Over the past three seasons, the game between Team Duval (2-0) and Platinum Plus (2-0) has turned into a bit of a rivalry.
The intramural flag football game of the week features the two teams in a showdown today at 6 p.m. Both teams are coming into the contest undefeated and will be competing for the league’s No. 1 ranking. With only a week and a half remaining in the regular season, the victorious team will be in control of its own destiny heading into the playoffs.
“This is a tough game, I’m not even going to lie,” said Platinum Plus’ Dwayne Bennett, a 25-year-old graduate student from Brooklyn, N.Y. “They have been our rivals for three years so far, and the series is kind of tight, but if we come to play we should be fine.”
Team Duval and Platinum Plus have tremendous talent on both sides of the ball, but both take great pride in not giving up many points on defense.
“The defense that we have this year has only given up a total of 12 points to our opponents so far this season,” said Robert Horne, a 24-year-old criminal justice student from Jacksonville. “It is hard for teams to move the ball against our defense.”
Team Duval tends to play a more aggressive style of defense.
“We are like the Tampa Buccaneers on defense – all we have is one base defense, the man that you are guarding, stick to him like glue,” said Duval’s Rickey Dorsey, 23, a computer information systems student from Jacksonville. “No team has ever physically beat us. We beat ourselves.”
Platinum Plus’ defensive unit has been solid as well, only giving up 18 points in its first two games. The team has already developed a strategy for the game.
“We are going to focus on their quarterback (Bobby Brown),” said Anthony Pollard, 25, criminal justice student from Chesapeake, Va. “He likes to dance around back there in the pocket, but we got some boys that will be going after him so I’m not really worried.”
Confidence is one of the keys to success and both teams are highly confident they can come out victorious. “We like to put on a show for the fans when they come out to see us play. It is going to be a show and we can win if we play our type of football,” said Pollard.
“We have top notch secrets that we are going to pull out on Wednesday and I guarantee that we will win the game,” Dorsey said.
With all of the hype surrounding this rivalry, the game has the potential of being the best flag football game of the season.
Ryan Boyd can be reached at bigdooby96@hotmail.com