jeff:00:06:01:35

Welcome to the Season Pass, the AF1's official podcast. LeVac and Gaz, your hosts. My name's Jeff LeVac. Tom Gazgazlowski over here with us as well. And man, what a weekend of football. There were four left. Let's talk about how we got to our final two as we prepare for the first ever AF1 Arena Crown Championship. It all got underway in the Capital Region of the great state of New York at the MVP Arena when the Albany Firebirds looked to stay undefeated against the Salina Liberty, the only team to take them into overtime during the season. And guys, you were on the call for this one. I made the prediction before the game. I thought it'd be close in the first half, and then Albany would adjust and Albany would start to pull away. And somehow I was still nervous, even though that's about what happened. And as that, that game got going, you saw a lot of, a lot of great plays from quarterback of the Firebird, Sam Casher, Nova Kilgo for first line. I played a hell of a game. The defense, they did what they could as long as they could. But Castro probably made a couple throws during this game that I don't know if anybody else in the arena game can do. This is, we're talking about one where he, he sees Dwayne Brown, run a route, loses footing, end up on the turf, still has the guts to throw him the ball, the confidence in his guy to throw him the ball, completes that pass. And the other one, you were the one who made the call in the game, the touchdown to end the first half. Kind of walk us through what you saw in Sam Castronova in this game.

Goz:01:36:02:29

It was a fun match of the call for Cheryl Levesque. It was back and forth. Salina had so many opportunities in game one of the last time these two teams match up, but this time, I don't know if it was you. I don't know if it was somebody else from the firebirds. The talk was special teams. They did not want Dez up to take over the game. Now the huge news before the game, rocking Cato, no longer the quarterback suffering an injury. He'll goes the starter. He touched on this in the pregame in the matchup on evergreen. Now about how turnovers could play a factor while Marcus Smith, the pick six early in that game swings, the momentum Solana can't get anything going on special teams. The rush attack was not as well as they had hoped. and slowly, but surely the defensive line led by Zeke Rose and company Albany continue to take over some remarkable plays from Sam Castronova. One of the plays of the year close out the first half and Albany moves on to the AF one crown.

jeff:02:30:03:56

Well, I mean, there, there it is the undefeated Albany Firebirds. They punch their ticket to the arena crown with a 75 44 win over the Liberty, the Liberty all class. They did everything they could to get that w they cannot feel bad about themselves at all. They did. They did. play a playoff game the way you would hope they would. The other game, the Nashville Cats rolled out the welcome mat for the Southwest Kansas Storm. This one was a true, true battle. I think what this one is gonna come down to, I think if you're Southwest Kansas, you're gonna look back at this and you're gonna kick yourself. because if you were able to win one of those two games against Salina down the stretch, you're hosting this game. And if you're hosting a game that, you know, spoiler alert, the final score is three points apart, and you've got this amazing matchup where, I'm sorry, 5-48-43, but it's a one-score game at the end, you got to feel like if you're home, that's probably going to fall in your way. You're going to get what you need out of it. So I think ultimately they'll probably kick themselves for that, but Guys, the key for me was not just Tyler Kolka, Kolka mania, being a great quarterback for Nashville, but Nashville seemed very content to let Jalen Morton, the MVP candidate quarterback of the storm, throw as much as he needed to throw. Go ahead, throw the ball all you need to, man, but we're not gonna let you run. You lead the league in every rushing stat. They kept them under 30 yards on the ground with no scores.

Goz:03:56:04:55

How incredibly impressive is that Jalen Morton? We're talking about a top tier guy in AF one this season. And the cat said, go do your thing. We feel confident enough in our defense that we're going to be able to make enough plays. Our offense can hang toe to toe, blow to blow. If you want to do the old fight analogy, and we're going to hang with this at all. Very good start. You know, it felt like a time Southwest Kansas had the awful endings to the games. And it really was a great start by Nashville that continued to find ways to continue to hang on to their lead, not let the storm back in it. And the second half credit to that defense continue to play off for the cats. And now Nashville, the expectations, what was right around early may Was Nashville the, the sexy pick the team that was going to break through the team that could be the one where they need a lot of things to go in their favor, hit the right CD to make sure they got the spot. Remember, we're not too far away from a scenario just two weeks ago where the Nashville cast could have been the fourth seed and faced off with Albany at side MVP arena. Instead. Now we've got the cats

jeff:04:55:05:58

and to the AF1 crowd. Here we are in the AF1 Season Pass podcast and you bring up that possessions thing. One of the more famous moments in the history of our terrestrial radio show back when we were both on the four-letter network, we had Rob Keefe on the show, the then coach of the Albany Empire. I asked him why he kicked so many onside kicks in a game and he lit me up and screamed at me explaining how little I knew about the arena game since I didn't understand how badly they needed to control the possession part of the game. So just hearing you bring that up again did kind of made me shudder a little bit, but but you're absolutely correct. And that's what it came down to, you know, onside kicks and whatnot, getting it done. Darren Arbette, the hall of fame head coach leads Nashville to the crown. They will travel to Albany guys. You will be on the call for that one. But right now the man on the call is going to be our interviewer extraordinaire, Rod Villa Gomez. He is going to speak to both AF1 crown coaches, the professor Damon Ware and the hall of famer Darren Arbette.

