Sunday afternoon gave Tucsonans a glimpse of the city’s first professional indoor football team when the Sugar Skulls routed the Bismarck Bucks 62-42 in the franchise’s first home game.
In two games this season, Tucson has scored 127 points and had the second-highest total in back-to-back weeks.
Last week, the Sugar Skulls scored 65 points in their win at San Diego.
Tucson (2-0) now prepares to face league powerhouse Arizona Rattlers — coached by Sugar Skulls owner Kevin Guy — on Saturday in Phoenix.
With Sugar Skulls rolling through their inaugural season, here are takeaways from Sunday’s game at Tucson Arena:
One QB will do
Sugar Skulls coach Marcus Coleman always said “we are fortunate to have two guys very capable of starting on any team in this league” when talking about his two quarterbacks Matt Behrendt and Jake Medlock.
Behrendt was released by the Rattlers and signed with Sugar Skulls two weeks before the season while Medlock, last season’s Indoor Football League passing leader in yards and touchdowns, was a last-minute addition.
After starting both quarterbacks at the beginning of each half last week against San Diego with Behrendt in the first and Medlock in the second, Coleman anticipated utilizing the same method against Bismarck.
But after Behrendt completed 10 of 12 passes for 142 yards and five touchdowns in the first half, Coleman stuck with his starter.
“Matt has been here the longest and we wanted to see what he could give us throughout the whole game, and he played well,” Coleman said. “He had some mistakes, but for the most part, he did well.”
Behrendt connected with receivers Donovan Rasberry, Shaquan Curenton and Brandon Sampson, who each had two touchdown receptions. Curenton now has five touchdowns on the season.
“They’re awesome. They do such a great job complementing each other,” Behrendt said. It’s not just one guy during the whole game, it’s all three working on getting each other open.”
Behrendt finished the game 19 of 25 for 234 yards and eight touchdowns, which was the most from any IFL player over the weekend. Behrendt is fourth in the league in passing yards (150.5) and third in touchdowns (nine) per game. He’s also fourth in the IFL with 50.5 rushing yards per game.
Anchor on defense
Since the IFL is a pass-happy league, having a versatile linebacker that can drop back in coverage while stopping the run is crucial. And the Sugar Skulls have their guy in All-IFL linebacker Zach Allen. The former Wake Forest star finished Sunday’s game with 12 tackles, a sack and a tackle for loss.
Allen leads the IFL in tackles with 21.
Hometown kids shine
During the third quarter, Tucson High graduate and former San Diego State offensive lineman Antonio Rosales got tangled up with Bismarck linebacker Howard Stephens Jr. and a skirmish broke out.
Punches weren’t thrown, but Rosales’ helmet flung off his head and game officials and players rushed over to tear apart the two before the situation escalated.
Rosales — with black face paint smearing on his face from sweat and shoulder pads popping out of the jersey — picked up his helmet and released a roar to the crowd, inciting fans to stand up and cheer. Rosales started at right tackle for the Sugar Skulls while the other Tucsonan Alex Rios played left tackle.
Sugar Skulls running back Shad Thornton, who rushed for 82 yards and scored two touchdowns, noticed the two Tucson tackles and center Mike Montero carving out lanes and said “without those guys, I wouldn’t be able to do nothing tonight.”
“Our guys are physical and they play until the end of the whistle. That’s a mindset they’ve had since camp, so I’m proud of those guys for the way they work,” he said.
On defense, Canyon del Oro High product Robert Metz started at defensive end and recorded a tackle while former Pima College cornerback Cam Gaddis intercepted a pass in the back of the end zone on fourth down with 7:29 left in the first half. From that point, the Sugar Skulls went on to score two unanswered touchdowns to end the first half with a 35-7 lead.
It’s gotta be the shoes
Turf shoes or sneakers are the footwear of choice in the IFL. Thornton added some flare to his home debut with black and yellow “Air Jordan 13s” from the Carmelo Anthony line. The bottoms of the shoes are red so along with black and yellow as the main color scheme, the shoes resembled Tucson’s team colors.
Thornton just so happened to stumble across the shoes shopping in Tucson.
“Honestly, I’ve never been a Jordans guy,” Thornton said. “I was always into boat shoes, Sperry’s type of shoe, but I was trying to get some turf shoes and I was walking in the Nike store and walked past the Jordans and said ‘They’ve gotta be playing with me, these are not our team colors,’” Thornton said. “I had to get them so I put them on and went to the basketball court to play some pickup games so I could break them in to see how they feel on my feet. That was all she wrote after that.”
Thornton finished his first game as a Sugar Skull with 82 rushing yards and 31 receiving yards on three catches to go with two touchdowns.
Attendance
Tucson Arena holds 6,700 seats and the announced attendance for Sunday’s game was 5,198.
In the first home game of the inaugural season, the Sugar Skulls topped the Tucson Roadrunners’ average mark of 4,320, which is the highest for the hockey franchise since coming to Tucson three years ago.
Now the Sugar Skulls will play the Rattlers on Saturday, who had announced attendances of 18,381 and 16,742 in two home games at Talking Stick Resort Arena last season.
IFL standings
With a 2-0 record, the Sugar Skulls are tied for first place in the IFL with the Rattlers, Sioux Falls and last year’s United Bowl champions, Iowa.
Coachspeak
“Everybody was very relaxed. It was almost a little bit scary, but that’s a good sign. It’s a good sign that us coaches did a good job in preparing them. The guys knew what they were supposed to do coming out. With a young a team, we just need to learn how to finish games. If you’ve seen teams at any level, you need to learn how to win and finish out and close games.
“That happens at the professional level, you need to learn how to do that. As we continue to grow as a unit and get a better gauge on everybody’s personality, maybe do some things differently in practice, we’ll be good down the line.” — Coleman on the Sugar Skulls remaining calm during the home opener and how the team can progress.
