Indoor Football Weekly #12: On the Hunt

Credit: Rapid City Journal

Yes that was an exciting week wasn't it everyone? Well things are about to get even crazier, the Indoor Football League enters it's Second Week, Champions Indoor Football enters Week One, and there is even some news on the National Arena League front!! Hold on to your pants for this roller coaster that's about to take off.

As we open the history books this week we step into the magical year known as 2001. Bush was in the White House with Cheney running the show, we had Christina Aguilera and Alicia Keys on the Billboard and a new football league! Yes even though the (original) Indoor Football League was doing well it closed, but that's because the Orlando Predators purchased it since it was a competitor to the af2. In it's place we had the new National Indoor Football League consisting of 18 clubs in 4 divisions and would continue the IFL's tradition of playing 14 games. On the other hand limping to the finish was the IPFL down to just 5 clubs. The NIFL (obviously) was the much stronger of the two leagues seeing 8 teams make the playoffs, including the Sioux Falls Storm's first every playoff appearance. NIFL Indoor Bowl I would see the 2000 IPFL Champion Mississippi Fire Dogs take down Wyoming Cavalry 55-12 at the Mississippi Coast Coliseum. On the other hand the IPFL was nowhere near as fortunate, seeing only 4 of the 5 clubs survive the entire year. The visiting Tennessee ThunderCats would beat the Omaha Beef 47-38 in "The Slaughterhouse" to win the 2001 and final IPFL Championship as the league would die after the season. Yes just four years into the history of this sport and three leagues have already died.

And we're off! To Week 2 in the Indoor Football League, Week 1 saw the IFL play four games to open up the season. On Thursday night saw the Nebraska Danger cream Project Fanchise's Salt Lake Screaming Eagles 78-47. The video feed was good, but the fans SUCKED at calling plays. Friday night brought us two games of very opposite caliber. The earlier (finishing) of the night saw Green Bay put a beat down on Cedar Rapids 46-13. The later (finishing) game saw the Arizona Rattlers take on the Sioux Falls Storm (Coverage below in the Game of the Week Section). And on Saturday night Iowa traveled to Wichita Falls but fell to the Nighthawks 68-53. Now for the updated POWER RANKINGS by Banana Cat. In the top four we have Sioux Falls at #1, Arizona has moved up to #2, Spokane has dropped to #3 in their bye week, and in fourth is Wichita Falls. The rest of the league is as followed 5) Green Bay Blizzard, 6) Nebraska Danger 7) Iowa Barnstormers 8) Salt Lake Screaming Eagles, 9) Colorado Crush 10) Cedar Rapids Titans. Week number 2 in the IFL starts on Thursday night, the 23rd when Green Bay visits Spokane at 9PM CT. On Saturday the 25th two games get played at 7:05 CT as Sioux Falls travels to Cedar Rapids and Wichita Falls visits the Nebraska Danger. To cap off the weekend on Sunday the 26th at 4:00 CT when Salt Lake heads to Colorado to play the Crush. Then at 5:00 CT two former AFL clubs face off when Iowa heads to Phoenix for a game with the Arizona Rattlers. All IFL games are available FREE on YouTube.

CIF oh CIF, yes Champions Indoor Football starts this weekend officially! But lest we not forget last weekend? What is that? You didn't know their was exhibition games!? Well there was and they were not pretty. Sioux City would crush the First City Cavalry 80-0 at the Gateway Arena. Further south the Dallas Marshals would KO the Arlington Longhorns 62-6 at the Mesquite Arena. This weekend sees some more exhibition games, Friday sees the Texas Revolution host the Texas Stealth. Saturday will see the Duke City Gladiators host the First Responders along with Amarillo hosting the LEXFA Mexico City All-Stars. Then Sunday evening the Bloomington Edge will host the Tri-Town Titans. In games that will actually count towards the standings the Sioux City Bandits the Omaha Beef on Saturday night.

One big concern from Champions Indoor Football was alleviated on Sunday afternoon when the league released their streaming information. This is negative on a number of fronts for the CIF, the first being it took until 6 days before the regular season began! The second being that they announced they would be back on Eversport but paid for the season......... While each teams first home game will be free you will be paying for each one after that. Why is this upsetting? For many fans there isn't the budget to pay for yet another streaming service, watch parties aren't an option for fans not near their favorite club. The CIF set the bar last season being free on Eversport, the IFL raised the bar moving to YouTube AND being free (and FYI YouTube also has hosted the NBA D-League along with Northwoods League baseball and even Russian Hockey). The CIF, which has much more parity in the league than the IFL had the chance to move to YouTube be free and one up the IFL with action packed football all the way to Champions Bowl III, but they whiffed on the opportunity. 

