April 21, 2026
By Evan Lepler

Before diving deep into the wide pool of perspective that’ll preview the 2026 UFA season, we’ve got to start with some exciting breaking news.

The reigning champion Boston Glory have officially signed Rowan McDonnell, and after nine seasons with the Breeze, the 2018 UFA MVP will make his Boston debut against DC this Saturday. How’s that for spicy Week 1 storyline!

Overall, it’s not completely stunning that Rowan has decided to return or that he has chosen to play with the Glory. After all, his New England roots are well-established. He is originally from Connecticut, and he’s been living in Maine during the frisbee offseason for several years. 

And looking back, the speculation about retirement last summer always felt somewhat tentative. He clearly still loves to play, and even at a slightly different stage of his career, the 36-year-old McDonnell—he turns 37 on June 1—can still be a valuable cog with his crafty throwing skillset and his endless experience. 

Add in the fact that Boston will also have Thomas Edmonds, another former Breeze star, in the lineup this coming weekend, and Saturday’s Game of the Week that’ll be seen exclusively on WatchUFA.tv will be a wildly compelling show. 

Furthermore, Jeff Babbitt will also be active for Boston this weekend, a fact that felt somewhat inevitable but remained uncertain for team leaders even as recently as Monday morning.

With six games across the UFA this coming weekend, initial gameday rosters are now available by clicking on the “Game Center” button on the main schedule page. 

And here’s six more quick thoughts on the opening weekend lineups:

• Unfortunately, it appears we won’t see a brother vs. brother battle on Friday Night Frisbee. Nathan Lyle is active for Carolina and will make his Flyers debut, but his brother, Jonathan, who made the UFA First Team All Rookie squad as a Los Angeles Aviator last year, is listed as ‘Out’ for San Diego.
   
• The Flyers won’t have Tobias Brooks or Zeke Thoreson for their opening doubleheader weekend, but they'll be thrilled to have Elijah Long back in the fold. The 2021 UFA champion—who threw a remarkable no-look score in the ’21 title game that tragically didn’t count because the play hadn’t yet officially been whistled live—only participated in one game last season while basically taking the year off. But he’s expected to be with Carolina for both of their Week 1 battles at San Diego and Vegas. 
   
• Pat Earles is active for Atlanta. The former Pittsburgh standout hasn’t played in the UFA in nine years, but he’s one of just 19 players in the past decade who has thrown more than 60 assists in a season. Another former Thunderbirds star, Max Sheppard, is also expected to make his Hustle debut on Friday night in Houston.
   
• Excited to see Wiebe van den Brink, DC’s latest international import from The Netherlands, make his UFA debut for the Breeze in Boston. And who knows if Miles Grovic can top this insane moment from his college season, but good to see the 22-year-old healthy and active after he missed the East Division final with a lingering injury last August.
   
• Matt Armour, Duncan Fitzgerald, and Evan Swiatek, all of whom sat out the 2025 season, are back and active for the Austin Sol. And how ‘bout Ryan Drost, the league’s all-time leader in blocks with 207, playing his first game ever for a team other than the Empire! After 136 games over 11 seasons with New York, Drost is expected to suit up for the Sol on Saturday against the Hustle. 
   
• Oakland’s Dexter Clyburn, who won the 2025 Callahan Award with Cal, is back with the Spiders for their season opener on Sunday against the Oregon Steel. It’ll be Clyburn’s first UFA game since 2023.

The Full Field Layout

Every year, in the months leading up to the season, teams spend hours and hours getting ready. Between meetings, individual workouts, and obviously full-team practices, it’s virtually impossible to quantify the massive amount of time and effort that all the competitors in our league will devote to achieving their goals. 

