Temple's strategy for rebounding from an early deficit seemed to have been worked out long beforehand. It was simple: they intended to hit Paul Rupp again and again, no matter how many penalties they incurred or even how many easy strikes they gave to the Barnstable advancers. Twice the burly obstructor Miguel Turrera went at Rupp's legs with dicey rolling tackles, and twice he was penalized for it. Then, on Barnstable's fourth advancing play, he made such a frantic, ill-advised tackle that Rupp easily struck downward at him, connecting for two potentials. The tackle brought Conor Lindensmith running over to Tuerrera to speak a few choice words. The crowd was riled up, sensing Lindensmith was already close to completely losing his temper, while Rupp had no visible reaction to being targeted with such physicality. Temple's overzealousness, which then included double-teaming Rupp, forcing him to knock over two consecutive obstructors like dominoes, cost them potentials when he was able to recover his balance enough to feed the ball to an open teammate. On the stage's last play, though, the rough defense worked, as a slightly panicked Harrison Julian, almost rocked backward by a terrifically sharp line drive target kick by Benedict Jones, skied his strike to the well-covered Rupp, who somehow managed to get off a long send to Derek Canton which was disrupted by another Toms rolling tackle. The ball landed short of the banker's stripe and was caught by Jones, who hurled it downfield for what would be Temple's go-ahead score. But Paul Rupp was in the way, as usual, reading Jones's eyes and anticipating his throw to Gary Dell'ardo, even after a fake throw to Toms which confused even the cameraman covering the play. Rupp tipped the ball away at the last second, preserving a 7-6 stage one final score. The Barnstable players conferred briefly at the beginning of stage two, and Rupp chose to defer his usual stage two duties for the first few plays to rest what appeared to be a slightly strained hamstring. Those pundits who claimed that Barnstable lacked focus without him and relied too much on raw physical talent rather than strategy and concentration were given much ammunition when they could not convert their potentials through the three plays that Rupp missed, dropping one easy strike and getting too cute with a mid-range converson kick, botching it. Rupp pointed to Harrison Julian before the fourth Temple kick and Julian was replaced without a word of protest. S.K. Spungen played it safe and tried to strike the next incoming trigger kick to Rupp over a short distance to ensure a catch, but this emboldened Benny Toms to go for an interception. He made hard contact with Rupp, fouling him, and Rupp was wincing noticeably when he set the ball for a successful penalty kick. Temple entered stage three needing Benny Toms to dodge for one minute and forty-five seconds, but with Rupp watching from the sidelines, his teammates finished him off in just thirty on a hard shot to the legs. Barnstable was up 2-0 going into round three, and it seemed like Temple would simply have no way back.

They gave Paul Rupp more room to move in the third round, because it was obvious he was in some pain. He seemed determined to play on while Dave Punter and Christian Pruitt, who hadn't played more than five minutes between them through the entire tournament, looked on from the bench. Temple completely regained their advancing form, keeping the ball well away from Rupp and striking the ball with awesome accuracy to take an impressive nine potentials into stage two. Rupp stretched on the sidelines, watching as Conor Lindensmith tried to somehow keep Temple from converting their potentials into reals. Barnstable's inspired defense, combined with Temple's inability to run their routes with the precision that Benedict Jones required in order to deliver them the ball, left them unable to convert through the first four plays, and Barnstable fans came to their feet, sensing that the championship might be won right here, with Temple perhaps having to enter stage three ready to dodge for their life instead of forcing their opponent to evade the ball for over two minutes. A 3-0 lead in the game would have surely been insurmountable. But then Temple pulled it out on a long conversion kick that just eluded S.K. Spungen's leap. Kelvin Morrow actually bobbled the ball briefly before securing it and it was to be Barnstable who had to dodge alone. The two minute fifteen second length proved to be too much for Harrison Julian, who lasted 1:48 before falling to Miguel Terrera's strike. It was 2-1 Barnstable. A golden opportunity to clinch almost certain victory had slipped past them.

Round four, it is safe to say, featured the worst performance ever put on by a team led by Paul Rupp. Barnstable was utterly disastrous in every respect, and even Rupp himself couldn't avoid being faked out by Temple's Gary Dell'Ardo at one point as they notched another easy 2 potentials. Coverage assignments got crossed up, balls were dropped, S.K. Spungen was unable to hit the target circle, and at one point Benny Toms struck the ball squarely at Harrison Julian's back; the obstructor was completely unprepared, expecting Toms to send the ball to the banker and completely giving up on the play. Lindensmith and Rupp descended on him briefly, but no amount of criticism was going to save Barnstable, whose dismal display continued in stage two. In the end, they had put a total of one potential on the scoreboard to Temple's eleven, making round four's dodge a sad spectacle indeed. Julian went down within a minute and Barnstable fans fell silent as their team conferred, having been soundly whipped. The tide of momentum had changed overwhelmingly.

