Indoor Football Weekly #13

Credit; Houma Times

The second week of indoor football was even better than the first one! Well Week three is going to be the biggest yet with two games in the Indoor Football League and five games in Champions Indoor Football for a total of Nine contests!

The history books will be opened this time to year 2002 with the IPFL folding after the 2001 season, the National Indoor Football League would be the only league playing. With 21 clubs this season it was even larger than the 18 that competed in 2001. However only 11 of those clubs would return for a second season. 2002 would see a 14 game schedule ripe with competition. With Louisiana (Eastern), Lake Charles (Southern), Ohio Valley (Atlantic Conf. Northern), Lincoln (Pacific Conf. Northern), and Bismarck (Western) being the five division champions the playoffs would get off to a good start. NIFL Indoor Bowl II would see the Ohio Valley Greyhounds beat the Billings Outlaws 55-52 to win the title. Only three clubs still exist from that 2002 campaign (Omaha, Sioux Falls, and Sioux City) along with one market with another club (Tri-City/Kearney, NE) which now has the Nebraska Danger (playing in Grand Island).

Credit: Indoor Football League

Week Three is upcoming in the IFL, and last week we saw the first full five-game slate of the 2017 Indoor Football League. Week two opened on Thursday night when the Spokane Empire pushed through the Blizzard from Green Bay with a final score of 34-31. With no games on Friday the next games we're played Saturday night, Sioux Falls traveled to Cedar Rapids and knocked off the rival Titans 51-26, the Storm do NOT look unbeatable this season. The other Saturday match-up was the IFL Game of the Week in Week 2 which saw Nebraska take on Wichita Falls, you'll find that below in our Game of the Week section. Sunday saw two games with Colorado playing Salt Lake, the Crush and Screaming Eagles had an entertaining game which ended with Salt Lake winning 42-41 on a two point conversion. The last game was between two old AFL rivals when the Arizona Rattlers hosted the Iowa Barnstormers. Even with Arizona getting two successful onside kick recoveries they would lose to Iowa 51-47.

Coming into Week 3 Cedar Rapids is on a two game losing streak to start the season for the first time in franchise history, while Arizona starts the season 0-2 for the first time since the 2007 AFL season. Only two games will be played this week, on Friday night Spokane travels to Wichita Falls (7 PM CT) and on Sunday Nebraska heads to Colorado (4 PM CT). 

Credit: Champions Indoor Football

Week two, and the first real week of Champions Indoor Football kicks off this weekend as well. Last week had only one game, the Sioux City Bandits and the Omaha Beef (also in our Game of the Week section). The CIF kicks of Week 2 on Friday night when West Michigan travels to Bloomington, IL to take on the Edge at 7PM. Saturday features two contests with Dodge City hosting Duke City at 6:30 PM and at 7:00 PM when Bismarck plays their first game on the road against the 1-0 Sioux City Bandits. The week wraps up on Sunday at 2PM when Wichita heads to Salina as the defending champion Force take on the Liberty. All games are on Eversport.
Speaking of Eversport it's very disappointing, as stated before the CIF whiffed by not moving away from Eversport like the Indoor Football League. The feed on Eversport was (for most of the Sioux City vs Omaha game) unusable. Sioux City had ZERO issues streaming the game against the First City Cavalry on YouTube however Eversport was tested using internet connections of 6 mpbs, 60 mbps, and 100 mpbs and NONE of them worked, it would always state that Eversport needed more bandwith. The CIF needs to get their act together and get out of the contract with Eversport, the Sioux City vs Omaha game also isn't even archived (a common problem in 2016) and move somewhere else, like YouTube following in the steps of the IFL.

 We had a couple of well bummers in last week's Games of the Week, the IFL Game of the Week for Week 2 was the Nebraska Danger hosting the Wichita Falls Nighthawks. The Nighthawks easily proved they were the superior defense at the Eihusen Arena as the Danger were stopped five times on offense, three turnovers and two missed field goals. The stout defense of the Nighthawks was matched by the great offense lead by signal caller Charles McCullum who lead an aerial attack of 240 yards for the Wichita Falls offense which only didn't land points on three times, two of which were due to the half ending and one due to a fumble on short kickoff by Nebraska. All those combined the Nighthawks took down the Danger with ease 65-48 to move to 2-0 on the season, Nebraska with that loss is now 1-1. The Danger and Nighthawks will meet two more times, on May 5th in Wichita Falls and to finish the season on June 17th back in Grand Island.
The CIF Game of the Week in Week 1 was between the Sioux City Bandits and Omaha Beef, as stated prior the feed is not archived and was unwatchable so unfortunately we don't have a recap for you. But Sioux City crushed Omaha 63-44 in front of 3,381 fans inside the Gateway Arena at Tyson Event Center in Sioux City. The Bandits and Beef will meet two more times this season, on March 31st and May 27th both in Omaha.
For Week 3 of the 2017 IFL season, our IFW IFL Game of the Week is the Spokane Empire and Wichita Falls Nighthawks when they play on Friday night at 7 inside the Kay Yeager Coliseum in Wichita Falls, TX. For Week 2 in the 2017 Champions Indoor Football season, our IFW CIF Game of the Week is on Saturday night at 6:30 when the Dodge City Law host the Duke City Gladiators.