SPEAKER_01:06:02:06:21

Pleased to be joined by coach where coach you have got a big game coming up this weekend, say the least. I know you just got done with your coaches show. So I know all your talking points are good and ready to go, but how excited are you for this weekend? I mean, I know it's an understatement to say you're excited, but what's the mindset going into this, this weekend.

SPEAKER_03:06:22:06:57

And every professional football team in the world wishes they could be right where we are. So anytime you can get to a Champion Week, it's a special thing. It's special for the organization. It's special for our fans, but incredibly special, obviously, for the coaches and the players. You know, this is definitely something that we expected to be here at this point. We put a great deal of time and effort from top to bottom at our organization to be where we are. We're super excited it's at home. And that's that's the big thing is, you know, again, we want this to be in front of our our fans here in the Capital Region. We were able to make that happen. And that's truly special.

SPEAKER_01:06:58:07:12

Yeah, and that's actually something that's rather unique to the arena game in that you get to actually host a championship game. Not a lot of teams get to do that in their professional world. So just talk about how the fans kind of helped you get to where you are right now.

SPEAKER_03:07:12:08:06

We have some of the best fans in the country. Um, they're super loyal. They come to, I mean, we're having an event right now. There's probably 60 and all of our fans here at, uh, at my coaches show and they're special. They show up, uh, you know, we do, uh, what's called flock support. It's a support system for our players where they're helped to get, you know, just different little items, food, you know, toothbrush or whatever they need to be comfortable while they're away from home. And it's just outstanding. It's something that, you know, every team should probably try to do. So just being in front of the people that put so much, they take their time. They drive to wherever locations we are. We move around on our coach's show every week and they're always there. And so it's just a special thing. And so any chance you can get to repay them for their loyalty, I mean, again, that's what you want to do. And so having the championship game here right at home is super special for everybody.

SPEAKER_01:08:07:08:31

Yeah, I got a chance to talk to Darius Townsend and Marcus Smith earlier today. Sophia did on AF one on one. And listen, I mean, both of those guys, obviously huge contributors to the team, but also talked about the community around it. So just talk about your players to talk about. This has been a magical season. Obviously not going to say much more than that, but it's been a definitely magical season. What went in to putting together this season that you're experiencing now?