While my preseason preparation is not nearly as physically strenuous, I also spend a ton of time talking with people around the league, aiming to understand the mindsets and outlooks that will shape the new championship chase. Over the course of many, many long conversations, I have obtained significant amounts of insight and perspective, so much of which adds color to our Friday Night Frisbee telecasts, along with my season-long written coverage. Inevitably, there are some quick quotes that make for good punch-lines, but there are also so many longer quotes, answers that players and coaches really go deep on, that help to illustrate the richer context and immense thought that goes into the UFA landscape. 

Consequently, I have decided to share this treasure trove of takes—with the leaders of the league explaining everything that’ll help define the months ahead—all of which should help get you set for Friday’s opening action and the rest of the 121-game regular season.

For organization’s sake, let’s group things by division. Quick links: Central - East - South - West

Central Division

Minnesota Wind Chill Coach Ben Feldman on whether his team should be viewed as a championship favorite: 

“Obviously, the way we have our success, like it’s probably not the cleanest and sexiest way to necessarily win games. It’s a different approach. The streaky, inconsistent, explosive nature of how we’ve had our success probably continues to lead to some questions about the sustainability of that. We’ve done it for two seasons now and won the division and things like that, but we don’t have an MVP stable anchor persona of efficiency or something along those lines. I think that’s part of the reason that there continues to be a sense of doubt, which we embrace as a team. Our success, whether it’s in crazy winds or whether we’re coming from behind by four or five goals and building on momentum, having fans behind us, I think we find creative ways to have success maybe different from the mainstream approach. Should we be a favorite to win? No, I don’t think so. As much as our aspirations to win a title are there, I still don’t think, despite our performances, that we’ve earned the right to be a favorite. Obviously, we lost to Boston, and they retained a lot of their players and talent. Although we added talent, I still think we have a lot to work on as a team. It’s not a surprise to me that we don’t actually get that cred as favorite. But regardless of who we’re going up against, I think everyone now is still gonna give us a fair shake and be afraid to honestly not pick us, which we like. I think we’ve proven that, when doubted, we tend to perform pretty well.”

Chicago Union Coach Charlie Furse on Pawel Janas:

“He’s always been much more interested in winning than the back of his baseball card. He’ll amass stats in certain years if that’s what’s best for the team, but he’s a guy that just wants to win. From that perspective, it’s good to have him. He’s a super hard worker. He’s in for every last drop of what he can get out of the season. And if you want to kinda zoom in, what tells me this Union team is a little bit different in ’26 than ’25 is that you had Pawel playing D-line last year, and he’ll be a focal point of our offense in all likelihood this year. Am I going to try to run him into the ground? No, I’m not. But do I think that his presence on offense is going to give our other guys confidence? If they get into a really tight spot, we know Pawel can get open on a reset, we know he can move the disc side to side, we know he can move the disc in the wind. My hope is that folks are just more comfortable exploring some of their skills kinda having that security blanket on the field with them.” 

Madison Radicals Coach Jake Spiro on what surprised him as a first-year Head Coach: 

“The team management side. I think I was pretty well ready to take over from the strategy and leading practices standpoint. That’s something I’ve been doing for years. But being able to manage the entire roster, and especially keep up communication with everyone. When you have 35 guys on the team and only 20 play, it’s an easy spot to wind up with hurt feelings. I think that the amount of time and energy needed there was something I wasn’t ready for, and I think I’m better equipped to hopefully do better with that this year.” 

Indianapolis AlleyCats Head Coach Nathan Bussberg on his approach to building a team:

“Coaches, especially around Indy in the past, have been like, ‘if you can’t play 10 games, you’re not playing on our team.’ Sure, but talent wins games. Not exclusively, but talent first, and a lack of talent will show very quickly. We were down 17-2 at halftime to Minnesota—I don’t think there’s a realm where we could’ve practiced every day for four hours a day all season and shown up to Minnesota and given them a sniff of a game because of a lack of just sheer talent. So bringing in talent seems very shotgun-esque, but it almost doesn’t matter because we have to be talented first. And I’ve had way more conversations than people who’ve said yes, naturally, and from what I’ve heard there are teams or coaches that are mad that Indy went and recruited people. I don’t know if that’s because they want to have another Detroit in the division or if they’re just mad that we’re pulling from other teams. That is what it is in a professional sport. But we kind of have to do that to survive as a team [...] It’s interesting to put it all together. We’ve gotten better buy-in from the young local Indy guys who are not only sacrificing their time, effort, and energy at practices. They’re also sacrificing playing time and they’re opening up their houses for these travel players to stay in. That’s unique."

