July 4th Recap

The host of Team Couture's podcast recaps the July 4th tournament, discussing the games against Tier 1 and Unknown. He highlights the emotional moments and player conflicts, emphasizing the importance of discipline and teamwork. He interviews Bobby, who got ejected from the game, and AP, who experienced frustration during a play. The host also interviews Tommy, the quarterback, and discusses the team's strengths and areas for improvement. He describes the team's successful games against Gilroy's and East Coast, ultimately falling short in the tournament. The host expresses appreciation for his teammates and promises more interviews in the future. Good afternoon everyone, welcome back to Team Couture's podcast. I'm your host Tony. And today we'll be going through July 4th tournament. And also thank you to our sponsors of the final stage, Go Tokyo, Asian Taste, Rick the Barber, and also Focoma. So hello everyone, I know it's been about a week since I made the last episode of the predictions of our schedule, which was up against Tier 1 and Unknown. And after that I will also recap the playoffs later. So right now we're going to get into first day 1 and day 2. And also guys, not just that, I do also have bonus interviews with some of the players that made amazing plays and also some players that made very bad decision plays also. So not just that, let's start off with Tier 1 and Crusaders. In the game there's a lot of emotions compared to both teams. Both coming from Wisconsin, both are technically rivals for one another, and both teams want to bring the championship back to Wisconsin. You know, it's all about competition and it's all about the rivalry that we have with one another. I guess I could say, I guess here at Tier 1, we lost by 1 point, 7 to 6, which is not bad. We only get Tier 1 one touchdown. Besides that, our offense was able to execute on the second drive, but throughout the time being, it's just the pressure got to us. And the guy that I want to talk about is Bobby. Bobby was in the first or second snap, Bobby got into a little fist fight with one of the Tier 1 defenders saying, you know, Bobby sit the F down and shut the F up, whatever it is. And Bobby kind of got a little more angry. And he's like, dude, what the heck, man? I'm just trying to play. Everything got physical. Bobby pushed him in the back. It was a bad thing to do. And they started throwing fists at each other. And the refs called and said, hey, both players are now ejected from the game, can no longer be part of the game. And I think that was one of our downfalls that kind of made our team have the negativity. And for Bobby, I will play his take on here for sure, no problem. It's just that sometimes you really have to be disciplined to yourself and really show your team that you are a team player. Don't be selfish with what you have of your emotions on the field. Keep those emotions locked in and you'll be alright. So I will be playing Bobby's interview here in just a second. So Bobby, during that moment at that time when you got ejected from the game, can you give me some kind of brief summary of what happened before you got ejected? And kind of give me the frustration that you were going through. Yeah, it was just a tough game to watch, honestly. I felt like I needed to be in there, but man, with Fang in there, dude, I don't know what he was on. He's really just trying to hurt somebody. I don't understand why he plays that way. He's got to have a different attitude when he plays. So that is not okay at all. That's unacceptable. As a player too, especially if you're trying to hurt somebody like that, you could really hurt someone to the point where they won't be able to play again. But dude, he was just on something. Someone's got to be held accountable, at least. I can tell that you're very emotional when it comes down to an embarrassing or on the court, on the field. What can you do to control those feelings right now? I promised my team I wouldn't have him again. So that's what's going to happen. I'm just going to go forward with it. If he pushes me back again, I guess I just have to accept it. Hopefully, never let that happen to me again. So like I said before, when it comes down to being disciplined and having that mentality of not getting pissed off on the field, you really have to control your emotions out there. Definitely, you're one of the key playmakers on the offense. And Tommy Relata, you too. All of us guys have to stay steady. We have to stay disciplined. Coach was there. Coach was really pissed. I believe Adam had to begin there, which is Bobby's younger brother. I think so, younger brother? I don't remember. I forgot. He had to come and play. He did make a small difference, but it was just enough to get us going for sure. Thank you, Bobby, for this interview. So now we're going to move on to AP. AP is going to be another guy that made a great play and also got frustrated. So let's get to the interview. So what I have here is AP, who is playing Titan, 14, Crusaders. He was tied down in 5. He needed a touchdown to get it tied up. He went out for the ball. He got the ball. It was called a touchdown. But one of the defenders pushed you down. They grabbed your body, pulled you down to the ground, and tried to keep you there. In that moment, what was going on through your head? Were you mad? What was your reaction? You can give me what happened. It was just trying to make a good play and then kind of trying to get up and celebrate with my teammates. But I don't know if he felt angry or upset about how the play went his way. So he kind of held me down for a second as I was trying to get up and find my teammates to celebrate, which I then also overreacted. But at the end of the day, we came back. We talked it out. Actually, the next play on the extra point, we talked it out, hashed