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. 

It's Time! Indoor Football Weekly #11

Credit Our Sports Central

That's right boys and girls, ladies and gentlemen, IT IS TIME. The 2017 Indoor Football season starts this weekend! It's been a long and grueling offseason we know, but we get into full swing with 4 regular season games and 2 preseason games this weekend!

And now we'll take another walk down memory lane. Last week we covered 1999 and today it's on to the year 2000. While both the IFL and IPFL survived (the IFL even thrived) in 1999 they would come back, however they weren't alone. A new league called the Xtreme Football League was being set up to take place, primarily in the deep south. That league was bought out by a league known as arenafootball2, better known as the af2 in July of '99. The IPFL would have 7 clubs in 2000, only Mississippi and Idaho returned from '99 though. In the IFL on the other hand all 8 teams returned with a whopping 13 expansion clubs for a 21 team league! The IPFL played a 16 game season and again saw all 7 of it's clubs survive the year. The Mississippi Fire Dogs would take down the Portland Prowlers, in Portland, in the 2000 IPFL Championship game. The IFL however went from playing just 12 games to 14 in 2000. A grueling 4 round, 12 team playoff culminated in IFL Gold Cup 2000, where the hometown Peoria Pirates smacked the Bismarck Blaze 69-42. As of 2017 we actually have some teams still remaining, the Omaha Beef (IPFL now CIF), Sioux Falls Cobras (now Storm in the new IFL), and Sioux City Attack (IPFL now Bandits in the CIF) are all still kicking. Markets that have clubs are as we've covered Green Bay and Dayton along with Wichita, KS. Wichita, who was the Warlords in the IFL, now has the three year old Force who replaced the Wichita Wild.

Credit Indoor Football League

As I said it's time! To cap off the IFL preseason the Wichita Falls Nighthawks put a beat down on the Cap City Bulls (SIF) by a score of 89-12. Before we get started with the games let's go over Banana Cat's IFL Power Rankings prior to week one. At the top we have (of course) the 6 Time Defending United Bowl Champion Sioux Falls Storm, behind them at number two is last years Intense Conference Champion Spokane Shock. The league newcomers, the Arizona Rattlers, are ranked a respectable third place. And to round out the top four is the Wichita Falls Nighthawks. The rest are in said order 5) Green Bay Blizzard, 6) Nebraska Danger, 7)  Iowa Barnstormers, 8) Salt Lake Screaming Eagles, 9) Colorado Crush, and 10) Cedar Rapids Titans. Now about those games, Week 1 opens up at 8PM (CT) when the newest IFL club the Salt Lake Screaming Eagles host the Nebraska Danger on Thursday from the Maverik Center. The action continues Friday night with a pair of 7PM (CT) kickoffs as the Green Bay Blizzard visit the Cedar Rapids Titans in the U.S. Cellular Center and when the biggest game of the season happens as the Arizona Rattlers face off with the Sioux Falls Storm at the Denny Sanford PREMIER Center. The weekend closes when the Iowa Barnstormers travel to the Kay Yeager Coliseum to play the Wichita Falls Nighthawks on Saturday at 7PM (CT). All games will be FREE to watch on YouTube, and if you wanna try your hand at pick-em you can do that here as well. Both the Colorado Crush and Spokane Empire have a bye in Week 1.

And on to the CIF, the preseason officially began this past Sunday when the Omaha Beef hosted the Omaha Outlaws at the Ralston Arena. The Beef would slaughter the Outlaws by a final score of 97-18. You can expect more of that this weekend as there are two games on hand. Both games are Saturday February 18th at 7PM (CT), when the Dallas Marshals host the Arlington Longhorns at the Mesquite Arena in Mesquite, TX and the other when the Sioux City Bandits host the First City Cavalry at the Gateway Arena at Tyson Event Center. As of now the CIF still has not yet announced a streaming deal but we'll cover that when it is announced and give you the CIF Power Ranking before Week 1.

And we introduce a new part to the weekly posts, the IFW Game of the Week. Each week (in the regular season) at Indoor Football Weekly, we'll be selecting one game from each league as our IFW Game of the Week. This week's pick in the IFL is a game we've all been waiting for the Arizona Rattlers taking on the Sioux Falls Storm at the Denny Sanford PREMIER Center in Sioux Falls, SD at 7PM on Friday Night. This game is the biggest game in the history of the Indoor Football League as two teams with a combined 15 championships (10 Indoor Titles for Sioux Falls and 5 ArenaBowl Titles for Arizona) who have never played each other before. Kevin Guy who has coached the Rattlers since 2008 will have the biggest coaching battle of his career in for him against Kurtiss Riggs whose in his 15th season as head coach of the Storm. The game has all the making of an instant classic and a possible preview of United Bowl 2017. If you can get to the game I couldn't suggest that option enough, if not you can watch the game live on YouTube.

