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Post by Banana Cat on Jun 21, 2010 1:14:09 GMT -5
What do you think was the biggest upset in indoor football history?
The one that comes to mind for me was when the 8th-seeded (last seed to make the playoffs) Tennessee Valley Raptors totally demolished the 1st-seeded Fort Wayne Freedom in the 2005 UIF Playoffs, 57-22. Fort Wayne had only lost one game that year (14-1 record) and was looking unstoppable at home, but the 6-9 Raptors came in with new QB Ben Sankey under helm, throwing to...wait for it...Luke McArdel (player of the game) and totally stunned the Fort Wayne crowd in attendance.
NOTE: I saw Sankey, McArdel, and the Raptors take on Sioux City the following week and barely lost (I thought they had scored at the end, but the ref's said no). Fred Jackson and the Bandits lost in the title when the Storm went on their 4-year title run and Sankey and McArdel went from Tennessee Valley to Rock River to RiverCity, and now to the Omaha Beef (who take on Sioux Falls in the 1st Round this weekend).
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Post by Banana Cat on Jun 21, 2010 1:27:25 GMT -5
Here's the recap from that game:
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Post by BNDC on Jun 21, 2010 9:11:06 GMT -5
What was the Title game before UB1 where Lexington ripped one from Sioux Falls.
UB1 was also quite the upset. I think SF was a lower seed in UB1 that LEX the year before.
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Post by Bouncer_Texxx on Jun 21, 2010 9:33:49 GMT -5
SF was the 5 seed in that 8 team bracket. with wins @ OMA, @ LEX and then winning the title @ SC
honorable mention potentially to Fairbanks beating Billings this year?
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Post by BNDC on Jun 21, 2010 11:12:35 GMT -5
How about SC beating SF in there house in 05, scoring 32 4th quarter points and leading to the famous "chair throw".
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Post by lurker on Jun 21, 2010 13:39:59 GMT -5
Not an upset - RRR had ringers in that one.
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Post by Banana Cat on Jun 21, 2010 16:23:19 GMT -5
Not an upset - RRR had ringers in that one. Hmmm...you say ringers, but I disagree. Sankey was there for the end of the season and played in the last two regular season games...losing to the Beef in the last game, and losing to Sioux City in the second round of the playoffs. Players are players, what they did in Fort Wayne was an upset. If there were true ringers there they would've won it all.
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Post by Bouncer_Texxx on Jun 21, 2010 16:42:04 GMT -5
how quickly we also become league myopic.. Didn't the Iowa Blackhawks wind up blowing a 35 point lead to Mid-Missouri last year? (sorry cf4l)
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Post by Banana Cat on Jun 21, 2010 16:51:10 GMT -5
how quickly we also become league myopic.. Didn't the Iowa Blackhawks wind up blowing a 35 point lead to Mid-Missouri last year? (sorry cf4l) Hey, you're right. Sorry CF4L, but that has to be #1. Not only was it a 35 point lead, but it was a 35-0 lead that they blew. Talk about giving a team points (a betting reference for those not in the know).
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Post by lurker on Jun 21, 2010 20:42:56 GMT -5
Not an upset - RRR had ringers in that one. Hmmm...you say ringers, but I disagree. Sankey was there for the end of the season and played in the last two regular season games...losing to the Beef in the last game, and losing to Sioux City in the second round of the playoffs. Players are players, what they did in Fort Wayne was an upset. If there were true ringers there they would've won it all. They were absolutely ringers. RRR was no ordinary 8-seed. FWF had a good record, but they weren't that great - the UIF was too balanced for any playoff upset to be considered the biggest in the sport's history.
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Post by Banana Cat on Jun 21, 2010 21:13:33 GMT -5
In sports terminology ringer is an impostor, especially one who misrepresents his or her identity or ability in order to gain an advantage in a competition. It also applies to any athlete entered in a competition under false pretenses.
So who pray tell were the ringers?
There were no "ringers."
Everyone on that team had been there for the majority of the year, except for Sankey who was signed late in the season and played the last two games of the regular season for them (having been in the CFL before that...upgrading your team with a player that becomes available is not cheater or a "ringer"). He went 1-1 in the two games he started at the end of the season...hardly world beating stuff there. McArdle, player of the game in that upset, was there all year.
If you don't think that game ranks second all time as far as upsets, then come up with something better, because "ringer" is way off base.
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Post by lurker on Jun 22, 2010 21:10:54 GMT -5
You said it yourself, Sankey was brought in as a huge improvement. How is that one of the biggest upsets in the sport's history? They had the best player on the field! FW may have been 14-2, but they weren't a team anyone was scared of. They were 10-0 against Ohio Valley, Peoria, Black Hills, and Tupelo. If they had SC/SF's schedule, they'd have been a 9-7 team (they played 16 games that year) at best. They were fool's gold at its finest. Not to say FW shouldn't have won, but they were the worst 14-2 team in any league not named "NIFL." When someone punched back, they folded. Never mind they were a FW team past 2004; the paychecks had stopped by that point (probably the key point in this discussion, really).
Sioux Falls beating Rapid City in '01 in the playoffs was bigger, anyways. A 7-7 Storm team without any late-season acquisitions beating the 13-1 Red Dogs.
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Post by Banana Cat on Jun 22, 2010 23:30:29 GMT -5
Thanks for your opinion Josh, but you still haven't come up with who the "ringer's" (plural) you mentioned were (nice backpedaling there). Sankey was a late season addition, but they still hadn't done anything in the games they played with him at the end of the season. They jelled for one game, in which they were HUGE underdogs, and came away with an upset. Sankey never brought in HUGE improvement before that game, go back and look at his stats and his 1-1 record going into that game. They lost to Omaha, in their own home the last game of the season...that's HUGE improvement??? Omaha went into Fort Wayne during the season and lost, but Omaha can beat the Raptors with Sankey in their own house and the Raptors according to you are still not underdogs???...interesting take. Face facts, Fort Wayne was 14-2 going into that game and Tennessee Valley (not RRR, that came later) was 6-9 (and Sankey had been with the team a month by that time and was 1-1...and they barely made the playoffs on tiebreakers despite losing to Omaha in the last game of the regular season...a game that losing almost cost them a playoff shot so it was a must win game and they lost it). They were HUGE underdogs going into that game, all of the UIF, sports pages, and fans were amazed by the outcome...show me a link to one that wasn't. You say no one was scared of Fort Wayne, but everyone considered them the top team that year, they even beat the next closest contender in the regular season (Sioux City) 57-50, they beat Sioux Falls (eventual champs), and they beat Omaha twice.
Sioux Falls upset of Rapid City in 2001 is interesting and worth ranking up there at the top, although Sioux Falls did play Rapid City two times that season and lost by only 5 total points, so it wasn't that much of an upset now was it.
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Post by lurker on Jun 23, 2010 12:43:53 GMT -5
From the old FWF fan site about 2005: "The playoffs were not kind to the Freedom, as they suffered a first-round loss to an inspired Tennessee Valley Raptors team. The Freedom saw much success on the field this season, <b>but had just as many challenges off the field and those seemed to come to a head as they came out flat and never seemed to find their spark in a game that ended in a 22-57 loss. Newly signed QB Ben Sankey led the Raptors with a 20-29 completions, no interception and five touchdown performance.</b> "
So, I was wrong about ringerS. They only needed one, especially indoors at the pivot spot.
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Post by Banana Cat on Jun 23, 2010 14:23:20 GMT -5
Sorry, not the definition of a ringer. A good player and pickup, yes.
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