Rattlers Focused on Championship

June 19,2014

By Noe Garcia, GrandstandU.com
The Arizona Rattlers have looked unstoppable many times this season and have just set a new record by starting out 13-0. No other team in Arena Football League history has ever done that before, but for the Rattlers it’s much more about a championship than a perfect season.
“We really haven’t had our focus on that at all,” Kevin Guy, coach of the Arizona Rattlers said. “Our focus for sure has been on trying to win a championship and it just kind of worked out that way.”
The Rattlers are averaging a ridiculous 65.7 points per game this season behind who many believe is the MVP this season, Nick Davila. Davila has been averaging 257 passing yards per game and has only thrown seven interceptions the entire year. The Rattlers have had such huge leads at the end of their games that Jason Murrieta, their backup quarterback, has had time in 11 games. In fact, they’ve scored so much that the Philadelphia Soul who have scored the second most points this season still trail them by 103 points. Yet even with all this success, Guy attributes this season to something else.
“We had a lot of help along the way with other team’s quarterbacks getting hurt and we felt like they had teams that were just as good as ours, but it was unfortunate to have an injury,” Guy said. “Our focus is trying to lockdown home-field advantage right now and then trying to compete for a championship. We really haven’t put a lot of thought into our start.”
Guy might not care about being undefeated or making history, but does realize that it may matter to others.
“I do think it’s great for our fans, I think it says a lot about the players in our locker room, assistant coaches, and ourselves,” Guy said. “I think it says a lot about what kind of character and hard workers we got here.”
Fans have indeed loved it as they’ve had over 63,000 show up this season with only the Orlando Predators and Los Angeles KISS having more.
The Rattlers haven’t really had any bumps in the road during this season, but if there is one thing that stuck out it was the passing of Davila’s father. Just one day before the game against San Jose his father died and many weren’t sure whether Davila would play. He didn’t start, but came in during the 3rd quarter at a crucial time when his team had just had an interception returned for a touchdown to tie it at 21. Davila did what any MVP caliber player would do, he threw for four touchdown passes, was 15-19  with 136 passing yards, and led his team to a 51-42 victory to keep his team undefeated.
“The conversations that me and Nick have had I’ll keep private, but he’s a very strong mentally young man,” Guy said. “He’s been able to handle anything that’s come his way. He’s one of the leaders in our locker room.”
Arizona has five games left on its schedule with three of those teams having losing records currently. It is a real possibility that they could become the only team in history to have a perfect 18-0 season. Of course, the two-time defending champions aren’t concerned with being perfect, but just winning every week.
“We need to concentrate on the little things and not let them turn out to be big things and focus on our execution,” Guy said. “We’re taking this one day at a time, one week at a time, one game at a time.”