Things got much worse when Paul Rupp turned around a moment later to see Conor Lindensmith being ejected by a referee. All it had taken was a single frustrated shove on a very cocky Benny Toms after the round had been resolved to make the ref decide that everyone, himself included, had taken enough abuse from Lindensmith for the day. It was the third time he had been ousted from a game. The Irishman stood, defiantly quiet, as the ref instructed him again and again to leave the field; he finally had to be ushered off by teammates. The crowd roared as he exited, disappearing beneath the stands.

The growing tenseness of the situation translated to Barnstable's play in round five. They played too conservatively, giving up too much ground on defense and pushing forward too long on offense instead of going for quicker strikes. Temple was not much better and they dropped stage one by a score of 3-2. It was then that veteran Conor Lindensmith's substitute, twenty year old Christian Pruitt, inadvertently became the focus of unwelcome media attention for weeks after the game when his admittedly slipshod play---far more due to inexperience than effort---greatly addled Barnstable's efforts to convert their potentials and exposed a side of Paul Rupp few had seen before. Pruitt had already been clearly outclassed in stage one, barely hanging on among athletes far superior to him, when on Barnstable's first advancing play of stage two, he ran an incorrect route and gave Temple the chance for an easy interception. Their penalty kick was mercifully wide. On the second play, he mis-read Spungen's fake to Rupp and was not fully prepared to receive a pretty, arcing strike, getting to it too late, blowing a chance for a close conversion kick.

Rupp called for the use of Barnstable's only time out right then and there. Walking delicately because of his hamstring, he went over to Pruitt, and while no one could hear what was being said, it was obviously disparaging. Where he normally spoke calmly and at least somewhat supportively to teammates who made mistakes, he had far less patience with mental errors that came from a lack of preparation. He pointed a stern finger at Pruitt from inches away and had never appeared more like a stern coach rather than a fellow player. Pruitt backed away without a word, nodding once quickly. Barnstable's timeout had been used not for strategic planning but for a dressing down, something rarely seen. Paul Rupp did not replace Pruitt at that moment, however, knowing the young man's impressive foot speed was at a premium at this stage of the game. Dave Punter remained, a decent obstructor with hands of clay, stood on the sideline beside him.

On Barnstable's fourth advancing play, Spungen's strike to Pruitt was a little short but still catchable; Pruitt, however tried to get away with a subtle push to the back on Gary Dell'Ardo in order to get position, and it was spotted, rendering his catch moot. Paul Rupp took the field quickly, replacing him with a disgusted wave. As they passed each other, he spoke a few words to Pruitt, who countered with a couple of his own. Rupp stopped, turned, and shouted something at Pruitt which shut the man up and sent him off the field---and out of the game of Loft forever, it turned out---in morose silence. S.K. Spungen remembered Rupp yelling this: "What kind of man are you to do this to us?" Pruitt took his place on the bench and his expression of humiliation became the darling of every camera the networks had in operation that night. He appeared chastened and lost, and the thing that captured the most attention and commentary was the fact that his eyes never seemed to leave Paul Rupp, suggesting not just frustration with his play but a mortal wounding of the pride at the hands of someone he had respected and admired. Rupp's words and actions had reduced him to a shell of his normally enthusiastic self. No one could quite remember another instance in which one teammate undercut another in such a brutal fashion, and in front of such a wide audience.

Rupp had no time to think about the way he had approached Pruitt's mistakes. The ball was in the air already, and on Barnstable's fifth advancing play, he himself was able to make a sliding catch of Spungen's strike and deliver a good conversion kick to Derek Canton. It was caught. Temple nearly stripped those precious three reals away with a noble attempt that went just long and Temple needed to have Benny Toms dodge Barnstable's strikes for forty-five seconds in other to win the round. Temple came at him with crazed, sloppy aggression, failing to keep the ball in play twice on wide strikes at Toms' legs, and when he evaded a scary long line drive from Rupp at the last second, Temple was jubilant, finding themselves needing just one more victory in round six to take the title.

