Schedule drops can be an exciting time for IFL fans. You get to figure out who your favorite team plays, get to plan out what home games you can attend and then you get to fantasize about what road trips are possible to see some teams and matchups that have Certified Banger potential while you procrastinate during your day job. It's an exciting time!
I pulled a Tom Haverford when this dropped and just stared at the schedule and appreciated its beauty, all of the diligent work and potential last minute scrambling it took to get it released on Halloween.
But after a couple hours of staring and several wellness checks from my wife, I decided to deep dive the schedule a little and found some interesting tidbits that are worth a share!
Opening Weekend
From a league perspective, I understand scheduling only a handful of games to kick things off for the season. Get three games on the slate to ease the fans into the season and hopefully not dilute the viewership amongst too many games to start.
But there are a couple parts that I don't like about this:
Effect on Bye Weeks
Every single team gets 3 bye weeks throughout the season -- 16 games, 3 bye weeks = 19 week season. Easy math.
But for the teams that aren't scheduled in Week 1, that week counts as one of their 3 bye weeks for the year! A bye week in Week 1!
The six teams that play in Week 1 have that extra bye week dispersed through the season and break things up to rest up their players. That can be a huge difference down the stretch for some of these teams.
Training Camp Report Dates vary
In 2024, IFL teams reported to training camp 2 weeks before their first game of the season. But where that becomes a problem is that if you have 6 teams starting in Week 1 and the rest in Week 2, they are starting their season prep a full week before the rest of the league.
Last season, Tucson, San Antonio & Bay Area didn't have a regular season game scheduled until Week 3 -- meaning they started their training camp at the same time as other teams were starting regular season play.
It may not seem like a big deal on the surface to some, "Hey OTW, they all get 2 weeks to prep for the season, what's the big deal?" At the end of the season, as the final whistle of Week 19 echoes into the distance -- the 6 teams in Week 1 will have been together for 21 weeks since the start of camp, while the rest will have been together for 20.
The 4 teams that kicked off their season in Week 1 in 2024 were the Green Bay Blizzard, Massachusetts Pirates, Arizona Rattlers & Northern Arizona Wranglers.
Three of those four teams made it to the conference championship. Those extra weeks matter. I hated it last year and I still hate it now.
Who Travels the Most?
I'm a sucker for these stats every time I see them and decided to deep dive it when I saw the schedule drop. I present, the rough estimation of how much travel each team will do for away games (all distances approximate):
Massachusetts Pirates 12,646.1 miles
Bay Area Panthers 10,375.3 miles
Jacksonville Sharks 9,896.3 miles
San Antonio Gunslingers 8,233.4 miles
Tulsa Oilers 7,065.9 miles
Green Bay Blizzard 6,657.2 miles
Arizona Rattlers 6,479.0 miles
Iowa Barnstormers 5,923.3 miles
Fishers Freight 5,886.3 miles
San Diego Strike Force 5,770.5 miles
Vegas Knight Hawks 5,642.3 miles
Quad City Steamwheelers 5,031.9 miles
Northern Arizona Wranglers 3,360.7 miles
Tucson Sugar Skulls 3,176.8 miles
Get ready to learn sky miles, Massachusetts.
Now, it's not surprising to see teams on the coasts (MASS, BAY, JAX) up at the top of the list, as they are on geographic 'islands', especially in Massachusetts & Florida. But I was pretty shocked to see the difference in travel for teams like Northern Arizona & Tucson.
NAZ & Tucson each get the benefit of playing each other three times and being very close in proximity with Arizona as well.
But the fact that Massachusetts will be logging nearly 4x the number of miles as both of those teams is insane to think about. The IFL needs more teams on the East Coast to ease some of that travel burden off of the Pirates & Sharks.
Tucson kinda gets screwed with Bye Weeks?
Building off of the conversation around bye weeks, Tucson is one of the teams that doesn't play in Week 1 and only has a 2 real bye weeks throughout the year. But to make matters worse for the Sugar Skulls, every team in the league has a bye week in Week 15 or 16….
..except for Tucson.
2 of the first 3 weeks of the season are bye weeks for the Sugar Skulls (including opening weekend), with their final bye week in Week 10. Meaning they will have a final stretch of the season with 9 consecutive games with no Bye weeks.
There are teams that have 10+ week stretches with no bye weeks (NAZ with 12 in Weeks 4-15, Arizona & Vegas each with 10 in Weeks 6-15), but it being the final stretch to hopefully make a playoff pushy is unlucky for Tucson.
Green Bay has 7 Friday night games — SEVEN!
You know what they say about Friday nights in Wisconsin!I don't know if there is an actual saying
Seven Friday night games, including their season opener at Quad City and 6 of their 8 total home games, is pretty crazy to see. The closest teams in terms of number of Friday night games is Iowa, Massachusetts & Tulsa with 4 each. Back in the day of the OG AFL, Friday Night Football was a staple and was a great way for folks to end the work week.
This also means that Green Bay will have a lot of standalone games that run unopposed throughout the year (Week 4 vs Tulsa, Week 12 vs Iowa, Week 13 vs Jacksonville, Week 18 vs Massachusetts). I don't think there is an advantage or disadvantage to be had here, but I did think it was a very interesting tidbit when compared to other schedules.
