2nd Stage Preview: Frontiers DE Flynn peaking at right time

After one of the more unique starts ever to a first season in Japan, Fujitsu defensive end Austin Flynn feels he has finally rounded into shape. And that squarely means trouble for the Frontiers’ next opponents in their drive for a first-ever league title.

“I just had to get back into my football condition,” Flynn says. “I was in shape, but I wasn’t in football shape. Now I feel good, now I feel at my normal condition and speed for football. So I feel it will make a difference.”

Fujitsu, last year’s league runner-up to the Obic Seagulls, are counting on Flynn to be one of the differences as it begins the second stage of the season, when the competition gets stiffer and the stakes get higher.

The Frontiers, who have played in—and lost—four of the last seven Japan X Bowls, take a 5-0 record from the East Division into their first game Saturday against the Asahi Beer Silver Star at Tokyo’s Amino Vital Field.

In other second-stage openers, the surprising West Division champion Elecom Kobe Finies will face the Nojima Sagamihara Rise at Amino Vital Field, and the Central Division-winning Lixil Deers will clash with the Asahi Soft Drinks Challengers at Osaka’s Expo Flash Field.

In the second stage, the top three teams from each division are realigned into three groups containing a first-, second- and third-place team in each. Each team plays the other two in its group, and the four teams with the best combined records from divisional play and the stage advance to the semifinals.

Fujitsu will also face the Panasonic Impulse, who shut out all of four of their opponents after suffering a season-opening loss to Elecom to finish second in the West. Elecom has also been grouped with Obic, while Lixil’s other opponent will be the IBM BigBlue.

With the Deers’ 23-17 upset of the four-time defending champion Seagulls in the Central Division finale, the Frontiers head into the second stage as the prohibitive favorite. But the Seagulls’ loss also served as a lesson that, at this point, no team can be underestimated.

“It definitely wakes your team up a little when you see Obic lose,” Flynn says. “I think our head is on straight. I think we’re ready to roll.”

The Frontiers are coming off a tough 7-0 victory over the Rise in the final East Division game, a win that gave a generally untested defense a boost of confidence. Fujitsu had won its four other games by a combined score of 241 to 30, including a 41-13 rout of the second-place IBM BigBlue.

“I think our defense played great against the Rise,” Flynn says. “I feel like we proved to a lot of teams that we could hold an offense off for a whole game. We had a lot of down guys against Rise on offense, so the defense had to step in and help out.

“I think we did our part and I think that it gave us a lot of confidence for the next couple of games coming up. We just have to keep on getting better.”

Flynn and a defense that features 2013 All X-League selections linebacker Yuji Aoki and defensive back Al-Rilwan Adeyami will be called upon to stop an Asahi Beer offense led by either 40-year-old quarterback Minoru Tono or 23-year-old Kazuma Ando. Ando looked particularly sharp against the Deers on Sept. 15, completing 24 of 31 passes for 257 yards in a close game that the Silver Star eventually lost 20-10.

Leading Fujitsu’s high-power offense is quarterback Colby Cameron, like Flynn a key addition to the squad this season. The former Louisiana Tech star got his feet wet in the Pearl Bowl in the spring, leading the Frontiers to the final. This fall, he has completed 72 of 109 passes for 1,108 yards and 16 touchdowns with two interceptions—numbers that could have been far higher had he not come out so early in the routs. His favorite target was Teruaki Clark Nakamura, who had 28 receptions for 453 yards and 10 touchdowns, all tops in the league.

Fujitsu and Asahi Beer, which finished third in its division for the fourth straight year, have met twice recently, with the Frontiers winning 35-6 last year in a divisional game, then routing the Silver Star 48-7 in last spring’s Pearl Bowl.

Flynn, who played in the high-level Southeastern Conference at Arkansas University, had been an undrafted free agent in the Oakland Raiders’ rookie camp. After not making the team, he continued working out on his own before joining Fujitsu and arriving in time for the season-opener against the Hurricanes on Sept. 7.

The 196-centimeter, 118-kilogram Flynn made quite an introduction. On his very first play, he leveled quarterback Seitaro Iwasaki with such a vicious hit, it knocked Iwasaki out of the game and got Flynn ejected for what the referee determined was a helmet-to-helmet hit.

“After we looked at it, it clearly wasn’t,” Flynn says. “I don’t wish upon anybody to get hurt, but it felt good to hit someone.”

Flynn said the mood on the team heading into the second stage was great. “I feel like we’re prepared for it,” he says. “I feel like after last week [against Nojima], we kind of adjusted a few things that we needed to fix. It wasn’t anything major, just little stuff on both sides of the ball. I think we’ll be good to go. I think we’ll be a hard team to beat.”

Meanwhile, Obic enters the second stage in the unfamiliar situation of being a second-place team, which means an extra week off before having to play two consecutive weeks.

“It’s weird,” Obic defensive end Kevin Jackson says. “Not only having the weird schedule, just being in the position that we’re in.”

Jackson says the Seagulls have been sharp in practice, unlike before the Deers’ game, when they might have been looking ahead toward another potential title clash with Fujitsu. They also know they can’t afford another loss if they want a chance at a fifth straight title.

“I think in the back of everyone’s mind was Fujitsu. But that’s not the case now. We have to beat everybody.”

The loss to the Deers was Obic’s first in the fall season since 2009. The Seagulls also lost to Fujitsu in the 2013 Pearl Bowl.

“We didn’t adjust well on defense,” Jackson says of the Deers game. “We were kind of stubborn on some of the stuff that we initially wanted to do, even though I think they were doing some things differently. No panic, I don’t think there are any major problems that we can’t fix.

“It kind of reminds me of last year when we lost in the spring. Guys are really refocused and really dialed in now to what we need to do.”

—Ken Marantz for the X-League