Talons bring explosiveness

Marketing isn’t Adam Shackleford’s department, but the Spokane Shock coach dabbled a bit this week.

He didn’t try to call tonight’s arenafootball2 National Conference championship game against Tulsa the game of the century, but he didn’t mute his enthusiasm, either.

“This is definitely the best (af2) team that’s ever come to town,” Shackleford said of the Talons, af2 champions two seasons ago. “We’ve seen some good teams and even some great teams. This is a tremendous team.”

And yet if only by virtue of their status as visitors, the Talons (15-3) come into the Spokane Arena as tacit underdogs to the Shock (17-1), losers of just three of 38 games over the past two seasons – though still trying to duplicate the af2 title they won in their inaugural 2006 season.

Tonight’s survivor advances to the ArenaCup next Saturday in Las Vegas against the winner of the American Conference title game between Wilkes-Barre/Scranton and Green Bay.

As successful as the Shock have been in their four years of existence, the Talons have a bigger body of work – 134 victories dating back to the af2’s inception 10 years ago, only one season with fewer than 11 victories and ArenaCup wins in 2003 and 2007. But while Shackleford acknowledged them as “the model,” he understands the Shock aren’t playing a history book tonight – and noted an obvious subtext.

“You have a juggernaut of an offense against a defense that’s been holding a lot of good offenses well under their average,” he said. “To win this game, we have to rely on our defense to make plays. If we get in a shootout, we’re capable of scoring points – but I don’t think we’ve been in as many shootouts as they have.”

Just two weeks ago, the Talons won their first-round game over Oklahoma 90-75 – an af2 playoff record for points made all the more remarkable by the fact that they didn’t score on every possession. Quarterback Justin Allgood has thrown for more touchdowns – 108 – than anyone in the league, not quite half of those going to Jeff Hughley, af2’s leader in all-purpose yardage.

“When times get tough and they need a big play, he’s the guy they look to,” Shackleford said.

And though Hughley has no bigger fan than Tulsa coach Mitch Allmer (“he really puts defenses in a bind”), he also cautioned that the Talons have dealt with teams that focused their efforts on Hughley.

“There have been a couple of seasons when we didn’t have three true threats, but that’s not the case this year,” Allmer said. “Any one of our guys can go all the way at any time, and Jeff is one of those guys who doesn’t care if he catches 20 or one, as long as we win.”

Allmer is concerned about Spokane’s opportunism, as reflected in the Shock’s league-leading plus-34 in turnover ratio. But of the four surviving playoff teams, Spokane has also been superior in stopping opponents on fourth down, just as important in allowing just 37.6 points per game.

Not a lot to be inferred from common-opponent comparisons. Both teams split a pair of games with Iowa and beat Wilkes-Barre/Scranton. The Talons blasted Oklahoma in three separate meetings, while the Shock routed the Yard Dawgz in their only game.