But it pales in comparison to another Eastern Conference team's schedule.
Massachusetts has home games on Thursday, Friday, Saturday & Sunday
Okay, WOW. 2 Thursdays, 3 Fridays, 2 Saturdays, & 1 Sunday.
Usually teams tend to want consistency for their fans sanity in remembering game dates and times, but there must be other events booked at the Tsonga Center during those weeks.
Only 2 games on Saturday night, where teams typically have their best attendance. Pirates should be a very competitive team yet again this season, so hopefully they can improve upon last year's attendance despite some of the initial hurdles with the schedule.
Week 2 is going to be a BANGER
For some of the reasons mentioned earlier, this is the first real week of the season in my eyes and it is going to be a fun one. We got 2 games on Friday, 1 on Saturday, 2 on Sunday, 1 on Monday -- what an extended weekend that is! Fire up the frozen pizzas!
San Antonio-Bay Area
Vegas-San Diego
Iowa-Green Bay
Quad City-Massachusetts
Fishers-Northern Arizona
Tucson-Arizona
Some great matchups and plenty of storylines to roll with - Fishers IFL debut, the Vegas-San Diego rivalry gets renewed, a new era for San Antonio post-Castronova.
The only thing that would make it better is if all 14 teams were in action.
Week 17 is going to be BRUTAL
All 7 games in Week 17 are going to be on Saturday night — that means it is time to fire up the SeptoBox!
We've got 1 game starting at 6:05p CT, 3 games at 7:05p CT, & 3 games at 8:05pm CT -- meaning for about a little less than an hour we'll have all 7 games happening at the same time. Meaning one more than this beauty from last year:
CAN'T WAIT!
Tulsa doesn’t get a home game until Week 5 (!!)
Depending on your perspective as an Oilers fan, this can either absolutely rule or be terrible.
Absolutely rule:
More road games at the beginning of the season means more home games later in the season - including 3 of the last 4 during a hopeful playoff push.
Terrible:
3 straight road games to start the season straight up blows
Tulsa's first home game will come against the San Antonio Gunslingers nearly a full month after their season kicks off.
Out of Conference Matchups Vary... Again
Now before I dive in too much, let me get ahead of this:
Yes, I understand logistics of travel are tricky.
Yes, I understand that it's easier to travel in and out of some cities than others.
But that doesn't take away from the balance of scheduling that you would could be achieved.
Out of conference games:
San Antonio - 5*
Tulsa - 4*
Jacksonville - 4
Arizona - 3
Bay Area - 3
Massachusetts - 3
Fishers - 3
Northern Arizona - 2
Tucson - 2
Vegas - 2
Green Bay - 2
Iowa - 1
Quad City - 1
San Diego - 1
*San Antonio & Tulsa play each other 3 times, so even this number is a little inflated
IDEALLY, you could play each of your Conference foes twice (12 games) and then get 4 out of conference opponents, for a total of 16 games. It's no secret that the Western Conference was the better conference in 2024, and at times it felt like the IFL was two different leagues that were mushed together.
The Green Bay Blizzard had ZERO games against the Western Conference last season, and they may not have been as good as we thought they were because their scheduled consisted of mostly .500 or below teams.
BuT tRaVeL aNd LoGisStIcS aRe TrIcKy -- yeah, I know. But I think fans would rather see a team they have never faced before than get the same conference foe for the third time in a single season.
Matchups we get 3 times:
Arizona - TUC
Bay Area - SD
Northern Arizona - TUC, VEG, SD
San Antonio - TUL
San Diego - VEG, BAY, NAZ
Tucson - AZ, NAZ
Vegas - SD, NAZ
Fishers - IOWA
Green Bay - QC, IOWA
Iowa - GB, QC, FISH
Jacksonville - MASS
Massachusetts - JAX
Quad City - TUL, GB, IOWA
Tulsa - QC, SA
Matchups we get 2 times:
Arizona - GB, SA, NAZ, BAY, VEG, SD
Bay Area - SA, NAZ, AZ, TUC, VEG
Northern Arizona - AZ, BAY
San Antonio - BAY, AZ VEG, SD, TUC
San Diego - TUC, SA, AZ
Tucson - SD, BAY, SA, VEG
Vegas - SA, AZ, BAY, TUC
Fishers - TUL, MASS, QC, JAX, GB
Green Bay - AZ, TUL, MASS, FISH, JAX
Iowa - JAX, TUL, MASS
Jacksonville - QC, IOWA, FISH, GB
Massachusetts - QC, GB, IOWA, TUL
Quad City - MASS, JAX, FISH
Tulsa - GB, IOWA, FISH, MASS
Matchups we get 1 time:
Arizona - JAX
Bay Area - FISH, TUL, MASS
Northern Arizona - FISH, MASS, SA
San Antonio - QC, JAX, NAZ
San Diego - FISH
Tucson - JAX, MASS
Vegas - JAX, IOWA
Fishers - SD, BAY, NAZ
Green Bay - N/A
Iowa - VEG
Jacksonville - AZ, SA, TUL, VEG, TUC
Massachusetts - TUC, NAZ, BAY
Quad City - SA
Tulsa - BAY, JAX
What did YOU think of the full league schedule? How do you feel about your team's schedule? Reach out on X and let me know!
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