Minnesota Wind Chill Coach Ben Feldman on his personal mentality around recruiting big-name out-of-town players:

“We’re obviously trying to put together a winning roster, but at the same time we’re trying to build a group of players that are good culture fits and also are playmakers, honestly. Guys who can be featured in great highlights the fans can get excited about. As much as we’re trying to win games and win a championship, we also wanna put a product on the field that’s impressive and that the fans are gonna love. Naturally, as a GM, I think I navigate towards guys who have shown they can perform at the highest level, they can make plays in the big moments, and everything else is a little bit secondary to that [...] When you’re finding out-of-towners at a certain caliber or level, there’s a lot of things that have to be the right fit for it to make sense. We’re looking for guys who are fired up about the opportunity, want to play in front of a crowd, and just be a really good culture fit for the team. I think we have a pretty talented coaching staff where we can figure out how we’re gonna put all that together. As a GM, I’m excited about the playmaking potential, wherever those guys go. We’re [also] looking to bring in personalities and people who the local guys can get really excited about the opportunity to play with. Like, that feeling of 'I’d never have an opportunity to play with these guys but for this,’ and I think that adds a different level of excitement to training and competing and doing what we’re doing. And I think it’s exciting for our fans too. We’re very local-focused, but then we supplement with a few key players from out of town to just add to the level. That’s how we’ve done it here the last five years, and I think it’s worked out pretty well.”

East Division

Boston Glory Head Coach Sam Rosenthal on how his team locked in at Championship Weekend last year: 

“I was really impressed with our focus. Like any team, focus can be a problem. All the distractions present no positives, and there are so many distractions at Championship Weekend to family in town to the crowd, which is way more exciting than a regular season crowd, to just the distractions of playing in a Championship Weekend game. I was just so impressed with how locked in the guys were. From the start of the game to the end of the game, when I went to call our play or one of the other coaches went to call lines or deliver a message, everybody was locked in on the coaches, locked in on each other. It was a very winning mentality [...] I hope it was something the guys learned from. If we can lock in like that every game, we will have a stronger regular season [in 2026].”

New York GM/Co-Head Coach Matt Stevens on signing Daan De Marrée: 

“We’ve had the same philosophy since we took over the team. We try and treat all the players like professionals and try to push the envelope of the sport in general. We’ve obviously had a lot of great players come through and play with us through the years [...] As far as the pitch goes, we offered him what we thought was a very competitive package [...] Alex [Atkins] was helping to pitch. Other players on the team were reaching out to him. At the end of the day, everything we had to offer together made the most sense for him and we’re obviously tremendously excited to have Daan come play with us…I got the docusign notification and I was really, really pumped. It’s special. You remember the big ones, and obviously this was a really big one. How often do you get a chance to sign the quote unquote best player in the world? And I think, by all accounts, that’s Daan right now. [But] we don’t get Daan just because we offered him a competitive contract. It is a culmination of years and years and years of doing what we’ve done and making the Empire an organization that people want to come play for.”

