By Travis Bremner
Staff Writer

With the growing popularity of intramural sports, flag football has been the direct beneficiary of that. Players and teams came in waves this year.

Flag football started last year and immediately had a nice level of interest among the student body. Eight teams participated in the sport, that number has increased to 13 this year.

“We originally were going to put all the teams in one division,” Intramurals Coordinator, Jeremy Varnell said. “But when the number of teams went over 12, we decided it was better to have two.”

Many teams who played in year one have come back for another round, Los Rancheros, Dark Blue (last year’s champion) and Team Kryptonite, formerly called Los Tigres. Senior Matthew Compomizzi, quarterback of Team Kryptonite, likes how flag football has evolved.

“It’s a lot more fun when more teams are in it, it makes it better all around,” Compomizzi said. “And for our team, we wanted to play again because we enjoyed it so much last year.”

The season has one more Saturday, Feb. 27, of regular season play before the tournament on March 6. Even though the top four teams from each division, determined by total points, will advance to the postseason, the balance of power is clearly favoring one division.

“You can argue that each of the top four teams (Dark Blue, The U, Team Kryptonite and Dewy’s Team) in our division are better than the best team (Cause of Destruction) in their division,” Compomizzi said.

The aforementioned Dark Blue, last year’s champion, features many soccer players, including seniors Jeremy Lind, Jaxon Williams and Brandon Donahue. A vast majority, if not all, of the squads would proclaim them the best team yet again this year and the odds on favorite to win the title.

“I look at it like this, we all thought Dark Blue and The U were the two best teams,” senior Drew Arista of Kryptonite said. “And Dark Blue beat them by over 20 points, without [Brandon] Donahue who might be their best player.”

Cause of Destruction, though, may have something to say about that. They’re undefeated, with one forfeit, and making it look relatively easy in the other, weaker division. They are ready for their chance to prove themselves against the mighty Dark Blue, or any of the other four teams.

“There’s no denying how fast [Dark Blue] are, each guy can take you deep on any play,” Andrew Armenta of Cause of Destruction said. “But we think we are good enough to stay with them.”

It’s like in college basketball when the selection committee is deciding between a mid-level Big East school and a mid-major school with a gaudy record. The difference here is, it will be played out on the playing surface.

“It’s going to be really exciting to see who comes out on top this year,” Arista said. “I think we have a real good but we’ll have see what happens on the field.”