and take each point one at a time, and to bring the intensity and enthusiasm every point of every game. The good news is this is really simple, we saw it in the last game, but it does take an effort by every single person on the team. Just like Denis said, “We are a national caliber team, but time is running out to become that team.”