DC Breeze Head Coach Xavier Maxstedt on his general expectations for the season: 

“I think that we’re in a good spot. We’ve gotten the chance to bring in some new faces. The players that we lost are all very experienced, big-time players that have a lot of knowledge to give, so those do hurt a little bit. But one of the coolest things about this team is we have so many young players who are very experienced. Now, they are 22-year-olds who are leaders on the team. I’m excited to have players be able to step into roles that they haven’t been in the past. One good example is we lost [David] Bloodgood from last year, and he’s been a big leader and D-line presence. And I think Isaac Lee is gonna be a natural fit to fill those shoes a little bit. And he’s very young and very good [...] [As for the East], it’s definitely pretty evident that the division got a lot better, and I feel like every year we say that, which is fun. I enjoy having that challenge each year. New York adding De Marree and Atkins, I think that’s gonna be a pretty different looking team. Those two allow you to change your strategy a lot and feel fine with it. That’ll be a fun matchup. Obviously, Boston’s gonna be pretty good as well. They took one of our top players, [Thomas Edmonds], and for the team that was the best team last season to add one of the best players as well that can do everything is pretty daunting, but we’re prepping our players in terms of how we want to play in those situations. I feel pretty good about it [...] [Opening day in Boston] is exciting. I think it’s gonna be a good measuring stick to see where we landed after preseason. Our goal is to win every game, obviously. For me, I hate to lose. I want to push us to win those games. But I’m a firm believer in you can take your lumps during the regular season as long as you do make the playoffs, and as long as those growing pains are actual growing pains and not just pains. I think, going into it, we have a very good shot of winning, but it also won’t be the worst if we get better and lose that game.”

Toronto Rush Coach Jamie Millage on the team’s overall outlook:

“You’re never not optimistic in April. I think the biggest difference compared to us last year is the external noise and expectation is reduced, which I’ll take. I don’t think internally there’s a whole lot that’s different. I think the kind of flashy signings that we had last year really had expectations jump appropriately [...] Availability was a challenge [last year]. I think every team has some of that because of life and injuries. We had [Simone] Gasperini, Griffin McKee, and [Adam] Turcotte basically miss the whole season. They were all top 14 guys for us. And on top of that, we had three guys make the World Games roster and five make the U-24 roster. And there were actually more U-24 guys we probably would’ve taken last year, but it didn’t make sense for us to have [more] guys that would be missing [...] Across our whole roster last year, the average availability was six and a half games, which obviously was pretty devastating, pretty hard to work with. Outside, people may look at our team and not recognize as many names and look at where the ceiling is. We know some guys are gonna miss games here and there, but we’re expecting the availability to be a lot higher. 

Philadelphia Phoenix Coach Adam Callaghan on replacing several high-profile players who are no longer on the team: 

“Some of it is framing it in the sense of opportunity. Going into last season, I think people knew that Nate [Little] was gonna take a pretty big defensive role. People knew that [Sean] Mott was gonna be on the O-line and take a very high density of the touches, where this year that’s a wide open position. You can’t have a one-to-one replacement for Sean Mott; he’s a very unique player, and I don’t think I’d tell any person to go play like Sean because it’s not really replicable the way he plays the game. But multiple people can fill that role and provide a different product. It’s kinda the same story with last year, losing James [Pollard]. And people said, ‘oh, what’s gonna happen with this team? They lost Max Trifillis. They lost James.’ And we produced a better result. It’s that same type of energy as well where it’s better utilization of the pieces we have, it’s giving people new opportunities, and it’s bringing in new pieces into the team. As long as there’s trust throughout the whole roster, we think we can put out a pretty good product.”

Montreal Royal veteran Kevin Quinlan with a bold declaration about one of his long-time teammates: 

“[Quentin Bonnaud] is the best player I’ve ever played with and I think he’s the best player in the UFA. And gets wildly under-talked about. I’ve played with him his entire career. He’s got the numbers to back it up. Put whoever you want on him, he still performs no matter what the situation is, and he’s proven time and time again.” 

New York Empire Co-Coaches Matt Stevens and Anthony Nuñez on Empire veteran Jack Williams:

Stevens: “Jack’s as good of a player as we’ve had in the sport in the last decade, and I think having some of these other pieces out there allows Jack to do what Jack is best at, which is being the most important piece on the field without being the most obvious piece on the field.  

