Summer Bowl 2024

ACSL? “Better atmosphere than in the Bundesliga!”

(Bild: Lukas Zottl)

When over 6,000 students make the pilgrimage to the stadium on the Hohe Warte to cheer on their university football team and have a great time, then the ACSL Summer Bowl (presented by easybank) is on the agenda. The university Super Bowl was once again a mega spectacle this year - festival atmosphere, cheerdance and halftime show included! Krone.at mingled with the crowds of fans on June 29 and brought some enthusiastic supporters, officials and players in front of the camera (see video above).

At the end of a long season, the Uni Wien Emperors successfully defended their title in hot temperatures in the stadium on the Hohe Warte: In a hard-fought final, they defeated the WU Tigers 10:9 and were crowned ACSL champions for the third time in a row. In the match for third place, the TU Robots beat the Boku Bees 25:7.

"It was the expected close game between the Tigers and the Emperors," analyzed ACSL expert Jan Zsifkovits: "The teams do a lot of video analysis to prepare for each other in the best possible way. It was a huge defensive battle." 

Safety decided the final
The WU Tigers went into the fourth quarter with a 9:8 lead. With the Tigers in possession of the ball shortly before their own end zone, the game-deciding play was made: A bad snap landed in the end zone and Tigers running back Alexander Bosek was unable to get the ball out of his own 10-yard zone in time, which meant a 2-point safety for the Emperors to make the final score 10:9.

For Max Luger, wide receiver for the Uni Vienna Emperors, the victory was a tremendous team effort. "There are no football rules in the final. Everything is different there. We've always had great team spirit throughout the season," he said and saw one key to success in particular: "The important thing is not what mistakes you make, but how you deal with them, how you react to them and we did that perfectly as a team."

"In the end, we probably made one mistake too many," said Tigers quarterback and veteran Clemens Kerschbaum. "We had good drives, nice run plays, but in the end it was the little things that cost us the game."

Here are the best pictures from the ACSL Summer Bowl 2024:

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Fotos

"The support is incredible"
The support of the thousands of fans was clearly noticeable for both teams. "The support is incredible. There were 1,800 people from our university alone, my family and friends," said a delighted Eric Rauchenberger, quarterback of the Uni Vienna Emperors.

Crowning end to the season
The Summer Bowl marks the end of an exciting, thrilling and intense 2023/24 ACSL season. One of the highlights for ACSL Managing Director Colin Fuchs-Robetin was the JKU Astros from Linz, who won a game in their first season. "You really can't underestimate them." The season was also characterized by injuries, as TU defensive back Philipp Vorderleitner noted. "It's a contact sport after all. It was very intense, but it's also just really cool when you play in front of a crowd like that and there are so many people cheering you on. That gives you something, it's really cool."

Ernst Happel Stadium as goal number one!
The next goals of the Austrian College Sports League? "We want to get to the Ernst Happel Stadium! The ACSL is all about a sense of belonging. The University of Vienna has 90,000 students, WU has 23,000 students, TU has 27,000 students - there are already enough students to fill a stadium like this two or three times over. That's our goal," says ACSL founder Lawrence Gimeno, setting the direction of travel.