it out, said my bad, his bad, too. Sometimes the play doesn't go your way. You get bagged or you don't get bagged. You got bagged. But it was all love at the end of the day, though, showing mutual respect. So having AP as an amazing player, as an amazing captain to the team, having him there is amazing. He's one of those guys that will always make those plays. We are grateful to have him as our leader and grateful to have him as our sexiest man on the court or sexiest man on the field with his long ass hair. I do have Tommy, our quarterback for the Crusaders. He's another guy that I love talking to. He's a guy that I love having chemistry with. Even though I'm not on the office at the moment, I'm playing on defense as of now. But him and I, we were kind of juggling with one another. He's a very outgoing, very positive guy. He's doing his best to keep everyone in check to make sure that, hey, don't use your emotions to get angry or whatever the case may be. But I did have an interview with him, and here it is. Hey, Tommy, can you give me a brief summary of what happened with Tier 1? Both sides of the ball, office and defense, what can we do better for the next game or the next time when we face Tier 1 again? I mean, recap, Tier 1, 7, Crusader 6, so a very close game, obviously. Good plays by both teams on both sides of the ball. I think for us, defensively first, just more communication. We got in a huddle, or the captains and the team talked after, and just not enough verbal communication and confirmations between the players, which is why we let some deep balls go. So we had a post out on the right side and then a deep fade on the left side, which shouldn't have happened, but no it did. You just got to learn from it and get better. And then offensively, it wasn't too bad. First drive we stalled out, threw it out, but you can't have those. Every drive is important. But I think for the next game, we just need to feed our top players a little more like Elijah. Only giving him a look or two that first game is only going to help us if we try to feed him the ball. So I think that's what we need to do going forward, is feed him the ball. One more question now, what can you guys do to help discipline Bobby? Because Bobby got kicked out of the game, ejected. So what can we do to get him more disciplined and more humble about being in the game? He apologized to everybody after the game, which is great. We just need to hold each other accountable. He knows he was wrong in that moment because he knows it could have hurt the team. Ultimately, there's a foul on both sides or a penalty on both sides. If it was just him and they only caught him doing it, that would have been killer for us. He knows what he needs to do. I'll tell the leaders and captains, just talk to him and make sure it doesn't happen again. If it does, that's where we take the appropriate actions. So thank you for Tomei for this amazing interview. For him to be a leader, the man who loves the game and loves to play the game, for him to be able to take account of his own mistakes, that's amazing for him. So thank you Tomei for an amazing interview. So after this interview, after the game, we went up against a team called Unknown. We beat them by 24-6. All props to Unknown. They did what they could to get back in the game. We were a better team. Throughout the entire game, we did great. Our defense, the more I think about it, did great. Troy got in there, AK got in there, and also Tyler got in there easily. Once we started realizing, okay, we're up by two touchdowns, should we put in our bench players? At that point, it wasn't halftime yet. So I kept telling my defense to not let up, and coach was listening to what I said, to not let up. Because anyone could come back to a game just by finding that motivation, that spark in that team. So we kept on pushing, kept pushing every single play. I believe when Tyler stepped out, he called me to go in. I was like, yes, my turn, my time to shine, baby. In my experience in that game, I closed my eyes for a good 10 seconds. I told myself that I got to have the eye of the tiger, man. I got to get hungry. So when I got in there, there was no humbleness on the field right there. I wanted to kill these guys. It's like that. I did shoot a kiss hand for sure. He's a young guy. I'm only 25. Maybe he's only 19 possibility, but he's bigger than me. All I did was use my speed. I got around every single play. I believe his quarterback wrote out his right every single time the center snapped the ball. I'm like, man, come to my side. I got so freaking pissed. At the same time, it's a good thing that I make a play for my teammates on the other side, the nose tackle and the defense, as rushers to get in there. I think Timmy or Billy got the sack. It was amazing for them. My job is to pressure him all day. I think I'm doing an amazing part of my job. The key to quarterback running or the key to running back avoiding my side is to go to the other side. I believe it was fourth down. No, it was third down. It was third down and five. The quarterback hard-counted the ball. I went forward. I don't forget. I just went for the ball. It was a flag on play. Luckily, it was not on me. It was on the offense. It was a false start on the offense. I was like, oh my goodness. Thank God. Everyone was like, watch the ball. It was fourth down. I was like, you know what? I'm going to go bull rush this kid. I did. He got really surprised how strong I am as a person. Also, congrats to the guys also on defense who made plays, amazing coverage. They did their part of the job. We finished well. We finished good. Like I said, it was 24-6. We moved on to the next game, which is the playoff game. Day two against the Gilroy's, we win the playoffs. We were pretty much waiting in our time, 10-30 around that time. Going against the