Nuñez: “I think Jack is really excited to be able to just fill into a role on this team and feel a little bit like he doesn’t have to do everything all the time. There’s several versions of Jack we talk about, right? There’s Playoff Jack. We have northeast Jack, which hates the cold and is unhappy because it’s snowing. We’re seeing a little bit of humble Jack right now, but hungry Jack too. He’s excited about the rest of the team being awesome, so he can just do the things he needs to do. He’s even said, ‘place me where you want to place me. I’m just extremely excited to be a part of it.”

Stevens: “Usually we give some top players clipboards at the early tryouts, and Jack said, ‘I don’t want a clipboard this year. I want to tryout.’ And so Jack went and tried out with the rest of the squad. Indoor tryouts, Jack was out there running around. He’s one of those guys who’s a natural leader and to fill in some voids he’s taken larger leadership roles the last couple years, but he’s stepping back from more of the formal leadership. We’re wanting Jack to just go out and play.” 

South Division

Carolina Flyers Head Coach Michael Avila on his biggest takeaways from his first year leading the Flyers:

“It was a very weird cocktail of emotions. Obviously, the immediate feeling was can’t believe we missed the playoffs. Can’t believe this happened. And for me personally, I’m stepping into really big shoes with Mike DeNardis. And he’s been so supportive and really tries to shoot down the whole stepping into his shadow [dynamic]. That’s kind of what it is though. To come in and have that happen, definitely felt a little bit of disappointment. Definitely felt I let the trust—even though that wasn’t the case for him— but I personally felt like I let the trust he put in me down, and same with the team. But at the same time, one thing I really appreciated I just saw how much fight was in our group and honestly how much fight was in me, and being able to fight back from being 0-4 and going 7-1 the rest of the way, only losing to Atlanta. That’s really cool. I’ve coached other teams in the past that have kind of wilted away, and I’ve seen other teams wilt away with that type of deficit. But for the team to see that our backs were up against the wall and be able to extend the streak for so long, including snagging a win against a very good Atlanta team felt very encouraging. It feels like a lot of that energy is coming back from the latter half of the season. Those feel like the big takeaways, and honestly, it’s just still cool. It’s a privilege to be able to do stuff like this, and even through the disappointment, I couldn’t help but think, I’m privileged and lucky to feel disappointed about something like this. Nowadays, a ton of gratitude and thankful for that experience because it was an educational experience in the way I handle things now with Flyers and some of the youth teams I coach.

San Diego Growlers Coach Kevin Stuart on his outlook for the season:

“With LA folding, that really opened up a lot of talent. For me, seeing people who were always on the opposite sideline out there trying out was really cool. After the tryout process was done, just looking at what we thought was our best 30, we have a pretty veteran group right now. And we’re trying to shape our roster so that we can compete with Atlanta, Carolina, and Austin, with the projected personnel that we think they have, like height on receivers, matching up handler-wise, all that type of stuff. We had the luxury this year to fill spots instead of just picking. Like there were some good players that we couldn’t sign, but we had to fill needs so we could match up against the teams we’d be playing for the South with [...] I really wish there were preseason games. Just like college football, you jump in and you’re playing a top 10 opponent. I mean, at first I’m like, ‘wow that’s tough,’ but we’re gonna have to play all these teams anyway, and if we want to consider ourselves the best and earn our shot at Championship Weekend, you can’t duck them. You gotta play them. Carolina first, it’ll be fun. Obviously, we played a really good game [against the Flyers] last year; it could’ve gone either way.” 