Indoor Football Weekly #10 Preseason 2017, Part 2: Champions Indoor Football

Credit: Our Sports Central

One preseason has started and one is about to begin this week. The Indoor Football League preseason started last week and even had a game (we'll recap that later) and the CIF preseason starts this week with another game!

As we did last week, we're covering the history of indoor football as a special for the 20th Season for the sport. After the 1998 season the PIFL would fold and break up in to two leagues. One league (the IPFL) would take the remnants of the Honolulu Hurricanes (now the Hawaii Hammerheads), the Colorado Wildcats (now the Rocky Mountain Thunder) and the '98 PIFL Champion Louisiana Bayou Beast along with 3 expansion clubs. The (original) IFL was founded by the Green Bay Bombers and Madison Mad Dogs owner Keary Ecklund with those clubs and 6 expansion teams. The IPFL would play 16 games and see all 6 clubs survive the regular season. In the championship game Hawaii would beat the Texas Terminators by a score of 28-16 to win the IPFL title. However at the end of the season only 2 clubs (Idaho and Mississippi) would ring in the new millennium with the IPFL. On the other hand the IFL would play a 12 game schedule in 1999 and it would go much better than the IPFL. In the '99 IFL Gold Cup, Green Bay would travel to Peoria and bomb the Pirates with a 63-60 win. All 8 clubs (plus a few expansion clubs) would come back for the 2000 season. As with '98 there are no clubs left from the 1999 season and only 2 markets still have the indoor game. Green Bay (as we covered last time) and the only addition to them is Dayton. Dayton will have an expansion team (the Dayton Wolfpack) in the new NAL, while they have not announced their arena the Nutter Center at Wright State University is expected to be their home since the Hara Arena has closed.

Now back to the current day and age. As we covered last week the IFL preseason has begun and it opened this past weekend on Saturday night when the Iowa Barnstormers traveled to the US Cellular Center in Cedar Rapids to take on the Titans. The Barnstormers would take down the Titans 38-26 on the road. An overall sloppy game with both teams needing to clean a lot up before the regular season, but that can only be expected after just four days of practice. This weekend will see the second (and only other) preseason game is this Saturday when the Wichita Falls Nighthawks host the SIF's travel only Cap City Bulls at the Kay Yeager Coliseum.

Champions Indoor Football, the second of three stops on the 2017 preseason preview. The CIF has preseason game starting this weekend (Feb 12th) and going through the first week of the regular season (Feb 26th). After all the exhibitions are played half of the league (7/14) clubs will have played an exhibition game, and unlike the IFL all the games are against Non-League opponents.

Northern Division

The CIF's Northern Division sees 4 of 6 clubs return to it from 2016 (Wichita was moved to the Southern and Chicago folded) along with three expansion clubs. These clubs include two completely new expansion teams the Bismarck Bucks and Kansas City Phantoms along with 2016 AIF runner up the West Michigan Ironmen. With Wichita's move to the South the Northern Division will have unmatched parity that normally isn't seen in this sport. Bloomington, Sioux City, and Omaha all finished last season at 7-5. Look for Sioux City (who won the CIF in 2015 to continue to compete along with Omaha and Kansas City to challenge for first throughout the season. As of right now I think the other four clubs, including the expansion clubs will be fighting for third place. 

Southern Division

The South of the CIF is the total opposite of the North, and it starts with the defending league champion Wichita Force along with the two best from last year's Southern Division the Amarillo Venom and Texas Revolution. Those clubs have a good chance at finishing 1-2-3. Dodge City and Duke City will have a fight on their hands to get into one of the playoff spots. Dallas (formerly Mesquite) and the expansion CenTex Cavalry will have some work to not finish in the cellar in 2017.

Games to Watch

Unfortunately with just a few days until the preseason games starting no streaming for the 2017 CIF Season has been announced. Last season the streaming was free with Eversport but hopefully the CIF moves elsewhere and keeps it free. As for what to watch the season opener between Sioux City and Omaha is definitely the first one to watch in 2017. The next is the Week 9 matchup between the Texas Revs and the Amarillo Venom. I also wouldn't count out any of the in the final 3 weeks of the season as they will be the key to the playoffs.

As with the IFL preseason starting last week, Champions Indoor Football's preseason games start this week. The Omaha Beef will host the Omaha Outlaws this Sunday February 12th. We'll have one more preseason preview with the National Arena League in a few weeks!