Yes I promised we have some juiciness on the NAL front and it's something that's been heavily thought on IFW for a long time. That news is the Dayton Wolfpack have officially folded. That's right after how many months of being pushed that the club had a lease at the Nutter Center in Dayton, well it turns out that the owners didn't and the league will be replacing them with a travel only team. This travel team will be called the Wolfpack and based out of Georgia. Will they be called the Dayton Wolfpack? Who knows but this looks bad on the league folding a team with less than a month to go until the season starts. This leaves the league having a total schedule imbalance. Columbus, Georgia, and Jacksonville will all remain playing 12 games. Corpus Christi, High Country, and Monterrey will be playing 11. Lehigh Valley is down to 10 and the Wolfpack will be playing 7. Thats right a completely and totally unbalanced schedule, you know what other eastern league had all these issues? American Indoor Football, that's right before you even kick off your drawing comparison to the AIF and that is not good. To make matters even worse the NAL is already touting that by April they'll name two expansion clubs for 2018! You read it right, the NAL who has folded a team a month before the season, moved them as a travel only team, is playing an unbalanced schedule, and hasn't even played a down yet, is touting expansion for 2018. This definitely sounds like AIF 2.0 at this time, let's just hope the quality of play is better.

Last week the IFL Game of the Week was between the Sioux Falls Storm and Arizona Rattlers, to open up the game both teams would exchange missed field goals before Sioux Falls had Korey Williams finish off a 5 play 29 yard drive with a 3 yard TD run to make it 7-0 Storm. It would be the only lead Sioux Falls held until the fourth quarter as Arizona marched a 6 play 37 yard TD drive that was capped off when Darrell Monroe barreled his way to the endzone from one yard out. Trickery then ensued as Arizona faked the PAT kick and ran it in for 2 points. It would be 8-7 Rattlers early in the 2nd Quarter. On the next drive Chris McAllister recovered a fumble from Sioux Falls' Lorenzo Brown, 2 plays later a completion from Thomas to Washington and a missed PAT made it 14-7 Arizona. Brown would prove on the next drive that the fumble hadn't gotten to him as he would scramble his way out of a sack 36 yards downfield for a TD to tie the game at 14. Arizona matched the TD again capping a 6 play 35 yard drive with a 9 yard TD pass from Thomas to Anthony Amos, more trickery was done and Wolf ran in another 2 point conversion to make it 22-14. Nearing the end of the half Arizona (who would receive the ball to start the second half) would want to make a defensive stop, end the 2nd quarter with a TD and start fast in the 3rd quarter with a TD. The Storm wouldn't let that happen as Robbie Rouse marched his way to the endzone on a 2 yard run that put the game at 22-21. The Sioux Falls defense would hold on Arizona's final 2nd quarter drive and they missed a 59 yard field goal and the half would end 22-21 Arizona.

The Rattlers would start the 3rd quarter with a drive capped of by an 18 yard TD pass from Thomas to Amos with a kick this made the game 29-21. The rest of the game would be a story of defense as Arizona stopped the Storm's drive dead and brought the ball down to the Sioux Falls 19. On that play Rashard Smith picked off Thomas' pass at the back wall of his own end zone and scrambled downfield 58 yards (officially marked as 50) for Pick 6! With the score now 29-28 Arizona pushed down to the Storm 2 when Smith forced a fumble that was recovered by Byron Bennett at the Storm 9. Sioux Falls didn't manage to score and instead was stopped dead on downs again by a tough Arizona defense. The Rattlers who had turnovers on each of the last two drives would try for a TD again but 7 plays and 14 yards later they were stopped on downs. The Storm would get the ball back and finally push themselves into a lead when Mike Tatum took a 7 yard run to the endzone, with the 2 point conversion no good it was 34-29 Storm. The Storm defense would hold Sioux Falls one last time on the night before scoring a game sealing TD, with a kick missed the score was 40-29 Storm and that's how it finished. Arizona dropped their first game in the IFL and Sioux Falls stays perfect at the Denny Sanford PREMIER Center. Don't take this the wrong way Arizona played well and I would expect them to be in a July rematch with Sioux Falls for the 2017 United Bowl.

Now for our Game of the Week, this week we have two, one from each the IFL and the CIF. The CIF Game of the Week is well the only one being played and will see the Sioux City Bandits host the arch rival Omaha Beef on Saturday night at 7:05 PM in Sioux City, IA at the Gateway Arena at Tyson Events Center if you can't make it the game will be available on Eversport. The IFL Game of the Week was much harder to pick and with intrigue it will be also this Saturday at 7:05 PM for a inter conference game as the Nebraska Danger host the Wichita Falls Nighthawks from the Eihusen Arena in Grand Island, NE and able to be seen LIVE and FREE on YouTube.