The Marauders had beaten the Mustaches twice this season, 44-6 on the opening slate and 30-6 in the Mustaches' own building in week fifteen. The third meeting was the conference championship, and the Mustaches won it 39-13, running it forty-three times.
The backfield that took those beatings does not exist. In the week-fifteen loss the carries went nine to Tevin Halloran, nine to Slim Ironside, and four, for minus three, to Najee Fenwick; two weeks later the chart flipped, and I called it the biggest thing to happen to the Mustaches all year, for the second time. Fenwick has carried forty-six times in two playoff games for 192 yards, and his whole regular season was seventy-one carries for 203.
Halloran, demoted sitting on 1,311 yards, ran sixteen for ninety-eight in the conference championship — the identical line he ran in week eighteen. The chart says Fenwick and the count keeps saying Halloran, and the Mustaches have stopped needing it settled.
Fenwick was asked what was different about the third meeting. “We ran it forty-three times.”
The Hellcats, 9-8 in the regular season and road winners in both rounds since, come to that building next, for the Iron Jug. I have been right about this chart once in print. Twice, then: Fenwick carries it twenty or more times in the final.