Why So Blu?

My First Experience w/ The LFL: Austin Acoustic v. L.A. Temptation

I’ve lived in the Austin area for over six years now and let me tell you, having lived in Cleveland my entire life I miss professional sports something awful.  I can’t get into the minor league sports here like baseball, basketball and hockey.  Just like college sports they ain’t my thing.  I’m a big leaguer!  When I tell people this they usual rebuttal by saying this is a college town or more recently professional sports are coming to Austin, TX.  Yes folks, it’s an MLS soccer team (yawn) that will be known as Austin FC.  Their logo is even that of a tree.  How boring can you get?  Don’t answer that.  It was a rhetorical question.  But wait!  What’s this “football” league here, which I somehow never heard of before?  Who are the Austin Acoustic?  Fret not.  You’re in the right place to a get a crash course on both.  Follow me onto the proverbial field down below, but not before I post a picture of my new favorite LFL quarterback (as you’ll quickly tell I’m very much into this).  

Circa 10 years ago I remember a women’s football league known as the Lingerie Football League where the players wore bras, panties and garters.  So immediately when I heard of the LFL and learned of the Austin Acoustic team I thought I knew what the acronym stood for.  Like most things in life I was wrong, but I was very close.  Upon a quick Google search I came to learn that the Lingerie Football League was rebranded as the Legends Football League in 2013.  So technically from a certain point of view I was right.  The LFL is officially billed as a women’s 7-on-7 tackle American football league with games played in basically two-piece swimsuits (the league calls the uniforms “performance apparel”).  How can you go wrong with that?  It was a rhetorical question again, but of course you’re talking two concepts that obviously go together like peanut butter and jelly, football and women playing it in bikinis.  It doesn’t get any more American than that.  Am I right?  Okay I will stop while I’m ahead here.  Let’s talk about the league in more detail and oh those rules.

I’m going to skip the history of how the league was formed, blah, blah, blah (you can read all about that HERE) and focus on specifics.  The US version of this league consists of two conferences, Eastern and Western, each comprised of 4 teams (click HERE to see the names and home locations of all 8 current teams).  There are plans for expansion too.  Bring it!  The Austin Acoustic are part of the Western Conference and this is a big game for them as going in they hold a 2-0 record, but I digress for the moment.  The best I can tell is each team plays four games over a 19 week regular season and there’s both a conference championship and a Cup game to cap off Week 21 (the entire schedule can be viewed HERE).  Playing style is full-contact and the uniforms as we previously discussed consist of shoulder pads, elbow pads, knee pads, their performance apparel and ice hockey-style helmets with clear plastic visors.  In other words not your traditional football helmet as shown below.

As far as LFL game rules go, period lengths and whatnot I thought it would be better to show you instead of list them all out.  It’s always funner that way in my opinion.  So I took the liberty to lift this screenshot below of the very simple game rules right from the LFL’s official website HERE, or you can view them in more detail on this Wikipedia page HERE.  

Click the below graphic to enlarge for maximum viewing pleasure.  

The Austin Acoustic, the best thing I’ve found down here now (besides Torchys Tacos of course), was birthed in 2016 and plays at the H-E-B Center.  Convenient for me is the fact that this arena is less than 5 miles away from our house.  That’s fate folks because if you know me, I hate driving far distances down here in Texas.  I can literally walk here if I wanted to.  Woohoo!  Even better according to LFL360.com this Week 14 contest was the most anticipated game of the season.  I’m just learning this one too, but supposedly Austin’s Michelle Angel and Los Angeles’ Ashley Salerno are two of the most notable quarterbacks in LFL history.  How’s that for my first LFL game ever?  Not bad!  Also, depending on how the playoff seeding ends it’s quite possible we could have seen this matchup again in the postseason if Los Angeles would have won.

Before we talk about my first LFL game day experience I can’t help myself with the following two photos I found on the Austin Acoustic’s Facebook page HERE.  I just so happened to have seen Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon A Time In Hollywood twice now this week (see my full review of it all HERE).  Now come on!  Tell me these below photos are not reminiscent of the trippy 1960 vibe Tarantino created in that film (especially that image of a dancing DiCaprio).  I know it’s a little off topic, but you can’t fault me for creatively finding a way to force these amazing images in my review here. 

So now let’s talk about that game day experience!  Wow!  Can you believe that for the quarters only being ten minutes long and each team only getting 2 timeouts per half the game itself nearly lasted 3 hours.  That’s okay because it was a nail biter and literally came down to the wire with under a minute left…13 seconds to be exact.  And don’t let it be said that these women don’t hit hard (because they do).  Again wow!  I saw so many Temptation players leave the field heading towards the tunnel before the end of the first half that I lost count.  Sadly my Acoustic team favorite (I do have a thing for quarterbacks), Angel, got knocked out in the 3rd.  However, she quickly returned in the 4th to lead the team to victory.  Honorable mentions go out to the Acoustic’s running back, Chrisdell Harris, and Defensive End, Courtney Dowdy.  They were both workhorses in every polite sense of the term.  The former literally carried the team on her back at times.

