The Mule Fan

Howdy Mule Fans!

Your roving Mule Fan reporter here, Erik Andersen, with a July update.

2007 7-on-7 Season Complete:

Well, lets make some 7-on-7 season lemonade out of what might be perceived lemons!

1) Lemonade Glass Number One - Our beloved Mules finished their Tuesday evening local league play a PERFECT 8-0 on Tuesday, 26 June, by beating our final two opponents. The close-out game included a down-to-the-wire defeat of Churchill H.S. for a second time during the local play season! For those not aware of the significance of this feat, Churchill H.S. is a 5A school with a long tradition of delivering excellence on the gridiron, having most recently produced QB Nick Fanuzzi who is heading to the University of Alabama as an inbound Freshman and heralded football recruit.

It should be noted that our Mules defeated Clark H.S. earlier in the local-play season during our Tuesday meetings, and that Clark qualified for the State 7-on-7 Tournament. This fact adds additional laurels to our 7-on-7'ers accomplishments this season as to the quality of play our gang is capable of delivering! One can BET that when the fall season unfolds there will be a bunch of riled-up Cougars targeting payback for this humbling loss, as well as that more significant blow to their pride from the loss last fall... BE READY MULES!!!!

2) Lemonade Glass Number Two - Our 7-on-7'er Team went down to Corpus Christi State Qualifying Tournament (SQT) on Saturday, June 30th, with the conviction to qualify for the State 7-0n-7 Tournament, having missed qualifying at the Houston Tournament and our own SQT at Alamo Heights High School earlier during the month of June.

The table was set in the morning play by our gang winning all three of their games in the pool we were assigned. The list of victims included our Mules defeating a very good team from Beeville H.S. that was QB'ed by Eric Soza, the son of the Beeville H.S. coach and a three-year starter at his position. During morning play our offense and defensive units were functioning like a well oiled machine playing with confidence and obvious football skills. Thus, we moved onward into the afternoon semi-final game against Mercedes H.S. from the Rio Grande Valley needing to win this game to qualify for the State 7-on-7 Tournament, and an opportunity to play in the Championship Game at the Corpus SQT.

But, on this day the stars did not align for our beloved Mules...

Our Mules found themselves facing an opponent that operated via a "non-traditional" football offense. Mercedes regularly lined up in a "scrum" of tightly grouped receivers that broke in all directions at the hike of the ball in mildly unplanned fashion trying to find a seem between defenders, making it difficult for our defensive unit to guard. While this tactic can produce excellent results in 7-on-7 play, it has little carry over to the fall season of 11-man football.

On the other side of the ball, our offense that had operated at such a skillful level during the morning games, just could not "uncork the same magic genie from the bottle" during afternoon play. Thus, our offensive unit found itself down to Mercedes 28-20 with time running out, and simply ran out of time trying to move in for a score and 2-point extra attempt to tie the game and take it into overtime. Thus, our 7-on-7 season came to an unanticipated abrupt end on what was a wind swept plain during that event.

The "lemonade" here was the caliber of our morning play. During the AM our Mules demonstrated over-and-over to the faithful fans in attendance that THIS IS GOING TO BE A VERY FINE FALL FOOTBALL TEAM COME FALL!!!!!! GO MULES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! There should be no worries, none, zippo, nada that we are going to continue the winning tradition of Mules Football. "Rebuilding Year?" I SAY BAHHHHHH! Get ready for another humdinger of a fall season!

3) Lemonade Glass Number Three - Here is a quotable quote from Coach Byrd, who turned up in Corpus Christi to watch our gang from "over the hedges," as relayed to me by Bob Broadnax from a cell phone conversation with our wonderful Head Coach during his drive home to San Antonio from Corpus.

When asked by Bob Broadnax, "Coach how do you feel about this 7-on-7 season?" Coach Byrd reportedly replied:

"I think our kids that played 7-on-7 came just as far as we could have hoped that they would skill-improvement-wise without having our fall season coaching staff along to impart additional helpful instruction, AND, our not qualifying for the State 7-on-7 Tournament will let our young men get a MUCH NEEDED break!... I mean, these young men HAVE BEEN PLAYING FOOTBALL FOR 11-MONTHS since we played into December this past season!... I saw SO MANY PROMISING THINGS during this 7-on-7 season. Tell our guys to TAKE A BREAK from touching any football until we start up on August 6th. I am proud of their accomplishments."

I think the above says it nicely... summarizing for our players... you did well during 7-on-7, take a much needed break, and we ARE PROUD OF YOU MULES!

Other Items to Report:

Item #1: Here are a few small quizzes for you...

Question: Guess what team won the State 7-on-7 Tournament?

Question: Guess what team was the ONLY team last year to beat our Mules?

Question: Guess what team will be our 1st regular season opponent this coming fall season?

Answer to all the above: Georgetown H.S.

We will be playing this foe AT Georgetown on Friday, August 31st. Does anyone have any doubt that this will be a BIG game?... I thought not. FYI, Georgetown H.S. QB Morgan Mickan threw 5 TD passes in beating Houston Stratford in the State 7-on-7 final game at Kyle Field, Texas A&M University, Saturday, 15 July. Messier Mickan and his compatriots defeated QB Andrew Luck, a highly recruited QB from Stratford, and his team 41-24.

Item #2:

Alamo Heights High School (AHHS) football product, Chase Clement of the AHHS Class of 2003, the son of Craig and Jayne Clement who is presently the starting Quarterback for The Owls of Rice University, Houston, TX, recently received some well deserved press from the Austin Statesman newspaper as to being "... one of the most underrated players in Division I College Football." Please see link below:

http://www.statesman.com/sports/content/sports/stories/other/07/12/0712sptcol.html

Way to go Chase!

Item #3:

It is with great pleasure that we pass along our thanks to 7-on-7 Head Coach Rip Lowe for the attention that he lavished on our AHHS Football Players that participated in 7-on-7 this past season. Coach Rip, THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU from all the Mule Football Faithful for all of your efforts. Many Blessings to you and your family.

GO MULES!!!!!!