One of sports' most beloved clichés has to do with a single player "taking over a game," "imposing his will" upon the contest, and if anyone ever required a tangible historic example of this phenomenon, round six of the 2012 Championship game was it. Referred to as "Rupp's Revenge" in the annals of Loft, it saw the star push past the pain in his leg to overwhelm Temple both advancing and obstructing. He sent the ball perfectly four times to Derek Canton in stage one, once making an extraordinary play on a ball headed out of bounds by knocking it blindly behind him, seeing it sail high and true half the distance of the field, stunning the crowd. Never had a ball been struck with such perfection. Twice he took out Temple advancers with tackles, and on Benny Toms' short send late in the round, when Barnstable was already ahead 7-0, he made a stretching one-handed catch of S.K. Spungen's throw to give his team another 2 potentials, with Temple's sole point coming when Harrison Julian stepped briefly off a Loft line.

But Rupp wasn't done yet. Visibly exhausted, he took the field for stage two, trusting no one else to defend against Temple's attempts to obviate those 9 potentials. Rupp gambled twice on Benedict Jones' kicks to his advancers. The gambles resulted in two interceptions. The first required him to leap over Benny Toms, an admirable feat in itself. The second was more spectacular. Going deep down the field with the strike in a last ditch attempt at a noble, Jones sent the ball high and just barely long to Toms, who beat Rupp by a step. Both men dove for the ball, fully outstretched, but it was Rupp who came down with it, not just batting it away but catching it outright, avoiding contact with Toms until the ball was secured, at which point he landed on him, knocking the wind right out of him. Rupp's short conversion kick secured Barnstable's reals. Temple answered well, nearly scoring on two consecutive noble attempts, but it wasn't to be.

Rupp could easily have sat out stage three, as Toms' chances of dodging successfully were very slim. But he played anyway, and seemed determined to be the one to take Toms out, which he did a minute into the stage despite a couple of miracle dives by Toms which spared him contact by mere inches. In tying the game overall 3-3, Paul Rupp had recorded a couple of highlights which would enter the annals of Loft's history and reminded everyone of how he could change a game merely by wanting it badly enough. Upon striking Toms, he bent over, put his hands on his knees, and exhaled deeply. Derek Canton patted him on the back and asked if he was all right. The favoring of his right leg had stopped briefly during the round but as soon as it was over, it returned, more pronounced than ever. He would not allow Christian Pruitt to come into the game for him, though.

While "Rupp's Revenge" would never be forgotten, neither would another term used by a television announcer for the first time in round seven. The term was "Dell'Ardo's Gift," and it referred to something which happened on Temple's last advancing play of stage one, after the teams had struggled mightily with each other just to deliver a single send to their respective bankers. The obstructors took over from the first and so did the fencemen, notching four pierces between them, their trigger kicks sent into play too hard and fast to be handled. Neither team had banked a single potential going into their last plays of the stage. Paul Rupp had waited in vain through the first four advancing plays for a single strike to come his way, but his teammates either never got the chance to get it to him because of Benedict Jones' pierces or Benny Toms' defense, and all Rupp could usually do was strike the ball right back to the man who gave it to him. Then, a window of opportunity: Toms fell while backpedaling on Barnstable's fifth play. Seeing his chance, Harrison Julian struck the ball to Rupp so that he could drive the ball downward and strike the obstructor before he could fully regain his balance. But Julian hit the setup ball fat and the chance disappeared. Rupp struck the ball long and high into the corner for Canton, and while the ball was well placed, Benedict Jones was in perfect defensive position to tip it away. The ball was lost and Temple would have the final chance to bank potentials.

After using their timeout, Temple handled S.K. Spungen's nasty trigger kick and began to move forward. Paul Rupp guarded Gary Dell'Ardo, just barely keeping up with him. On the third touch of the ball, he broke down the field at full speed, as Rupp thought he might----but he had lost at least ten percent of his speed to injury, and instead of being able to get ahead of Dell'Ardo, he had to gallop to keep up and hope to throw himself into a last-second slide tackle. Miguel Tuerrera's strike sailed over Dell'Ardo's right shoulder. Instead of going for a traditional send, he took a huge gamble on the well-placed strike and went for a noble, kicking it hard and very low toward Kelvin Morrow, who had gotten in excellent position behind Spungen. Paul Rupp chose not to try a rolling tackle for fear he might commit a foul, playing the odds that the kick was just too difficult. Morrow dropped to the turf and got his hands under the ball, barely saving it from scraping the ground. Keeping his knees inside the stripe as he made the catch, he then rolled out of it, jumping victoriously into the air. Twenty yards away, the force of kicking the ball had knocked Dell'Ardo's loose shoe clean off his foot; it flipped up awkwardly into the air, forcing Paul Rupp to throw a hand up in front of his face to keep it from making contact as he flinched backward. Two men came away with "gifts"---Kelvin Morrow with the ball and five potentials banked for Temple, Paul Rupp with his opponent's shoe, which he caught and flung down in disgust. Dell'Ardo's overly risky attempt at a noble had paid off handsomely, and Temple had given themselves a huge advantage going into stage two.