SPEAKER_03:08:31:27:26

I mean, it'll take a moment for me to get through it all. You know, I've said this all along this year. I think the worst thing that could have happened to the league was us losing in the championship game. Um, at that point, um, it was, it was hugely disappointing. Uh, I wanted to really self reflect on it. I wanted to go through every play call that was made. I wanted to go through every moment of the season, but I wanted to see why, you know, why, why we didn't win in such a big moment. So, uh, that, that spurred me to really, you know, again, to use a, a contractor term. I, I took, took the organization down to this. Once I did that, I really, you know, again, I wanted to what exactly do we want to be going into 2025? So it starts with the people that I'm going to spend the most time with is our coaches. So I wanted to make some changes to the coaching staff. I wanted to really decide who did I want to spend a ton of time with, who was going to put in the time and effort. And again, so some of my ex-players, again, they were perfect for the job. They were ready. You know, Coach Brennan Cisse is doing a phenomenal job. He also coaches with me at the junior college that we coach at, obviously, in the fall. So we do a lot of football together. I seen him really take a step up in his career. Last year, we went 8-2 at Hudson Valley, and that was special. We came one game away from playing for the National Championship. So, watching him just grow, at the end of the season, I told him, I said, hey, I want you to put your resume together, I want you to put a couple things together, and I want you to apply for the defense coordinator spot. He was just kind of so thrown back and was like, are you serious? And I'm like, I'm being dead serious. Several meetings later, several, you know, him, you know, I'm big on presentation. So, you know, here, here's what I want you to put together. This is what I want you to present to me. Come on down to the office and present it. I'm just going to sit there in the corner and watch. And so we did that several times. And, and ultimately, again, I just knew he was ready. So, uh, getting him hired was, was huge. bringing in Coach Hobbs. Coach Hobbs has played for me several years over the last several years. Very intelligent guy, very likable guy, very mature and great character. So he wanted to come back and play. So the funny part about that was I kind of had to talk him into becoming a coach. I told him just, again, just some of the injuries, what happens when you get older. And sometimes there's just a great situation in front of you that sometimes you start to go to And through all that, he finally accepted. And he's just done a phenomenal job. And I think he's probably surprised himself at just how good of a job he's done. So it started off with those guys was those are the guys that I wanted to spend the most time with. Obviously, you know, since I've been here in Albany, we've been number one in offense every year. So but we were close to dead last in defense on a regular basis. We were always down at the bottom. And so It takes a lot of pressure to line up every time and know you need to score the win. And that's a lot of pressure that's put on the offense. So I watched Billings last year, and I watched them have the number one defense. And just how their defense held them in the football games, and they were able to hang in long enough to win a lot of close games. And so as I just kind of, you know, broke down the whole season and watched all these games, I watched a bunch of Billy's defense and I said, you know, I really want, that's what we need here. And so, um, So I said, OK, we got to change the culture of the beef. So we had to put in a new culture. We have to change the scheme that we're running. So we needed to do that. We needed the right person to lead that into the room. We did that. And so now it was time to pick the players. And everybody who knows me knows recruiting is my favorite, favorite time of the year. It's kind of having a vision and fitting those pieces into that vision and finding these guys that got great athletic ability, great character, guys that you want to be around because we spent a lot of time together. So you don't want to bring in somebody that you don't want to spend time with. So I went on a mission, you know, you know, there's no recruit that comes through the door that doesn't go, you know, through me. And so sat down, evaluated a ton of game film this year more than anything. I also head coach a team, an all-star college team down in Miami every year in January. Went there, they allowed me to be a little different this year, hold a lot of meetings. I had a table right next to all the NFL scouts, which was really cool. And so I've done a lot for the game and they've done a lot back. And so having that was another way to recruit some really, really good young players. So, what's went through, I have a very long system of how we choose the players. There's, you know, I'm a psychology guy, you know, so I use a lot of kind of aptitude tests, these different kind of things that maybe other people don't use. And it really, there's, it's just some questionnaires. It's a two-day kind of a thing. And it's, you know, again, it allows me to get to know a little bit about how you think, a little bit how you answer questions, a little bit about your maturity level. And then ultimately again, is it some, you know, do you talk like somebody that I want to be around every day for six months? So we went through all that. We finally, you know, again, I just picked all the pieces that I wanted to. And, you know, again, we're, we have 19 guys that started training camp with. I don't think anybody else can say that. That's a testament of just how much effort that we put into recruiting, um, and how much that we put into developing these kids. And so, That's another part of it is we put so much time into, you know, I don't want to change a bunch of players because if I bring a bunch of players in midseason, I don't have time to do all the little things. And so I got to get you up to speed quickly and get you on the field. We're already in games. That's hard to do. And a lot of teams do that. And I've watched that for years and years in the AFL that that towards the end of the season, you bring in some stars and you bring in these guys. I've never wanted to be that kind of a coach. So I don't really know you. You don't really know me. I get you ready, speed through, you know, your learning process, then throw you on the field. I just don't feel comfortable with that. I do things differently. So you can't just jump onto the field with me. And I've been like that for years where you just, I don't have the kind of offense where you could just jump in real quick. And so, It takes time. So we figured out the guys that we wanted to have here, you know, from last year's team. And we had a very good football team last year. I only brought back seven guys. So that's a testament of just, there was a vision I had and I wanted to reach that vision. We opened up a training camp and, and it was a war. I mean, it was, it was such good football that was going on for two weeks. It was, it was really, you know, just a thing of beauty. And it was what you want to do is you want your practices to be harder than the games. And I think we were able to do that quite a bit. It was a lot of really good, you know, there wasn't a lot of guys we could cut. So it really took us to the final days to cut some guys. And again, you cut some really good players and you know, they're going to end up on other rosters and that's good. And that's good for the league. If we can, send some guys out and they can join other teams. It's all, you know, it's all a positive thing. But, you know, we figured, you know, just all the evaluation. I tell our young coaches, it's like, just don't be the reason some of these guys don't ever play football again. Invest your time into them, answer all their questions, have a plan for them. Everybody's different. So you've got to treat everybody as an individual. And we did all those things. And so we finally landed on the team that we wanted. Obviously starts with Sam Castronova, you know, being our quarterback. Obviously, we went back to 2022. We won a championship together. It's rare that you get the same guys every year. So when you get a really good guy that's at the top of his career, that's a fun feeling. And so, you know, we won a championship together in 2022. We had to do things differently. We had to be diverse. We had to give him some things that he was comfortable with. So we built a little bit of a different offense. We ran some shotgun, which, you know, the AFL guys hate to hear those words. And so we had to do some things differently to make sure Sam was going to be successful. So we ultimately won the championship. Obviously, the following year, we had a little bit of wildness here. And I ended up going down to Orlando. He ended up going to Jacksonville. And he just kept developing. So he got another ear in his voice, more instruction and all those things. And so he was able to continue to grow. And he won the championship there, which was special. Last year he went to the IFL and had a great, you know, offensive year. And so, you know, like I said, we talked in the off season, he's a New York kid. He's from Buffalo. So at the end of the day, you want to keep your hometown state kids here. So another thing that I did, you know, to make it fun was I wanted more guys that were from the Northeast. So that was another thing. We got a bunch of kids out of Philly, out of Buffalo, out of Rochester. We signed the guys closer because now their friends and family are now coming to the game. They're a part of this thing. There's more ownership to it. So that was something that kind of came into some of our thought process. Sam obviously was a jewel to come in. I love to work with Sam. We play golf every week together. We have a great relationship. He's a great character kid. He's a phenomenal athlete. He's just coming to his own. He's one of the best quarterbacks in all of the country in whatever league they're in. So it's fun to work with him. You know, our backup quarterback that I picked up from the all-star game in Miami that I coach, Rob McCoy, you know, we've got so much time with him this year. You know, it's rare that you come in, you're behind a, you know, a great quarterback and you get time. We've, you know, we've given, you know, Rob some serious time. He's got 15 touchdowns, you