BREAKING: 87% of all NU Graduates now professional football players in Finland

Because I'm a journalism student, and therefore, someone who is trained and specializes in finding and reporting the information which I decide you, the readers, need to know, I mentioned in the the cornerbacks post that David Oredugba is playing professionally in Finland. Just Oredugba alone made Finland the world's largest importer of ex-NU defenders. (They had previously been in a 195-way tie for last.)

This important information dinked and dunked around the internets, and eventually, somehow word who got to LTP, who brought us this post with the news that Deante Battle, who was a starting cornerback round Evanston way for 3 years, is also playing in Finland. 

Because I'm a journalism student, and therefore, adept at finding information which I discern will interest my readers, I'm here to break yet another story: Demetrius Eaton, the ex-NU linebacker, is a teammate of Battle's on the Kouvola Indians. 

Dear rest of the world: you've been scooped. Deal with it.

As you probably were able to tell by my borderline obsessive coverage of Kyle Rowley's exploits for the T and T national basketball team, I've got a bit of a thing for fledgling American sports in countries that aren't America. So here's my really long post about Finnish American football, plus, I found the evidence that all this is actually true that I was looking for in my last post. No help from all of you, though, so nobody wins the prizes I promised. Unfortunately, figuring things out with this has been a little difficult, considering Finnish is a language most closely related to Hungarian, and therefore, is like the bottom 5 least decipherable things possible. 

So: David Oredugba is, as noted, a cornerback for the Helsinki Roosters, the 14-time winners of the American Football Association of Finland. Because everything in Finland makes sense, this league is abbreviated as the SABJ. In the last post, I was dying for evidence that this is true, and here it is: an interview Oredugba did with some guy with a thick Finnish accent, just after playing his first game. 

So, yeah: good to see our ex-fourth-string cornerbacks are enjoying themselves. Also, sweet high-top fade. If I knew he was rockin that thing under his helmet at NU, I would've had a new favorite player.

Meanwhile, onto Battle and Eaton: unlike Oredugba, these guys don't seem to be living the good life. Battle and Eaton, as noted, are signed with the Kouvola Indians. Unlike Oredugba's team, the Indians aren't in the Finnish American football big leagues. They're in the I-Divisioona, which, because everything in Finland makes sense, is the second level of Finnish American football, the AAA of Finland's thriving gridiron scene. To add insult to injury, while Helsinki is a capital city and has over 500,000 inhabitants, Kouvola's wikipedia page describes it thusly: "Kouvola has a reputation of being a dull and uninteresting place." So pity Deante and Demetrius a little.

When it comes to football, the two are doing pretty well as far as I can tell. I would assume this is because these are ex-Big Ten players, and they're playing in the second-best league in Finland, a league where Stefan Demos could probably pass for a right tackle. Both are playing both ways, and have various articles written about them in Finnish newspapers.  Of course, I don't know what these articles say, because Finnish ain't my strong suit, but the inordinate amount of times each name pops up both in these newspaper articles and on team websites makes me assume they're doing well, unless the authors are sadistic and love ragging on people excessively.

Deante has even gone so far as to post a highlight reel of himself on youtube, playing in Finland, which I'm thrilled about, because it provides my much needed visual evidence that there's Finnish dudes playing football. 

I like Deante's choice of Young Dro as highlight reel music, and really like the clips of him absolutely levelling various hapless Finns who have probably never been tackled by an actual football player before, then standing up and yelling various things at their possibly lifeless bodies. 

However, judging from this thing he wrote (on a site that only appears to feature ex-NU athletes - anybody know the deal with that? Gotta be NU-grad founded or something), Deante doesn't seem to be enjoying himself too much in Finland. That's among the more depressing things I've ever read, so, Deante, cheer up. 

Because they're Americans playing American football in Finland, there are numerous photos of Deante and Demetrius doing dramatic things. Demetrius is #3, Deante is #2:

Is he looking at the kid in the grey's badonk?

My favorite part of this photo is the startled ref.

Anyway, that's that. However, I'm still hungry for more information, as this whole Finnish football thing raises more questions than answers: how well are these guys actually doing, outside of photos? Who put them in touch with random Finnish football teams? Do they ever have little NU reunions in Finland? Considering I haven't seen one image with fans in the background, how do these guys get paid? Is Finland scouting NU games, and if not, how come the ranks of Finland's football finest are populated by so many NU grads? And most importantly, why in the name of all that is holy are they playing professional football in Finland?

Anybody with answers to any of these questions: come forth. First person to get me in touch with an actual Finnish football player, NU grad or not, wins my undying love. 

1LDTFS, Post 9: Cornerbacks.

Sorry for the four or so day posting break - me and some of the boys went camping, no internet access out in the woods. Hopefully, the new poll on the right makes up for my time away. (Seriously, folks, give Wet Paper Bag his due.)

Days Left Til Football: 38. (Please, nobody actually do the math to figure this out. I'm probably so far off at this point - I keep subtracting from the last time I did this post, but I'm probably losing like 4 days each time I do that.)

Yeah, that's pass interference. 

Who did it last year?: The purple-clad fella above is Sherrick McManis, who started every game last year and did a downright fantastic job. McManis was in his third year starting games at cornerback, his second year full-time, and he's improved every year. He was originally joined by Justan Vaughn, who jumped some people on the depth chart to earn the starting job, but after the Syracuse and Duke games, Vaughn suffered a season-ending injury, and in came Jordan Mabin, who was pretty much as good as McManis, and earned hisself a Freshman All-American honor. 

In the tradition of naming graduated players who sorta contributed in these posts, NU loses David Oredugba, who played a decent amount of corner when we needed three or four on the field, and will forever go down in NU history as the guy whose poor hands led to Brendan Smith's game-winning pick six against Minnesota. Because I'm a journalism student, and I therefore specialize in reporting to you, the reader, the most important and relevant information I can find, I am here to tell you the following information: Oredugba is now gainfully employed playing football for the Helsinki Roosters in Finland.  For all of you who were wondering about ex-NU occasional nickelback David Oredugba's post-collegiate football whereabouts,  you're welcome, and donations are accepted in the form of cash, checks, or credit cards sent to my dorm room. Here are some money quotes from an interview with David from the Roosters' website.

"I understand that during the summer Helsinki is a great place to
be, because of the nice weather, festivals, midnight sunsets. While in
Finland I hope to forge many lifelong friendships."

" I hope to do whatever it takes for the Roosters to win the Maple Title."

The Purple Drank: providing the information you need since June 2009.

Who's Got Next?: McManis and Mabin ensured their starters roles with great performances last year, and with Vaughn back from injury, we've basically got three cornerbacks who we'd be pleased with in a starting role. If needs be, Mike Bolden seems to be the most likely candidate to play in a dime set, although we'd probably end up putting in safety Bryan Peters and having Brad Phillips playing a nickelback role with Vaughn also in the game. 

Is that an improvement? Oh yeah. Essentially, the difference from last year to this year is that we know we have two lock-down corners in McManis and Mabin, plus, our third CB - a pretty necessary position - changes from Oredugba to Vaughn. Don't tell the Helsinki Roosters, but Vaughn was higher than Oredugba on the roster last year, so that's a good thing. Our secondary should be pretty sweet this year, and by now, you've probably noticed that all of the defensive posts since DT have been really complimentary, and the DT one was pretty complimentary too. Long story short, we're going to have a nice defense this year.

And, yes, consider the hunt on for any further evidence related to David Oredugba's Finnish American football career. First person to find anything wins a prize.