The 1-5 Allgäu Comets travel to Indolstadt, Germany to take on the winless Ingolstadt Dukes (0-7) as the second of only two games being played in the German Football League this weekend.
The Comets earned their only win of the season against the Dukes a month ago in Kempten in a hard-fought 28-26 victory.
These two teams will be battling to stay out of last place in the GFL South. The Comets occupy seventh in the eight team standings with Ingolstadt behind them in eighth.
Ingolstadt were soundly beaten by the Schwabisch Hall Unicorns 51-0 two weeks ago and the week before 63-13 by the Frankfurt Universe. They dropped the tough 28-26 decision to the Comets just prior to that. They had lost 43-13 the week before that to the surging Marburg Mercenaries after losing 37-13 to the Universe the week prior to that. They had dropped 24-0 decision to the the Unicorns to open their 2019 season. But they then suffered a disappointing 37-30 loss to the Stuttgart Scorpions.
The Dukes have had a revolving quarterback carousel with Anthony Gardner, Cedric Townsend and for the last three games, Cory Benedetto Although Benedetto showed promise throwing for 398 yards and four touchdowns in the first two games, he had a rough game against the Unicorns completing just 7 of 35 passes for 75 yards. With the apparent return of Gardner from injury, Benedetto might not see the field today. That may well be a game-time decision.Whoever plays though will have as his chief target Normen Schumm who had 313 yards receiving on 21 catches while Anthony Mella caught four touchdown passes from Benedetto. The running game has begun to improve the Dukes are averaging 81.3 yards a game with Moritz Albrecht the leading rusher with 187 yards.
The Comets had notched their first win of the 2019 season when they downed Ingolstadt 28-26 at home in Kempten. However, Allgäu dropped two in a row after that. They first lost a close one to the Kirchdorf Wildcats 27-25 and then were beaten 34-7 by the Frankfurt Universe. The Comets were blanked in the opening game of the season 20-0 by the Universe and then dropped two in a row to the Munich Cowboys, 31-16 and 21-18.
Since the loss to Frankfurt, the Comets have undergone a coaching change, releasing veteran Jeff Scurran, replacing him with Hesham Khalifa who will serve as interim head coach for the second year in a row.
The Comets offense will have a new look as well with the signing of Raleigh Yeldell, who started the year with Austria’s Mödling Rangers where he threw for 872 yards and 10 touchdowns in three games. He helped Turkey’s Yeditepe Eagles in the second division playoffs before coming to Germany. Running back Lennies McFerren, who had a breakout game in the win, rushing for 143 yards and two touchdowns, has not been used as much in the last two games. Still, he is now averaging 59.2 yards a game, good for 8th in the GFL. With a running quarterback like Yeldell, his contribution will be needed today.
Defensively though, Allgäu is still the toughest team in Germany to run against having given up just 33.3 yards rushing in six games. This could be a huge factor in this game.