know, that's, you know, that's just crazy. You know, Sam is leading the league in touchdowns. But the backup has 15. So that's the kind of thing is we're selfless here. And that's that's something I love about Sam is you know what? We wanted to be selfless. We wanted to have nobody that felt that they needed the ball in their hands or any of those things. We wanted to just have an offense where It opened and if it's in the, you know, the design of the play, you'll get the ball. And so, our receiving core, super special. Obviously having Dwayne Brown, Dwayne Brown who played against us last year. He was a kid that I watched, he had three touchdown catches in the championship game. You know, but there was tools in his toolbox that I said, you know what, if you come and be a part of our system and you want to get better, You want to grow you want to be coachable? I think that you could do some great things and what we do so get him in was special I I I didn't think you know, you never have an idea of what kind of player they're gonna turn out to be You know, they can be good. He's on a phenomenal job came in first day asking questions learning Working hard, you know rarely ever drops a ball. He's he's a phenomenal kid and he's young So, you know, we've you know, he's led the league in touchdown catches how special that is for a second-year player We brought back a couple of receivers, Darian Townsend and Isaiah Scott. Those guys are phenomenal guys, but there's nobody better with the ball in their hands than Darion Townsend. He really has a whole lot of highlight reels on a bunch of people in the league. I mean, you get the ball in space, if he has a couple yards of space, you're probably gonna miss him. So just phenomenal, but he's also our leader of the wide receiver room. So he really is our vocal leader. He is a phenomenal guy, he holds guy accountable. Again, he's the big brother in the room and so everybody gravitates to him. You know, that's what people just because Dwayne's having a bigger season, Darian Townsend is still the leader of our. And so he's just a phenomenal guy. He cares about everybody. He's selfless again. Isaiah Scott's having a phenomenal season again. He's big, strong, physical and fast. And so and then Markell Wade, who comes off the bench for us, you know, Markell has been with me since twenty eighteen. So he's had plenty of years with me. Still one of the best return guys in the game, one of the fastest guys in the game. And again, anytime we need him, we wanted to pull Dwayne out of the game in the semifinals. We put Wade in and he just came in and scored two touchdowns. So our receiving room is pretty special, but you can't do anything without the offensive. And so, you know, this was a year where I wanted to get younger. I never probably bring in as many young guys as I did this year. Offensive line's a tough position in this game. It's a war. And so young guys, usually takes them a little bit of time to grasp, but in training camp, all my young guys came in in shape and I pressed that upon them in the off season. The easiest way to get on my bad side is to come into camp out of shape, because that just tells me you don't want to be a professional. And so they took that to heart. So I remember the first day running 300 shuttles, our first day, some of our young guys were just blowing the older guys out of the water. I was just… Hey, check on the list. Let me let me that. That's interesting. And they just outworked them. And so I really was surprised. You know, on the four guys that I kept, they're all guys that haven't played more than a year. And so except for Isaiah Hardy, who's played a couple. So our line is super young. They've done a tremendous job. You know, we hope to keep these young kids around for a few more years if we can. Obviously, if they can get a chance to move up, obviously, that's great. But so our offense is just in phenomenal hands. We really, you know, again, I don't think anybody can deny looking at the statistics of just how many points we've put up. So that has been without anybody that demands the ball that's out anybody with any ego. It's a bunch of selfless guys and say. Hey, let's go out and play hard together and let's win. Whoever's open gets one. And so I've loved working with this group of guys this year, and it's been really fun. But defensively, that's where it got interesting. And so, you know, it really starts up front. You've got to get some quarterbacks off their spot. And so the worst, hardest guy for us to prepare for last year was Ziv Uros. He had sat and talked to me so long before a game. I was in Nashville, I was like, is your coach gonna get mad? Like, we talked for like 30 minutes, not about coming here, but just about life. Just, you know, what was going on and just a business conversation. And, you know, so we started to communicate and, you know, at the end of the day, I said, hey, you know, reach out to me in the off season. And so we, you know, Brandon, CeCe and him started talking, him and I started talking, we started to develop a really good relationship And I think a month or two later, obviously, we pulled the trigger to bring him. He's just been phenomenal. Come in this soon and become a captain. That's huge. Another great character guy, man of faith. He wakes up every morning and delivers in our little group a prayer. And everybody lives off that every day. And it's just a special thing. And it's hard to, you know, if you're not a part of it to understand, but when a guy wakes up every morning, we up early, we do everything in the morning. every morning wakes up and puts this long post together about something of faith. And it just, it, it makes you start your day in just the most harmonious manner. So having that, so he's not just a great player, but he's a great character guy. Um, and he's just had a phenomenal job. He's been on one of the candidates for defense player of the year. So we kind of figured putting them in a system that we had of a man that he'd have a tremendous season brought back Harold Love. Harold Love was also, uh, you know, with us in 22 and, uh, won a championship with us. Uh, been doing big things, obviously played for some of the other, you know, big time teams out there. And we just thought it was time to bring him back. Uh, you know, and he's done a tremendous job and then, you know, brought in some younger guys, you know, DJ Walton, who did, who'd been with us last year. Again, he's a phenomenal rush and he's having a great job brought in, uh, you know, drew Singleton. Drew Singleton's a kid that started at Michigan and then went to Rutgers and Again, we want these kids that we can help move up. And so he came in and just has a tremendous, you know, affinity for the game, wants to do everything, does everything hard. You know, in the first four weeks he was, you know, tied for, you know, sack leaders and that's coming off the bench. That's a huge testament, you know, bringing back Trayvon Shorts. You know, he's been an All-Arena guy. He's been with us for five years. We're very loyal to each other again. He's having another tremendous season Marcus Smith came back from last year. He was actually the first guy coming off the field to Tell me coach. I don't want to play for anybody else. I want to be back with you next year I won't go anywhere else and I just said, you know What is just the way you said that we're coming right off of all the loss in a chance game I was like you're back. And so we had to get him healthy. He had some health things go on last year We hey, let's get you healthy and you're back And so he's just a great leader. He's one of the best safeties in the country. Then we brought in some new faces. Trey Wortham, a rookie out of UConn, having a tremendous season. Rookies are, again, it's tough to get rookies on the field and play at a high level. He's had a great season. And then Mike Lees, you know, if you look him up, you can see he was one of the hardest hitters in the Big 12. He's got a lot of accolades. You know, he's got, you know, a little smaller and some of his measurables makes it a little bit tougher for him to move up. I saw exactly what I wanted, a guy, a tough guy, a guy that could lock down a part of the field and he's having a tremendous season as well. So across the board, we've just, you know, the type of players that we brought here this year, just special guys, and we really picked them one by one and make sure they all fit a need that we had. It wasn't like we just picked blindly and said, all right, a bunch of guys are athletes, come on in. you know, and let's see what you could do. It was really by design. So this year I spent way more time recruiting and we put together a phenomenal team. I mean, Henry Nell, you know, can't say, you know, too much about him. Here's a guy, you know, last year, a great deal of the reason we lost the game is we lost our kicker really the day we had to turn in the roster. And that just turned out really tough. And so, Going through that last year, again, you have to self-reflect. And it's like, so I told every kicker, I said, if you want to play for us, I need you to put basically a manifesto together on how you're going to stay healthy from the beginning of the season to the end. And so, you know, put it out there again to five or six kickers, you know, people would put an email, put a, you know, a paragraph together, some Henry sends me a real deal. I mean, it's, it's five pages. It's what I'm going to eat. It's, it's what a, how I'm going to stretch it's what day is I'm going to do treatment. It's, it was a phenomenal plan. And I, and as soon as I read it, I said, That's the guy I want to work with. I mean, that's like how I'm going to put together stuff. It's going to be a full plan, no detail left unturned. And so once we, you know, start talking and I realized again, you know, he's a very detailed, I wanted to, Hey, you know what? I'm going to be here and you're going to have a tremendous season. He's having a phenomenal season. I think he's like six and points in the league, you know, over receivers and running backs and all, you know, it's, it's, it's insane what he's done as well. You know, we really, like I said, we really picked guys that we really wanted to be around. And exactly the vision I had for this team has come to fruition. And like I said, obviously, I forgot a couple of guys, but we have 19 guys that started training camp with us. There's not too many teams in the country that can say that. And that's a testament to how much time we put into bringing guys here.

