Story by Ron Petersen – The Grand Island Independent
Grand Island, NE - The Nebraska Danger begins play in the IFL playoffs Friday night at the Iowa Barnstormers.
The Danger (4-10) is on a nine-game losing streak that dates all the way back to its one-point victory win on March 30 against the Barnstormers. Nebraska kicks off against Iowa (11-3) in a 7:05 p.m. game in Des Moines, Iowa. The Danger is the fourth seed and will play the top seed while Arizona (11-3) and Sioux Falls (11-3) will play Saturday in the other semifinal.
After a disappointing loss against the Arizona Rattlers in the final regular season game, the Danger is determined to come back to win this week. "The guys came in and worked very hard," defensive coordinator and co-head coach Pig Brown said. "We have a great game plan in and so we just got to go execute."
Iowa's duel threat quarterback Drew Powell has caused problems for defenses across the league the whole season. Powell has thrown for 1,604 yards with 34 touchdowns, and he ran for 939 yard with 23 touchdowns in the regular season. The key of the game for the Danger is to stop Powell in the air and on the ground.
"You got to force him to make bad decisions, and if you can do that, then you have a good chance of beating them," Brown said. "He doesn't do it very often, but if we can make him make one or two bad decisions then we will have a good chance of winning."
On the offensive side of the football expect multiple guys to make plays because that is what happened when the Danger scored 43 points in the first matchup against Iowa. "We are going to put the guys out there who we think will give us the best chance to win," Brown said.
After a long week of hard work, the Danger is one win away from appearing in a championship game, and that is all the motivation needed to beat the top-seeded Barnstormers. "We went very hard on Monday and Tuesday. We went extremely hard Wednesday, gave the guys rest on Thursday and now we are ready to go on Friday," Brown said.