Atlanta Hustle player Max Sheppard on why he decided to join the Hustle:

“What interested me about the Hustle is their championship-level coaching staff and how they have a consistent history in building resilience, along with player development over the years. I did not move to Atlanta, but I will be traveling down for practices and home games, as well as away games to the west coast. This season, I have a more open mindset to whatever role the team needs me to fill on whatever line they see me best fitting in. I trust the Hustle coaches and their player analysis to place me where my strengths can help achieve the team's goals. The [first] training weekend I attended was more scrimmage-oriented than most preseason training camps I've attended in the past, which speaks to the level of chemistry and skill that Atlanta is starting with this season. I had a lot of fun playing with old teammates like Pat Earles and Jeremy Langdon, and new teammates like Brett Hulsmeyer and Austin Taylor. I got a chance to play some defensive points with Dean Ramsey and Sam Munnis. This team has so far exceeded my expectations on and off the field, and I'm excited to play coast to coast within a competitive South division. 

Austin Sol Co-Head Coach Joe Iannacone on the battle to make the South Division playoffs:

“It’s fighting for those three positions with [the top four] teams. Every year, one team has to sit out. Really close, close margins. It’s winning the games we expect ourselves to and positioning ourselves so we can take those tough games too. I feel we’re going in the direction that we can compete with anyone in our division and win those games [...] We’ve been—between coaches and captains—having weekly meetings since November, planning out how the preseason’s gonna go. With Atlanta being game one, we need to be ready to go. That’s an important first game, so [we] have really geared this preseason up to go full speed at game one.”

West Division

Colorado Apex General Manager/Assistant Coach Tim Kefalas on the team’s 2026 ceiling:

“The thing I’m excited about, and this is genuine: I think we could make Championship Weekend, and I think we could miss the playoffs. The range is all the way in there. We’ve had high expectations for years, and not unfairly, y’all tell us we underperform them, because we have. And flipping the script is perfect. We come out of the first five games of the season, if we’re not cruising and we’re written off, perfect. But I do believe, with the right buy-in, the right energy, we’ve got a great head coach, the sky’s the limit.”

Salt Lake Coach Bryce Merrill on the team’s evolving offense:

“It’s going to be significantly different. Braden Eberhard--[who signed with New York]—managed a lot of the thinking of that line. Will Selfridge--[who signed with Atlanta]—was our explosive playmaker in the middle of the field for that line. And neither of them are gonna be on the field with us. How do we manage and replace some of those touches and some of that identity, and how does this team actually do it? [...] That’s the puzzle. That’s the game we’re trying to solve, and it feels like we have paths to success, which is all that we hope for [...] If Chad [Yorgason’s] playing confident, we are a hard team to stop. The goal’s go to [Matt Russnogle], and the goals come from [Jordan] Kerr, but Chad is so important to everything we do. And so it’s really important for him to continue to grow and for us to put him in spots where his risk-assessment and aggressiveness is useful and it’s higher percentage because of the way we build our offense. [We’re] having him work with some new cutters downfield this year. Simon [Dastrup]. We’ve tried out Ben Ashton and Alex Forsberg in some offensive roles as well as they continue to develop and grow as players. Making sure that we’re building a system that really works for Chad and that highlights his strengths, because when he is on I think he is a First Team All-UFA level player. He’s got that X-factor. He loves bigger moments. He wants the best player to be guarding him. He wants to be on the line when we’re down one in the fourth. Those are the intangibles that you build around [...] And we’ll have McKay [Yorgason] and Carson [Armstrong] helming our UFA offense. That’s young, and that’s inexperienced, but the two of them comport themselves above their age and above their years of experience. I’m not concerned about it; it’s just, we’ve put them in that position so we’ll have to roll with the growth that comes with that. McKay last year was top five in the whole league in several key categories in terms of points played or touches or yards per, some of those secondary advanced metrics. I think he gets his roses. I think people generally recognize that he is as good as he is, but also he doesn’t have any highlight throws like ever. He doesn’t do anything big and cool. It’s just, look, we’ve got 300 throws a game to manage. He’s going to do a lot of that work [...] With the loss of some of our other stars, do we want the two [Yorgasons] to do more, or do we appreciate that they are performing at a max output and someone else will need to fill the vacuum? I think I lean towards the latter, and not at fault to them. They’re maximizing their role in a lot of ways and adding additional win share to them would not be the right move [...] We just need to pull somebody else into that star tier to join those guys.”’