SPEAKER_01:27:27:27:56

Well, obviously your pride for your team comes through and I know they are ready for this weekend. So we'll allow you to get back to it, coach, and to prepare those guys. I mean, it's very rare that I only have to ask one question and we get everything we need out of somebody. So I absolutely enjoyed spending time and hearing you brag about your players because in the end, obviously this is what it's all about and this is what everybody's geared to do. So good luck to you, coach, and good luck to your players as you embark on your quest for the crown.

SPEAKER_03:27:57:28:11

Hey, thank you. We're super excited to have this game here in the Capital Region. We want everybody to come out and support. Just like I said, this is every team in the country wants to be right where we are, so we're looking forward to it, and I'm really looking forward to having Nashville Cats up this Saturday.

SPEAKER_01:28:11:28:40

Absolutely. Thanks again, Coach. Thank you. Joined by Coach Arbette, his Nashville Cats are making their own push for the Arena Crown here this weekend. Coach, it's been a fantastic season for you. We caught up earlier in the season. You were talking about your path to actually get here, and now it's here. How did that all play out for you? How did that work out? Did everything you hoped for kind of come to fruition?

SPEAKER_04:28:41:28:53

So far, so good. The players came together at the right time. They're playing really well, they're gelling, they like each other, and our practice habits have improved tremendously.

SPEAKER_01:28:54:29:10

So your practice habits, and obviously it's shown up on the field and your players are actually performing at a level now that's taking them to the championship. So talk about some of those players that you've seen progress and how that practice habit has shown out in what's going on now.

