Storm continues surge

by Josh Stein
May 31, 2007 - Continental Indoor Football League (CIFL)


Though the players will not admit it's any big deal, the Sioux Falls Storm became the best team in indoor football history a week and a half ago. When the Storm overcame a poor performance to beat Omaha 33-19 on May 19, the Storm eclipsed Ohio Valley's professional football record of 27 wins, and they now stand alone with 28.

Granted, Port Huron is very likely to at least match that old record by the end of this year (an undefeated championship run will get them to 27), but the Storm have obviously overcome the tougher road to get to where they are. There have been some complaints that the UIF is not nearly as strong on-field as everyone thought because Sioux Falls has had so much easy success against teams. Granted, they have 61-17, 51-18, and 49-20 wins, two of those on the road, but let's not be ridiculos here. All eleven UIF teams would likely be strong contenders (Evansville's injury bug nonwithstanding) in just about any other indoor league. Would all eleven indidivually be guaranteed to win any other league title? Of course not. But the UIF has the best set of teams from top to bottom.

Ohio Valley, when they won 27 straight games, had a number of games against rather inferior competition. In 2003 (the 17-0 season), Ohio Valley had games against poor Myrtle Beach, Tennessee, Evansville, ShowMe and Tupelo teams. Sioux Falls in this run had a couple games against Peoria, and a game or two here and there against injury ravaged teams (that happens, it's football). Whose body of work is stronger? That answer is beyond obvious.

That's not to say Port Huron shouldn't be proud of what they're accomplishing. Granted, no one in the city cares for a second about the Pirates since owner Pete Norager announced - DURING HALFTIME of their 56-3 home win over Marion - that the team is moving after the season. And there's another case of blaming fans for the failure of management to give them a reason to care. How many people in the Port Huron area even know they still have a team? It's hard to get people to show up when you're averaging a six-plus touchdown victory every night out; even harder when the team never marketed anything in the first place. And you can't blame the media in a town whose newspaper has bent over backwards to cover the team. It's extremely poor form for any team owner, and then the league on top of it, to blame a city's fan base for failures coming squarely from the team and league.

And then there's the situation in Steubenville, which further deteriorated when the players apparently "gave up" and/or simply refused to take the trip to New England for whatever reason. You can't blame Martin Maiuri in this situation, as he's put his heart into keeping the Stampede afloat for the rest of 2007. The players knew they weren't going to get much money out of this (though to Maiuri's credit, any profits the team has generated, and there have been a few, have gone right to those players). I don't know why they just up and decided to not go to New England, but I have a suspicion the now-former Stampede coaching staff had something to do with that influence.

So, what to do? The players gave up once, so what is going to keep them from pulling this stunt again? Is it in the league's best interest to trot out an obviously unprepared semi-professional team out of Mansfield on 2 days' notice so they can get popped by 86 somewhere? Not a chance. This is going to be a radical suggestion on my part, and regular readers will not believe I'm going to say this. But simply put, it's time for the league to give up on Steubenville and replace them for the rest of the season with organized semi-professional teams.

It makes absolutely no sense for the league to pay all kinds of money (especially with $3.25/gallon gasoline) to ship some team of scrubs all over the country to get whooped when there are organized semi-professional teams right near the rest of Steubenville's road trips. The game this weekend at Rochester is a wash, and it's probably too late to get anything together that will remotely be competitive (if the Raiders want to, they'll get 100). But there's a home game against Lehigh Valley and a roadie at Chesapeake to fill. Honestly, it wouldn't be a terrible idea to squash the Lehigh Valley home game and move it to Stabler, if the Outlawz can get the date.

How does that make sense? Easy. There are good organized semi-professional teams in the Philadelphia/Lehigh Valley area. Outlawz owner Jim DePaul has in the past had heavy involvement with the organized semi-professional team. Why does it make sense for the Outlawz to travel across a long state through the mountains only to beat a team on the road by 70 points? Wouldn't it make more sense to take the top 21 guys from the champion of one of the leagues over there (most of them should be done with their seasons by now) and play a CIFL game at home? It would give Outlawz fans another opportunity to see the team they've drawn so well for, and it would give the CIFL a lot closer game than whatever dreck Steubenville can come up with.

Same goes especially in Chesapeake. There are some very strong semi-pro teams in Maryland, and they have players that are deserving of a shot at the next level. If the league would decide to just bite that bullet and get the best competition they can (which is an organized semi-professional team at the end of its year...meaning the players are in football game shape), the fans will have better football to watch. Especially in Chesapeake where there has been at least one semi-pro team that has talked with the league about this exact situation. Steubenville's players, simply put, have shown they don't want to be bothered with this. As such, how is it in the league's interest to pay to cart them to Maryland when there's an organized team (that has played its entire season already) that has come forward willing to fill that date?!

You're telling me that a semi-professional team that is in game shape that has played a whole season won't fare any better than "Steubenville" did at New England? That's hard to believe. And better yet, a team local to Chesapeake will bring a number of fans to Chesapeake, which is already struggling mightily at the gate. Will a semi-pro team beat Chesapeake (especially considering the Tide have lost a number of players due to rumors of non-payment and other issues)? It'd be impossible to predict that. But it can't possibly be any worse than the crap the league turned up in Worcester last weekend.

If you have any questions about anything I wrote in here, or want to add something for next week, do it! Email me at exit322@indoorfootballfan.com. Until next week, this is the war Between the Walls.



Continental Indoor Football League Stories from May 31, 2007


The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer(s), and do not necessarily reflect the thoughts or opinions of OurSports Central or its staff.


Sports Statistics from the Stats Crew
OurSports Central