The Tucson Sugar Skulls (1-2) fell to a sub-.500 record on Sunday, after they lost to defending IFL champion Bay Area Panthers (3-0) 44-31 in the home opener at the Tucson Convention Center.
Tucson is 1-4 in home openers and have lost four straight opening games at Tucson Arena; the Sugar Skulls' only home-opening triumph was the team's first-ever game in Tucson, when it beat the Bismarck Bucks in 2019.
Tucson quarterback Mylik Mitchell, who was recently named IFL Offensive Player of the Week, completed 10 of 21 passes for 117 yards, three touchdowns and one interception and led the team with 48 rushing yards on Sunday, but the Panthers outgained the Sugar Skulls 218-180 in total offense and took a 21-10 lead early in the third quarter.
The Sugar Skulls converted four of their nine third-down attempts and converted three of their five red-zone trips into points. Dropped passes and missed blocks led to Tucson's offense stalling, one week after it scored 56 points in a road win at Duke City.
"Missed opportunities. A lot of drops, a lot of blow assignments offensively. ... We just couldn't score in the red zone," said first-year Sugar Skulls head coach Billy Back. "We gotta get better up front on the offensive line. We just gotta get a dog-mentality attitude and I don't feel like we have that right now. ... You see those drops and routes we ran? Soft. ... We shot ourselves in the foot as a team. That's a really good team and hats off to Bay Area, but we had some missed opportunities."
Added Back: "Our guys' eyes were wide open. The moment was too big for certain guys, which it shouldn't be. ... The lights came on and their mental focus went away."
Mitchell said the Sugar Skulls "gotta play harder, man."
"Gotta make plays on offense. The team counts on us to score points, get us over the hump, and we didn't make that many plays tonight," Mitchell said. "We fell a little short, but we got a few days to get right before we get on to San Antonio. ... We gotta put it together better."
Former Tucson quarterback and IFL MVP Daquan Neal connected with fellow ex-Sugar Skulls Jazeric Peterson on a 43-yard pass for Bay Area's first touchdown. In the second half, Neal exited the game with an injury and was replaced by backup quarterback Felix Harper, who completed 8 of 11 passes for 93 yards and a touchdown; he also had three rushing touchdowns.
"They bring their backup in and he's even better," Back said. "It's a bad thing. It's like looking at a shark, then seeing another shark behind it."
Up next: Tucson has a quick turnaround and will face the San Antonio Gunslingers (0-3) at Freeman Coliseum in Texas on Thursday at 4:30 p.m. The game will be streamed on the IFL YouTube channel.
"I just hate that we put dog poo on the field when the fans expected something else," Back said. "You put sparkles on a turd, it's just a sparkly turd, so we gotta get better."