SPEAKER_04:29:11:29:59

You know, Tyler Coker, he's just getting better and better every practice, throwing the football, just understanding the game. He's a rookie, but he's not a rookie anymore as much as he's played and understand the game now. Niger Jackson has come in and just been on fire for us. Uh we got Antoine Grant back. He's a heck of a player. He's a leader. Jordan Gandy's been playing well. So, we're excited about our receiving uh a core and then our offensive line, Big Bray and Kyle Davis and Peyton Mujo. They've been playing tremendous and Derek Ziegler has come back in. He's very strong at that center spot. So we feel good about our offense.

SPEAKER_01:30:00:30:19

Yeah. We talked to nice year the other day too, and, and realized he's a Stockton, a Stockton native too, along with a couple of us and ties with the barrier Panthers as well. What made you decide to, to reach out to him? Obviously we know you guys have shared a little bit of time together on the field, but yeah, it was factored into it.

SPEAKER_04:30:20:30:38

You know, we talk a lot on the phone, even in the off season, just keep up with each other. I was talking to him about bringing in some other players and he said, what about me? So that was a no brainer for me. I think the world to him, he's a heck of a receiver and he's showing it every week.

SPEAKER_01:30:39:30:57

Yeah, you guys have put together a championship run already. So why not add another to the to the list of accolades, right? All right. So the defining moments of seasons, obviously, you know, when you look back at the road to get to where you're at, seasons have ups, seasons have downs. What were some of the learning points for you over the course of the season?

SPEAKER_04:30:58:31:19

You know, playing coach Walker, Cedric Walker, he's great as a defensive coordinator and we went up to Billings and things didn't go well for us and it really woke up the team and ever since then we've been playing great. They were embarrassed and they've come out and been hitting on all cylinders.

SPEAKER_01:31:20:31:28

And so when you start to talk to them about this game, obviously you're no stranger to a big game. What's your message? What are you telling them as they prepare for this game?

SPEAKER_04:31:29:31:52

Enjoy the moment. They got to the game, and it's hard to get to this football game. And I think I've been blessed to be in a lot of them. But for some young men, it's their first ones. for two of my coaches, it's their first one, so just told them relax, enjoy it, just stay within the moment and do your best.

SPEAKER_01:31:53:32:03

What are you focusing on as far as Albany's concerned? We know their strengths and we know offensively they're, you know, one of the best teams in the league, obviously. So how are you prepping for this matchup?

SPEAKER_04:32:05:32:21

We're just gonna play football. Albany's the standard. Coach Ware is a tremendous coach. They're playing great. They have no flaws. I mean, they're a solid football team. All we can do is go out there and play solid football and play hard and let's see where the chips land.

SPEAKER_01:32:21:32:40

Yeah. Again, defensively, you definitely have to, to pay attention to the Sam Castronovas of the world. You even have to prepare for the kicker out there as well, but you've got yourself a nice little kicker as well. And, and he's got a nice leg to put deuces in. So, you know what, how are you prepping your kicker, which is an unsung hero in the arena football game.

SPEAKER_04:32:43:32:59

Yeah, Gunnar Rayburn. He's played great, has a lot of accolades, lives here in Nashville, and he's just been tremendous for us, hitting those deuces, hitting the net. He understands all those things, so glad that he's our kicker.

SPEAKER_01:33:00:33:05

Personally, what's one of the biggest takeaways for you from this season so far?

SPEAKER_04:33:07:33:29

Just how the team came together. We got a late start, didn't know that we were gonna be here until about five days before camp, so we put it together. And slow start, which is expected when you do something like that, and the guys just came back and been playing well basically since we got Tyler Coca. This team's been on fire.

SPEAKER_01:33:30:33:37

message to the fans as they start to prepare for this this big game? How why should they be watching this? Obviously, they should be but why should they be?

SPEAKER_04:33:39:33:49

Well, I'm biased. I'm proud of my guys. They come to work every day. They they come to the games prepared. They're focused. They're locked in and I I think it's gonna be a good football game.

SPEAKER_01:33:50:34:02

Outstanding. All right, coach. Well, we'll let you get back to it. We know you travel already tomorrow and you're heading out to Albany. So good luck in the big game. And we'll be looking forward to watching you, you know, possibly put another ring on.

SPEAKER_04:34:02:34:04

Thanks for having me on.

jeff:34:09:34:55

It's going to be a hell of a media day. There's a lot of respect between those two men. There's a lot of understanding between those two men, but there's a lot of competition between those two men as well. Darren Arbette, kind of known as a legend, you know, he's the king of the old school when it comes to arena football. Damon Ware, you know, he's the guy that has been overlooked when it comes to awards, but he has been called the legend killer this year as far as taking out just about anybody and everybody who had the nerve to play chess against him. on the arena football field. So those two guys respect definitely though will definitely be a very friendly handshake and probably a hug at the end of the arena crown, which will be happening on Saturday. But there will also is going to be a lot, a lot of probably swearing under their breath during the game as well, guys.