I mentioned up above that the game nearly lasted 3 hours and that was without any overtime.  However, there were moments when the quarters literally felt like they were blowing by.  Then the timeouts get called whether it was for the many injuries or team induced.  That’s where things felt like they dragged the most.  The gameplay was so brisk, but a timeout seemed to last an eternity not to mention the 12-minute halftime.  It was more like 20 plus, but I digress.  What’s important though is I had a good time.  Yes it is all about me.  Ha!  The energized rock anthems they blasted between plays didn’t hurt the mood either.  I’m just saying!

The game did start a bit late past the 7 PM curtain time, but that was okay as it gave the crowd a few extra moments to get there and take their seats.  We’ll cover attendance in a few, but I wanted to focus on the game’s clunky 5 plus minutes of introductions.  The Temptation took the field first, but then the announcer proceeded to call out about seven players by name from the Acoustic and they charged the field and did whatever they wanted to pump up the crowd.  Some carried and waved flags and others just ran out with their arms up in full spirit.  Regardless of who was singled out by the announcer the players all came out of a smoky tunnel as pictured above.  That was cool!  Sadly Angel was not one of those players called out by name and she ran on the field with the rest of the players.  Game on!

I lied up above.  I guess what’s more important than even me having a good time is the fact that the Acoustic won in a heart-pounding, thriller-like fashion.  I’m assuming this win solidified them a playoff berth in the Western Conference with the Seattle Mist.  Woohoo!  The final score ended up being 33-26 as shown on the H-E-B Center scoreboard pictured below.  By the way I said prior I am “assuming” because it’s almost 24 hours later and the LFL’s website has yet to updated with Austin’s now 3-0 record.

Now I did promise the LFL on Twitter (their official Twitter handle is @MyLFL) that I’d share my first LFL game experience with them.  Up above I mostly listed all the positives about my first ever game I attended yesterday.  However, there are some criticisms I had about my game day experience too.

• First of all, and this one should seem really basic and easy to remedy, there was no indication whatsoever anywhere to be found what down it was or how many yards left to go until a first.  I was easily able to see the sideline sticks indicating what down it was and visually where they needed to go to pick up a first down, but why can’t this information be readily available on the scoreboard is beyond me.
• Second, and I kind of already made mention of this up above, but because there was no ticking clock during timeouts or anything else visually like there would be during a hockey intermission halftime and timeouts seemed like they were never ending.  UPDATE – The above and this bullet point is all rectified in the full game broadcast as per embedded down below.
• Lastly, the on field ref’s microphone was inaudible.  They had issues with it at the start of the game and never fixed it.  So that meant you couldn’t tell what the penalties were because you could not make out the broken audio.  That’s not the league’s fault, but come on.  My broadcasting and production background could have assisted you with that one.  However, when they do post the full broadcast of the game one week later it is flawless.  Really great production value!
• One final last pet peeve, but I cannot tell a lie…I missed field goals.  I really thought this game was heading into overtime because of this omission, but thankfully my #7 took care of business like any good leader should.
• And I do have a suggestion for improvement as it relates to the Austin Acoustic’s home games.  I notice they left one whole side of the H-E-B Center closed off and many of the concession stands and such were not open due to half the attendance like they normally can pack in for say the Texas Stars hockey games.  May I suggest what the H-E-B area grocery stores do for the Austin Spurs and Stars too?  H-E-B gives out free tickets to those games when you check out.  Obviously not everybody attends, but that’s a way to at least put butts in seats and get a packed and rowdy crowd behind these women.  For the arena that’s also way to also make those concession funds too.  Again, I’m just saying.
• And I really saved this rant for last, but at the time of this publication the LFL’s official website has yet to be updated with Austin’s 3-0 record.  If you need someone to update things for you guys/girls, just give me a holler.  – UPDATE – As I learned per the comments below this is done on PURPOSE.  I’ve been schooled.  Thank you so much John for setting me straight.

So there you have it folks.  Baptism by fire!  This was my first LFL game experience ever and whether you believe me or not the first Austin sports team I ever truly got behind and rooted for (Round Rock Express don’t count).  Because of the fact that the Austin Acoustic took care of business extending their 2019 season record to a perfect 3-0 I feel like I’m now obligated to find a way to view their August 10th final matchup against the Nashville Knights and of course the Western Conference Championship too.  Can they go 4-0?  Can they go all the way to the Cup game again?  Road trip anyone?  I’m honestly invested now (and fully supportive of this league) in wanting to watch these remaining games, root this team on and see where this crazy train takes us.  Last but not least, below is a shot of the victorious Austin team on the field.  Next time I wanna stick around for meet and greet!  Until then…Go Austin Go!