Japan X Bowl preview: Impulse charged up for revenge against champion Frontiers

After seeing their last two seasons—and three of their last four—come to crashing halts at the hands of the Fujitsu Frontiers, the Panasonic Impulse might not have been looking forward to facing those same Frontiers in their first trip to the Japan X Bowl since 2010.

Instead, it’s just the opposite.

“I’m really glad that Fujitsu beat Obic [in the semifinals], because I’ve been in this company, this is my third year, and we’ve lost to Fujitsu ever since I’ve been here,” says Panasonic defensive lineman David Motu.

“So we’re ready to get our revenge on them. It’s going to be a really hard task, but I know we can do it. We all believe it.”

With both teams undefeated at 8-0, the championship game on Dec. 14 at Tokyo Dome is shaping up to be a classic battle. The Frontiers won their first league title last season after five unsuccessful appearances in the final, and will not give up the throne easily. The Impulse’s last championship came in 2008 and they’re set on ending that drought.

“They’re a good team,” says Fujitsu quarterback Colby Cameron. “They are more comfortable maybe in their schemes this year. Then they have obviously a couple of new players. But what’s good about them is they’re pretty well coached, which helps them a lot.”

The Impulse are well acquainted with Cameron, the former Louisiana Tech star in his second season with the Frontiers. Last year, Cameron torched them for four touchdown passes and 445 yards in a 48-24 second-stage victory that brought the Impulse’s season to an early end.

In the pre-Cameron days, Fujitsu beat Panasonic 28-13 in the semifinals in 2013, and 24-10 in the second stage in 2011.

But last season’s loss was the one that truly opened the Impulse’s eyes. It capped a disappointing season that saw their five-year streak of West Division titles end, and provided the incentive to make changes. Big changes, in the form of a quartet of American players who have helped lift the team back to the prominence.

“To us, last year’s game against Fujitsu was a shock,” Panasonic head coach Nobuyoshi Araki says. “Actually, after the loss to Fujitsu two years ago that ended our season, we thought we wanted to beat Fujitsu more than anything last year. Instead, the gap between us got larger and we suffered a big loss.

“After the big shock last year, we made a lot of changes in our roster. By changing how we approach each day, we’ve made it here today.”

The most notable addition, by virtue of his position, was running back Ben Dupree, a former triple-option quarterback at The Citadel. He introduced himself to the Kanto region by running for three touchdowns and 140 yards in a 38-14 rout of the Asahi Beer Silver Star in a second-stage game at Yokohama Stadium.

“He is very quick and fast,” Fujitsu head coach Satoshi Fujita says. “He has talent to get into the end zone. But all we can do is do our job and make tackles.”

Also added to the offense was former Alabama State lineman Edmond Davis, while Waseda University grad Scott Duffy moved across the line of scrimmage to become an offensive lineman. Motu, who moved from linebacker up to the line, was joined on the defensive unit by fellow lineman Carlton Jones, a 118-kilogram bruiser also from Alabama State, and defensive back Emory Polley, out of Brown.

“They bring just a whole new energy to our team,” Motu says. “The communication is great, we get along great with the Japanese people.

“If Fujitsu’s offensive line is going to slide to me, that’s going to give Carlton Jones a one-on-one opportunity. Which is perfect, that’s what we want. He’s a monster, and he’s going to show all of Japan what he’s made of.”

As products of the Japanese collegiate system, Duffy and Motu, who attended Nihon University, do not count against the quota of two foreign players allowed on the field at one time.

While the American contingent has played a role in Panasonic’s rejuvenation, no team can rely solely on its imports. Like Fujitsu, Panasonic is stocked with high-quality Japanese players, such as wide receiver Tatsuya Tonka and veteran defensive lineman Yasuo Wakisaka, still going strong at 46. Running back Shun Yokota showed his agility when he carried the load in the 45-17 semifinal win over the Nojima Sagamihara Rise, which Dupree missed for undisclosed reasons.

“It doesn’t matter that they’re Japanese or not Japanese, I think they just have good players,” Cameron says. “I think they’re pretty consistent throughout their defense—defensive line, linebackers, safeties, corners. I think that’s what makes them a pretty good team.”

Fujitsu earned its return to the Japan X Bowl with a 27-6 victory over the Obic Seagulls, but the victory came at a cost. Running back Gino Gordon, last year’s game MVP, suffered a serious leg injury that will keep him out of the championship game.

Cameron says the Fujitsu bench is filled with players willing and ready to step in and plug a hole. He saw it first hand last season, when he suffered a shoulder injury just before halftime of the Japan X Bowl victory over the IBM BigBlue and never returned to the game. He also missed the Rice Bowl against collegiate champion Kwansei Gakuin, which the Frontiers won behind backup QB Keiya Hiramoto.

“The good thing about our team is we always just say, ‘Next man up’,” Cameron says. “We won the X Bowl last year when I got hurt. We won the Rice Bowl when I didn’t play. I think we have a good enough team where we can rally with all of our players.”

On the flip side, the Frontiers got wide receiver Teruaki Clark Nakamura back for the Obic game after he missed four games with a back injury. That gives Cameron another target in addition to Junpei Yoshimoto and Yuji Mizuno, who really stepped up in Nakamura’s absence. In last year’s game against Panasonic, Nakamura caught three of Cameron’s touchdown passes, including ones for 63 and 84 yards.

While the others score the points, football games are won and lost in the trenches. Panasonic’s best hope will be to get past Fujitsu’s burly offensive line and put enough pressure on Cameron to disrupt his timing.

“Get him frustrated,” Motu says. “You got to do something, at least get hands in his face. If you have the opportunity, you got to hit him. We’ve been watching a lot of film ever since we won, teams when they have the opportunity, they’re not really hitting him.”

Other teams have tried and failed, with the result being that Cameron has had just three of 256 passes intercepted, while completing 178 for 2,350 yards and 28 touchdowns.

“You just can’t get to him,” Araki says. “He really sets up deep and the timing of his passes is so quick. Any team, whether it was Lixil, Obic or whoever, had a strategy to pressure him, but couldn’t get to him. If you blitz, he soon finds the open spot. He makes it very difficult.”

The winner of the Japan X Bowl advances to the Rice Bowl on Jan. 3 at Tokyo Dome for the national title. They will face the collegiate champion, to be decided in the Koshien Bowl on Dec. 13 between Waseda and Ritsumeikan.

—Ken Marantz for the X-League