By Chris Hopkins
One of these teams was expected to be here. The other was not.
The National Conference Arizona Rattlers and American Conference Cleveland Gladiators are the last remaining unbeaten teams in the AFL, as we cross the midseason point of 2014.
Arizona and Cleveland will not face each other in the regular season allowing for the possibility of two teams finishing the AFL season unbeaten.
No AFL team has been undefeated this late in the season since the Orlando Predators started the 1994 season with a record of 11-0.
We have seen this clash of the titans between two unbeaten teams in other sports, but never in modern professional football.
The 2005 college football season culminated in arguably one of the greatest college football games ever when USC and Texas, both undefeated, faced off in the National Championship. Despite being the defending national champions, having two Heisman trophy winners, and being ranked ahead of them all season long--USC fell to Texas in the waning moments of a classic game.
More recently, the 2013 NCAA Women's Basketball Championship featured two former rivals, UCONN and Notre Dame, who met in the national title game both sharing perfect records. UCONN came out victorious in a less dramatic fashion but nonetheless capped off a perfect season.
The Cleveland Gladiators are definitely the surprise team of the 2014 AFL season. They are coming off a 4-14 season in 2013 and despite making minimal moves in the offseason, have found some magic in "Believeland."
"I give Coach Thonn a ton of credit because he's galvanized that locker room into believing that no matter the situation, they can find a way to win," said AFL play-by-play announcer, Ari Wolfe.
This belief was fully evident during the Gladiators' trip to Spokane earlier in the season. When all hope seemed lost, backup quarterback Chris Dieker heaved a prayer that bounced off the net into the waiting arms of receiver Thyron Lewis for a touchdown, silencing a Shock crowd that is rarely speechless.
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"That was a big game that stuck with us," said veteran wide receiver Dominick Goodman. "It let us know that regardless of if we're down or up, we have to keep fighting and see how the game plays out, which has been our mentality," The players have also taken it into their own hands to work on becoming a tighter-knit group off the field, which helps in their on-field play.
"We do a lot of things together," said defensive back LaRoche Jackson. "We'll go eat together and the DBs pick a day out of the week where we watch film without the coaches and go over schemes."
"Everybody's on the same page and has the same focus," said Goodman. "We all know what happened last year and it's something we want to build upon this year..."
Jackson is the only player on the Gladiators to have won an ArenaBowl and sees a lot of similarities between this team and the 2011 ArenaBowl champion Jacksonville Sharks.
"It reminds me a lot of my time in Jacksonville," Jackson said. "We always did things off the field together and when it came to game time; it was hard for a team to break our focus and that's the same thing that's going on here.
As for going undefeated, Coach Thonn makes sure none of the players look too far ahead.
"He [Coach Thonn] tells us each week that we're fighting to be 1-0 and that's been our own little saying this year," Goodman said. "We don't think about the past or future we just think about each game as they come."
The Gladiators have done a masterful job taking this season in stride but have not forgotten the slough of doubters that carried low expectations for them entering the year.
"Man we started the season with a chip on our shoulder," Jackson said. "We knew that we were the underdogs and we love being the underdogs."
In watching the Gladiators defense play, it would seem that they all walk around with a full bag of chips on their shoulder.
When asked to describe the Cleveland defense, Jackson responded:
"Ball hawks. Aggressive. Punishers. When receivers face us they know they better strap their pads on and I'm not trying to talk trash, but it's just how we play."
Jackson and the entire defense carry themselves with an unapologetic swagger that has yielded the number one scoring defense in the AFL as well as the top two tacklers--Marrio Norman and Jackson.
The contrasting styles of the teams add to the intrigue of a possible matchup between Arizona and Cleveland.
"Steve Thonn and Kevin Guy have known each other for a long time so if they ended up meeting you have two opposite personalities," Wolfe said. "Kevin Guy is Mr. Intensity where he has his game-face on all the time. Stevie Thonn is Mr. Relaxed and tries to always stay composed."
The dichotomy of the two teams extends to the play on the field, as well.
Cleveland wins gritty games on the back on their defense coupled with a steady and capable offense.
Arizona, on the other hand, while they possess a top-level defense with playmakers at every level, their success is more a product of their offense led by quarterback Nick Davila.
The Rattlers offense is the number one scoring offense in the League averaging 65.9 points per game and they have yet to score less than 57 points all season.
Davila, who became the fastest quarterback in AFL history to reach 500 career passing touchdowns last week, leads the League in passing efficiency (128.5); completion percentage (68.9); passing yards (2,482); and passing touchdowns (71). He currently has a touchdown to interception ratio of 71:6, which is also tops in the League.
Davila has been the nucleus of the Rattlers, who have won the last two ArenaBowls and three straight National Conference Titles.
In addition to Davila's crusade on the record books, the Rattlers continued dominance has been equally awe-inspiring, which in large part is a reflection of Coach Kevin Guy.
"He's [Coach Guy] a perfectionist and he's an ultimate motivator," Davila said.
From top to bottom in the organization, everybody has adapted and bought into the team first mentality.
"The first day we have our meetings as a team we talk about putting the team first and there's nobody higher than the team, and that's been the team's philosophy," said Davila.
Davila is completely invested in the team's team-first mantra and refuses to let his personal accolades cloud his vision of the ultimate goal: ArenaBowl championships.
"It wouldn't mean a darn thing [going undefeated] if we didn't win it at the end," Davila said.
As we've seen in other sports, going undefeated is a daunting task that goes beyond the game.
Look no further than the most recent and famous example of the 2007 New England Patriots. They cruised through the regular season undefeated only to fall to the New York Giants--who they defeated in the last game of the regular season--in the Super Bowl.
The aforementioned Predators team finished the season 11-1 but failed to win the ArenaBowl, coincidentally losing to Arizona.
Therefore, the Rattlers are trying to learn from historical examples and not let outside factors jostle their focus of championships, not perfect records.
"In football you learn more from losses than wins," Davila said. "Coach Guy has done an excellent job of making sure we don't get complacent."
The Gladiators and Rattlers will not face each other in the regular season, which leaves the door open for a possible undefeated showdown in the ArenaBowl.
"If we can get two undefeated teams in the ArenaBowl it would be the greatest matchup--at least on paper--that we've ever had," Wolfe said.
A lot of football has yet to be played but whether or not the Gladiators and Rattlers can sustain this success makes for an interesting storyline going into the second half of the season.
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