Gilroy's, we beat them by 20-6. We did an amazing job on everyone's part. There's a play when Kealoo tipped the ball. The ball got tipped. Guess who caught it? Keegan Bayne. I also gave him an interview here too. I will read it right now, actually. So Keegan, in that moment when Kealoo tipped the ball, you saw the ball in the air. What was your set of mindset? Did you want to just let it drop or just want to pick it off? Because I knew it was a third down or something and they would have a fourth down left to go into. So for you to see that ball coming, what was going through your mind at that moment? So during that moment, the ball was in the air for a couple of seconds and I knew right away I had to catch the ball. As soon as I caught it, I had my safety behind me, Jamar, looking and asking for the ball. So I passed it to him and that's what gained us a couple more yards. So it's amazing for Jamar and Keegan to have that chemistry on defense to know that hey, the boss passed the ball back and we're all getting extra yards or get a touchdown, potentially. But an amazing play on Keegan and for him to recognize that kind of play when the ball is tipped in the air, that concentration that he has. So I can say guys, amazing job for Keegan. Another highlight of the play was one of our best plays ever. It was a screen pass to AP from Tomei and the blocking was amazing. Tyler just literally went up to the guy, blocked him or tripped him in a way, blocked and tripped. And he went down to the floor as I saw Tyler trying to get up as fast as possible to see where AP was running. And it was an astounding, exciting play that I've ever seen. And AP went all the way down for the touchdown. But this interview with Tyler, AP and Elijah, they will explain what happened. What happened was we were in a screen, right? Came out, I pulled out, got the linebacker. I felt some standoffs, but I just put my weight in him, dropped him, sat in him. And then I wanted to talk a little shit. I'm a humble player, so I just got up, walked back to the huddle, and I see AP gone. He's running down the field. And yeah, it was a good block. Elijah, man, I heard so many talk about you at the sign line, everyone say you're the beast out there. How do you feel being called the guy on the field? Well, it's good. It's nice to know that I'm being noticed at least a little bit. I wouldn't be here without my dogs, my teammates. I thought I had already scored, but I thought I had like three more steps to go in the end zone. Turns out I had like 10. So I just saw my man, Graham, one of our tight ends and one of our safeties, running right behind me, a good shovel behind the back pass. Hopefully that makes it on some top fan video or something. Yeah, it was a good win for the team. It was a good redemption win as well. And just going forward, we're going to see who we got. So right now, what do you got to say to the team right now? Something to say about the team right now? I think that win specifically definitely brought us close together as a unit, showed us that if we stay into three Cs, we've been saying, you know, calm, cool, collective, it takes us further than we think. That's a big exclamation point on this tournament and that win. As of right now, the job's not done, right? No, absolutely not. Job's not done. Job's not done until the last whistle, until we need to go home with the money and the trophy or nothing at all. But it's not stopping until then. Thank you, my brother, AP, Elijah, man. Thank you so much for you. Appreciate it. Thank you. Appreciate it, boy. Like I said, these guys are so amazing and the way how they carry us as a team, as a whole, as a family, this is the type of football positivity that you want in your team. No negativity. It's all about supporting one another every single day, every single drive, every single snap. And until the end of the game, we still have to support each other no matter what situation we are put in. So after that, after pretty much the game against the Gilroy's, we played against East Coast. East Coast are from California. I don't know too much about that team, but all I know is that they went all the way and congrats to them for winning all the way. For us, we just fell short. We lost to them by 22 to 13. So we were only down by literally by eight points, technically eight to nine points. For us to really do our best at what we can do with my guys, I know I left early to pick up my kids in Madison. And I wish I was there too. I wish I was able to see and give my guys the interview of what was going on through the game, after the game. But congrats to my guys. You guys did amazing this year. We got fifth or sixth place around that position. But like I said, if we would have won this game, we would have been championship bound. But we just came out short and that's okay. Come back next week, practice and grind again. And coming up for Cheburgen and the next Wausau. But again, thank you for those I have interviewed on Sunday and Saturday last weekend. You guys did an amazing job for answering my questions and all that. And later on for sure, I would do the same thing again. The next tournament, I'm going to give you guys more interviews. And for those guys who are not in it right now, that's okay. We just had to keep on practicing, grinding, grinding, grinding. And for those guys I didn't give you an interview on here and you did make a play, that doesn't mean you're anything less. I'm just getting the guys that are the biggest playmakers, that pretty much are the X-Factors on our team. I'm doing my best I can to give everyone else an interview. Same with coach, same with some other players on the bench team, etc. So you guys, thank you so much for listening to Team Q-Tip's podcast. You guys know I'm totally going to be a host. That's it guys, I'll see you guys in the next one.