Barnstable set itself to kick off five consecutive times to Temple, desperate to stop them from converting their potentials into reals. Through the first two plays, they were given great hope, as Paul Rupp perfectly anticipated the direction of both strikes from Jones to his favorite advancer, Benny Toms. What Rupp had lost in speed he still had in intellect, and from tirelessly studying Jones' strikes on video, he was able to time his cuts toward Toms at just the right time, a split second before the strike actually came. Then on the third play, the impossible happened. Jones' strike to Toms, again anticipated by Paul Rupp, was woefully short. Rupp stepped in front of Toms---and dropped the ball. He fell to his knees, clutching his head. A cry of shock went up from the crowd, and in Massachusetts, the citizens of Barnstable, having congregated in bars and living rooms, leaving the streets empty, couldn't believe their eyes. A successful interception would have led to a conversion kick which, if successful, would have wiped out Temple's potentials. But Rupp had simply mishandled the ball. Stone-faced, Christian Pruitt sat wordlessly on the bench, his expression unchanging. The cameras went in tight on his face after replaying Rupp's unlikely gaffe.

On the very next play, Jones hit the ball well down the field into the corner, taking Rupp entirely out of the play with a low-percentage strike which Miguel Tuerrera nonetheless managed to chase down. The high conversion kick was rescued with one hand by Kelvin Morrow and Temple had locked down their five reals. The crowd was given another sock when Rupp immediately booted a perfect noble attempt to Derek Canton, who made a sliding catch on the ball only to have it waved off---Canton had broken out of his stripe early. Heartbreak descended on Barnstable.

Barnstable would have to dodge Temple's strikes for one minute and fifteen seconds: doable but not likely. Paul Rupp went to the sideline to await word on whom Temple would choose to suffer those long odds. They were well aware of his injury, his fatigue level, and his frustration, and so they picked him even above Dave Punter. The spectators inside the stadium got to their feet and would remain there for the rest of the night.

Rupp and his teammates stood in a quick, informal huddle. Christian Pruitt said nothing. Barnstable was ready with a decision of their own when the referee informed them of who would be required to dodge. Rupp had calculated the odds of surviving given his injury and considered them too difficult to confront. And so he chose, with the support of his teammates, to invoke the Prayer Rule, Loft's most controversial three seconds. Regarded by many as gimmicky and others as a beautifully primal moment of athletic contact unduplicated in any other team sport, the Prayer Rule would ask Paul Rupp to receive a quick kick from the target circle as a Temple player charged him, intent on driving his body into Rupp as hard as he could with the sole intent of dislodging the ball----if Rupp could even catch it. If Rupp held on, Barnstable would be the champions. If not, the year belonged to Temple. It could not have been simpler.

Rupp had never been the recipient of a Prayer Rule kick. Harrison Julian lined up to send it to him, and Benny Toms dug in, staring Rupp down, ready to bolt toward him at the sound of the whistle. Rupp stared back. Cheers filled the stadium and flash bulbs popped. The whistle sounded and Julian kicked the ball almost as hard as he could. It whizzed past Toms' shoulder. Rupp reached to his left and reigned it in, and a split second later, Toms connected with him.

The force of the contact did its work. The ball was jarred loose and Rupp was sent backward like a rag doll, committing his second agonizing drop in ten minutes. Toms leapt up, arms held high, and his teammates encircled him, jumping, shouting. Paul Rupp did not get up, not even when Julian came over to offer his hand. The cameras zoomed in on him as he put his hands over his face. He had been completely wiped out by Toms' hit; it had been no contest. The only question would be how much soreness there would be the next day, the next week. Paul Rupp limped off the field beaten, looking stunned. Reporters flocked around him, but of course he had no comment. He entered the locker room well behind his teammates and walked directly to an empty office. He went inside, closed the door, and slumped down in a chair. The others on the Barnstable team did interviews, cleaned up, left him there. At some point the press was ushered out of the locker room and no one was ever quite sure how Rupp got out of the stadium completely unnoticed.

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