Oakland Spiders Head Coach Liam Kreiss on playing Salt Lake three times this season:

“That’s gonna be a really, really fun rivalry over the course of the season. I believe the Spiders have never beaten Salt Lake, and I have never lost to a Utah team in my career. With Cal my junior year, we played BYU, and I think they lost two games all season, and one of them was to us, so Jordan Kerr and the rest of them, I hope my streak against them lasts a little longer than the Salt Lake-Spiders streak…Even though I wasn’t a part of [Oakland’s playoff] loss—I just watched on WatchUFA.tv—I for sure feel the pain and frustration and disappointment and that nagging feeling that’s like, ‘this is inevitable. This team just finds a way to beat us.’ It also happened in the regular season. We had a lead, and they tied it up at the last moment and won in overtime. There is a mental shift or understanding that needs to happen [...] We showed that for three and a half quarters, we can end up with a higher score. But we can’t just rely on being the better team on paper. It doesn’t matter what your team is on paper. What matters is that you don’t make mistakes when the game is on the line, that you do all the little fundamentals. That will one thousand percent be a focus in practice [...] No scrimmage is going to quite feel like a playoff game in Salt Lake under the lights, but what can we do to best prepare ourselves for that situation by simulating the intensity to the greatest extent that we can in practice?…It motivates me. If I ever lose anything, I want to play again. Like, give me a rematch. I want to learn from my mistakes. I want to do it again. I will lose as many times as it takes to win. And I think the team is ready to bounce back from this. We’ve shown that we can be there. I’m very confident that we’ll be beating Salt Lake this year. We’ve talked about what our goal should be. We play them three times in the regular season. A lot of people have talked about two out of three. I think three of three is a better goal, but we’ll see what happens. All respect to that team. Bryce Merrill is an amazing coach. Those mid-game adjustments [are] clearly something that Salt Lake is doing really well and is something I want to bring my A-game and do all my studying ahead of time and prepare for this so that, when those moments come up, I’m ready to face them. That’s what motivates me, 100 percent [...] I think [last year’s Oakland Coach] Caleb [Merriam] did such an awesome job of getting the Spiders to the next level, being this powerhouse of the West that very much is on line with Salt Lake, beating everyone else and then having these close games that we almost just lost a couple coin flips—not that it’s just up to chance—you gotta put in the work, and Salt Lake puts in the work. Those are some big, fast, strong people. UFA fields are huge and these games are long, and when there’s a few minutes left in the fourth quarter, everyone is gassed. And it shows that some of those guys on Salt Lake, they’ve been doing their runs, they’ve been in the gym. The fact that Tony Mounga can get these crazy layouts at the very end of the game, that’s a testament to the preparation and time and effort he’s putting in. I think that is motivating this team a lot. Our workout chat is popping. People are working really hard, which is really exciting for me to see. And I’m working really hard too.”

Colorado Apex Head Coach Joe Durst on his message to his team and the team’s daunting early schedule:

“New team, new name, new culture, new expectations, new roles [...] We’ll scaffold it all together. That’s an easy coaching metaphor to employ. Daisy fresh. Let’s be whatever we want to be…[Whether we’re] 0-5, 3-2, 2-3, 5-0 [through our first five games], it’s gonna have to be about establishing the next phase of the season no matter where we start [...] in terms of all these new people coming together and getting sculpted into whatever it’s gonna be sculpted into. But also having some of the results going our way at home [later in the season] after maybe some of them don’t early season will be the classic ‘it’s not how hard you hit, it’s how hard you get hit and keep coming back.’ Can we take some blows early, adjust, and come back at home once we get a little bit more of our crew back and [overcome] some injuries and put it all together midseason. Hopefully the focus will be off us at that point [...] And then we get to kinda come in under the radar a little bit.”