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My father and I went to see the Madison Mustangs host the West Allis Predators this weekend. Both teams are members of the IFL, a Milwaukee-based semipro league; admission was $6 and included a meet-and-greet with Ron Dayne. (I saw Mr. Dayne but did not chat with him.) You can see some of my photos from the event if you’d like; a brief review follows.

The game wasn’t particularly competitive — West Allis got shellacked, with their only score coming on an interception return — and the technical quality of play didn’t compare favorably with well-known synthetic football substitutes like Arena League ball (indeed, one might see more technical acumen in the occasional nationally-televised DIII college game). Some series were thick with penalties, to the point where the drive time was overwhelmingly dominated by officials congregating and re-spotting the ball rather than by huddling and play execution; some special-teams plays in particular saw the FieldTurf transformed into a silk tulip patch. Finally, the stadium’s use of incidental music seemed more accidental — too-long silences followed by pastiche-like, sub-phrase snippets of pop song hooks, with the end result being that it was never clear that the sound board was operated deliberately.

These are quite minor complaints, though, and almost irrelevant. The important question is: is it worth going? I can’t really say “yes” emphatically enough. The game was a whole lot of fun. The players approach the game with the sort of palpable zeal you can only rarely detect in pro sports; I didn’t see anyone taking plays off. The playcalling schemes are in general rather less complex than in pro or college ball, but the coaches seem far more willing to resort to trickery. In Saturday’s game, for example, I saw a fake extra point pass successfully converted and — even more impressively — a fake punt run attempted with about 22 yards to go. (The latter wasn’t successful, but the punter came close enough to make it exciting.) The crowd (over 1,000, I’d guess) was enthusiastic and the overall experience seemed kid-friendly (if your kid has a later bedtime than mine); there were a lot of kids in attendance. I’ll definitely go to another Mustangs home game.