Goz:34:56:35:24

Probably a little bit of both because of these guys and their past and how, how close they can be in their styles. Not the most animated coaches you might see in AF1. They're not exactly coach Cedric Walker bashing the water cooler earlier this season, but guys who've continued to find ways to build rosters, to gain respective players, find ways to advance this sport to really, really good coaches. And it's going to be fun throughout the week to hear their talk about what their team's been able to do to finish off the championship season.

jeff:35:26:36:57

For the, those of you who didn't get a chance to watch the Albany game, there was a moment where, you know, I used to guys and I both used to be the on-field announcers for the empire team back in 18 and 19. I used to do the announcing for, for the other teams and stuff. I haven't been out there forever. Well, our team ambushed me. and went, here, handed me a microphone, shoved me out on the field to do a t-shirt toss, and the first thing I did was run over and hug Harold Love, who had been suspended for the game, and everybody was very excited about that, but definitely a lot of Harold Love fans. I think the story, really, in this game coming up, and again, the Arena Crown will be on Vice TV, 1pm this Saturday, the 28th, This will be your chance to watch the very first championship in the history of the AF1, Arena Football 1. It is going to be the kind of matchup that we all kind of wanted in the beginning of the year. As a matter of fact, let me break Mara Pat and myself on the back here. I called this one. I told you that Albany was going to be the team to beat. And I told you that Nashville was going to be the team that got better each and every other week. And they were going to find their way into this matchup. But guys, you're going to be on the call for this game, the arena crown, the very first one, you and Andrew Santillo live from the MVP arena. So it's kind of difficult for me to get, you know, an actual prediction or anything like that out of you. However, besides your, your prediction that Harold Love's going to be a huge part of this story, which of course you're going to be narrating. So you can kind of influence that. What are you expecting? Because I expect, I really do expect Sam Cashernova and Tyler Culkin to duel it out, especially in the first half.

Goz:36:58:38:23

And think about this as like quarters, right? We, we, it's a basketball analogy and I hope people hate cross sport comparisons. I'm not trying to undercut the thing, but basketball coaches talk about this all the time. Play the game to every media timeout, four minute windows, four minute windows, four minute windows. Think back to the Nashville Albany game that was inside MVP arena. Nashville has a double digit lead in the second quarter, but by the time they hit halftime, Albany has the lead. Think about it. If they can go to that. So I was on the turf getting ready for the halftime interview. So usually I do it as you interview the leading coach at half and then the trailing coach in the other half. I was going to the other locker room. I was ready to talk. And by the time I got there, down there, I'm trying to do another coach. So if you're a coach Arbat and you're coach Waird, you're talking about those four minute windows. Can we win this window? Can we win that window? Because if you're a national thing, you're going to look back and say, we had them beat. What happened in that final two minute window of the second quarter that we went to the locker room trailing? That's my thought on that is that Play that game, four minute windows. Did we win this one? Did we win this one? Did we win this one? I know AF1 with the clock and the running clock and all the other things. It's not exactly key like that, but finish it off. Because if you're a Cats fan, you thought you had Albany beat. And how different is that game as Nashville goes to the locker room with the lead on the road? That's what I'm looking at. Those four minute windows throughout each time of those halves. Who's winning those four minute battles?

jeff:38:25:40:23

I think one of the other storylines that people are going to really have to pay attention to and hopefully enjoy when it comes to the crown, the AF1 championship, is going to be who stole the better players. Because when you look at the rosters, there are four key players I can point out. Two that used to be in Albany and two that used to be in Nashville. Let's start with the Nashville guys right now. Antoine Grant is a absolute play maker. He was in Albany not too long ago and he was a playmaker here and now he's a playmaker for Nashville. Kenny Veal is about as close as you can get to a shutdown corner when it comes to arena football. He used to be in Albany, now he's in Nashville. And by the way, vegetarian. Very weird to have a last name like Veal and be a vegetarian. But that is who he is and that is what he is. Let's go to the other side. Albany. Arguably their best defensive player is Zeke Rose. Last year, he was in Nashville. I'd say the best special teamer all season has been Henry Nell. He's in Albany. He used to be in Nashville. Familiarity breeds contempt. These two teams are extremely familiar with each other. This is going to be an absolutely amazing game, a showcase of arena football on the Trans Finder Field at MVP Arena. I haven't seen spreads yet. I try not to look at them because I'm not allowed to bet them because I am a member of the league and a member of a front office. But I have to think that it's going to be probably, I'd say, You're going to be looking at about a touchdown difference when it comes to the computers and the algorithms with Albany being the favorite, with the home field, the undefeated season, the 2-0 record against Nashville. But I can see this being an extremely close game, especially going into maybe coming out of halftime, third quarter. Maybe Albany starts to pull away in the fourth quarter because coach, our bet has seen the adjustments that Damon Ware and Brandon CSA have made in the past. And maybe he's ready to adjust to their adjustments guys.

