Coaching for Pizza: Quiet Sunday in Camarillo But EuroBall Was Busy Today

Monday, April 13, 2026

Quiet Sunday in Camarillo But EuroBall Was Busy Today

Sunday, April 12, 2026

Lots of American football activity overseas today. Let's dig in, starting with the French DIII National Championship Playoffs opening round.

Sad news out of Lyon,

"End of the Season"

The Thonon Black Panthers B team (6-3) defeated our old club, the Villeurbanne Falcons (8-1), 32-21.

According to Coach Julien Urgenti, the Falcons simply made too many mistakes today.

Isn't that usually the case in the playoffs?

On to Spain . . .

Today was an important day

in Gijón Mariners history on

a couple of levels

First, a 25 Year Silver Anniversary

On April 12, 2001, the Mariners held their first event.

It was a pick-up touch football game on the the Playa de Poniente, the beach in front of our home last Winter when we lived in Gijón while coaching the Mariners.

Bend your knees #10!

New found love for a "strange"

sport by these 13 men plus a mascot

led to the birth of the Gijón Mariners

Daniel Castañon, Co-Founder of the Mariners who still coaches the Gijón flag teams, is in the back row, third from the right, in the UNLV t-shirt.

Current, near final, 2026 regular

season Spanish DI standings

There is only one game left to be played next Saturday of a game postponed earlier this season due to extreme weather, Terrassa Reds (5-2) at Valencia Firebats (3-4). On March 29th, the Reds beat the Firebats in Valencia, 17-7.

There is a question if this game will be played as, no matter who wins, it has no bearing on the upcoming playoffs except to deny the Reds of a week off before their Semifinal game.

Win or lose, the Reds are still the Eastern Conference's #2 seed in the playoffs.

Win or lose, the Firebats will still be in third place in the Eastern Conference and out of the playoffs.

The second note of interest for Gijón fans today is in regards to these near final standings confirmation a somewhat troublesome result. The Gijón Mariners (1-6-1) had the worst record of the ten DI teams this year meaning relegation to DII in 2027.

For the macho driven ego of many of our Mariners family this is a serious blow to the organization's pride.

Being a bit more practical, I did some research as to Gijón's last eight seasons, all in DI, and it was not pretty.

The Mariners overall record in those eight seasons is a dismal 23-42-1, a winning percentage of just 35%.

It gets even worse when you look at Gijón's road record featuring consistent eight+ hours of round trip bus rides to road games, 6-27-0, a winning percentage of but 18%.

During this span, the Mariners have only made the playoffs one time. In 2018, they beat the Santurtzi Coyotes (2-7), 50-0, in a Wild Card game and then lost to the eventual DI National Champion Badalona Dracs (9-0) in the Quarterfinals, 78-12.

The Mariners have only had one winning record in DI going 6-2 in 2019. They have had two break-even seasons, 5-5 in 2028 and 4-4 in 2022.

I believe that moving to DII's Norte Conference will give the team a good chance to rebuild and energize themselves with hopefully more competitive games against other much teams in the North of Spain. Hopefully, some winning DII seasons combined with about half of the DI travel distances will help the Mariners get back on track.