Do You Know The Way San Jose
07 Apr 2008
Burt Bacharach wrote the lyrics to that song a long time ago (the seventies). Yes even before helping Geico customers tell their stories. The Carpenters sang it, Dionne Warwick sang it, and now the Philadelphia Soul are singing it.
The Soul travel to northern California for the first time since 2005 in hopes of extending their win streak to seven games. A win over the current AFL champs would give Philly a best ever 7-0 season start and their first victory over San Jose. And just like it seems to happen every week this season there are some subplots to the game.
San Jose SaberCats head coach Darren Arbet can become just the fifth coach in AFL history to record 100 regular-season victories Saturday. The SaberCats are sitting at 3-3 just like they were last season. Then they won the remaining 10 regualr season games and three post season games to claim their third ArenaBowl championship.
The SaberCats are 19-5 all-time at home following a road loss. And last week was a doozy. A 43-72 skinning last Saturday at the hands of the New Orleans Voodoo.
Soul QB Matt D'Orazio has three consecutive wins and is 2-0 all-time against San Jose. Matt won't be starting this one since Tony Graziani returns to the line up this week. Graz lost the last contest in San Jose 26-52. He managed just 3 touchdowns and 198 yards passing. Sean Scott led all Soul receivers with an anemic 67 yards.
Graziani is four passes from 2900 career attempts. You read that right, twenty nine hundred attempts. And while unlikely this game, Chris Jackson could become just the third player with 300 receiving TDs. That is if he can snag seven of them. More likely is Jackson becoming, at the mid way point, the Soul's single season TD recpetion leader. Steve Smith currently holds the record with 28 TD in 2005.
Oh and San Jose's got a few other team and individual milestones that could be reached Saturday. But who really cares about them. More importantly...
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Burt Bacharach!
