SaberCats seek .500 at halfway mark
Andy Lopusnak
Friday April 18, 2008
It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
The San Jose SaberCats brought back most of the 2007 ArenaBowl championship team and was poised to become the first team in over a decade to win back-to-back titles. However, seven games into 2008, San Jose stands at 3-4 heading into tonight’s matchup against the winless Utah Blaze (0-7). The SaberCats’ four losses have come at the hands of four division leaders (Chicago, Dallas, New Orleans and Philadelphia).
Slow starts like this are nothing new to San Jose. Last season, the SaberCats were 3-3 before winning 13 straight including ArenaBowl XXI. In 2006, they were 3-6 before winning their last seven in a row to reach the playoffs before losing to eventual ArenaBowl champion Chicago. Three years ago in 2005, San Jose started 1-3 before winning seven of its next eight games and finished 9-7.
Last week, the SaberCats let a 26-point lead slip away against Philadelphia and have lost two straight home games for the first time since 2005. In 2007, San Jose won all eight home contests along with two playoff games. The team’s combined home regular season record in the three ArenaBowl title seasons was 23-1 with a 50-43 loss to Arizona in the 2004 season finale being the only blemish.
This year, the American Conference has had a load of trouble playing against the National Conference with the Nationals winning 19 of 24 matchups through seven weeks. San Jose is 0-3 so far this season against the Nationals and still has three more inter-conference against Georgia, Orlando and Tampa Bay later this season. Against the American Conference, the SaberCats is 3-1 and has six more games against the Americans, including tonight against Utah.
This marks the fifth game in this Western Division series with the SaberCats leading 3-1, including winning the last three. Utah blazed its way to a 48-35 victory over San Jose in 2006 in the team’s first ever game, but has lost the past three games by no less than 15 points each.
Though the Blaze is 0-7, the team has the best offense in the league in terms of total offense, passing offense and first downs. Utah also has the number three rushing offense. San Jose’s defense ranks sixth in total defense, fourth to last in passing defense and is the best in the league in least amount of first downs allowed. The Blaze defense is allowing the most points per game (66.1), while San Jose is allowing the eight-most (56.6), so this game could be a very-high scoring one. Also, with both teams being two of the least penalized teams (Utah is the least, San Jose is fifth-least), the game could go really fast.
Utah QB Joe Germaine and San Jose QB Mark Grieb are the top two passers in the league in passing yards, pass attempts and completions. Germaine also leads the AFL in passing touchdowns (47). Grieb, however, leads the league in interceptions (11) with his next closest passer have three less. Germaine has tossed just six picks.
San Jose head coach Darren Arbet is attempting for the third straight game to reach his 100th regular season victory. If his SaberCats come out victorious, it would have taken Arbet 145 games to reach 100 which would be the third fastest in league history. Only Tim Marcum (122 games) and his opponent tonight, Danny White (144), have reached 100 regular season wins faster.
A telling stat to the SaberCats’ early woes has been their inefficiency on third and fourth down. San Jose is fourth to last in the league in third-down conversions. The bottom five teams in third-down conversions all have losing records this season. San Jose is dead-last in the league in fourth-down conversions (Utah is second to last). The bottom nine teams in fourth-down conversions all have non-winning records this season.
Andy Lopusnak is an 11-year AFL front office veteran, spending time with the Tampa Bay Storm, San Diego Riptide and Grand Rapids Rampage. He works as a statistician for NFL and college sports for CBS Sports and is a freelance photographer. Lopusnak received two Bachelor of Arts degrees from the University of South Florida and has been a fan of ArenaBall since its inception.