Goz:40:23:40:47

Very possible, especially with how good nationals played in the last six weeks of the season, how they can keep it close of Albany. Yes. Let's hope for a one score game. All breeze played a ton of blowouts recently, right? 98 points they put up against Washington. You could claim this whole line of game ended up being a blowout, especially in the end. It's been a long time since Albany's played a close game. This feels like the most likely contender for the battle for the crown on Saturday afternoon.

jeff:40:48:42:32

See, I'm one of those guys as a fan, like people are like, Oh, I just want a good game. You know what? I'm fine with starting to celebrate the third. I listen, I'm that guy. I'm a Yankee fan at heart, you know, but I do. I think this is, there's a lot to prove. And, and, you know, we talk about the matchup of coaches. We talk about the quarterbacks. We talk about, Everything else, you know when you're you're Tyler Kulka and you're a young quarterback that people haven't seen much of but you stepped into the spotlight and you've handled your business and across the field is Sam Castronova who's been an MVP candidate who's won championships who you know by the time you hear this could be the MVP of the AF1. You want to show that you got what it takes to do that. This Nashville defense they keep hearing about the stars that play for Albany. But Nashville, they just stopped Jalen Morton from being a true dual-threat quarterback. Sam Castronovo's the kind of guy, when he hears you say that I can't run, he starts running. I really do think this is going to be a perfect matchup of game. And if you were scripting how you wanted the first season of the AF1 to go, we've seen some of the things work out. You know, we had playoff decisions being made all the way in the week 14 of the regular season. We've seen all these things come together. Now you get a team that is undefeated with a head coach who's still got something to prove because he's been looked over for every award category ever, and he's going to be the guy who's got Hall of Fame stature. Old school versus new school, the professor versus the Hall of Famer. This is the game, man. This is the one Saturday vice 1 p.m. And then you'll be able to catch reruns on evergreen. Now this game guys, I I'm almost jealous that you're going to be on the call for this one. You and Andrew Santillo on the call on vice. Are you, have you prepared anything special for us?

Goz:42:34:43:18

No, I prepared nothing. I just be nice to me on social media. You know, finally last week, I told you this on a, a local sports radio. So I almost went the whole season as a play-by-play broadcaster without being criticized by way markets and the playoffs common. And the tweets start coming in. I get how Joe Buck feels now. I get how these other guys feel. Tony Roma. So just be nice to me and Santillo on social media. We're going to call it as balanced and un-Homer-ish as possible. I already been told that. I don't think we have a Homer broadcast. Nothing special yet. You know what? I'm going to shave my head just for you. I'm going to have a clean shaved head. I'll wear a beard. I'm thinking about going for a black on black look. Maybe a black tie. Nice and nice and sweaty, but slim looking for television. That's what I have planned as of right now.

jeff:43:20:45:53

You know, just cause you're carrying a baby doesn't mean you have to be one. Of course, the other markets aren't going to like you. You hang your hat in Albany and everybody's going to want their home broadcaster to be on the call, but the Firebirds are 11 and 0. They'll host it. It's going to happen right here. Arena crown the f1 arena crown the the ultimate the the way to be we're gonna do one more of these These shows this season the f1 season pass will recap the championship game for you You'll be able to hear that next week again. All I can tell you is make sure you're watching vice TV Saturday 1 p.m. When af1 takes over with the arena crown the very first arena crown cannot get through a season like this without beer, my friend. And that's where Hulk Hogan's Real American Beer has been the perfect help to get us through to, to lubricate the gears and get us where we need to be. You want to wager against your friends or you want to see the official spread for the Arena Crown, you go to Better Edge. Better Edge is a app where you can bet against your friends on all sports, including AF1 and the Arena Crown. I can't, guys can't, but you can. Also want to thank our good friends at Evergreen now. I mean, they've been the home for the podcast. They've been the home for season pass and they have been amazing to work with and work for. Cannot thank them enough. Transfinder, the official ball sponsor of AF1 and the field sponsor for the Albany Firebirds. Phenomenal as well. Again, thanks to Evergreen now the most though, because that's where we get to do this and you can get this podcast wherever you get your sound, your podcast. Thank you so much. For Tom Gazgazlowski, Baby Abe, yes, it's a three-man show now. Well, listen, we promote family values almost as much as we promote family. It's all about nepotism here on the season pass. We're here for it. No, yeah, Abe made his, he made, listen, Abe was one of the only people who didn't like, who, if you, A Manny fan or baby Abe? You don't love Harold Love. Everybody else is all about big number 99 out there. I guess that's the case. But thank you guys and baby guys. Thank you to Wild Bill Huffman, the producer who makes it all happen and I think is going to be very busy on this podcast. But we look forward to you and we can't wait to talk to you all again next week. Again, on X, at Tom Goss, T-O-M, G-O-Z-Z if you want to tell him how much you'd rather hear Eli Gold. Please let us know what you think and we look forward to hearing from each and every one of you. Let's go get that crown for the AF1. It's either the Firebirds or the Cats when we meet you back here on the season pass next week.

SPEAKER_00:45:56:46:20

Season Pass, the AF1 podcast, is an Evergreen Podcast production. I'm the producer, Bill Huffman, and special thanks to executive producer, Dave Douglas, and our audio engineer, Nate Corson. Find all of our content on evergreenpodcast.com and stream every game of the Arena Football League One season on evergreennow.tv. We appreciate you listening.