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 Team History |
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About the Springfield Rifles
Founded in 1999 by Head Coach Ed Miller with Owners Andy Compton and Steve Pearson, the Rifles are a minor-league football team that played its inaugural season as an affiliate member of the South Central Football League (SCFL), a 10-member league with teams in the Midwest. We finished that first season with an 11-1 record, going undefeated in the regular-season (10-0) and reaching the Semifinals of the USFA Midwest Tournament before bowing out.
In May, 2000, the SCFL merged into the North American Football League (NAFL), with over 50 member teams located throughout the U.S. and Hawaii. The Rifles competed in the Western Division of the Northwest Conference. The NAFL has a league playoff system, which ended with the League Championship Game in Austin, TX. We put together another undefeated regular season (11-0), ending up 14-1 and advancing to the League Semifinals before losing.
In 2001 the Rifles competed in the Great Plains Division of the Northwest Conference. The NAFL had grown to 80 teams, and the League Championship was held again in Austin, TX, after being put up for bid between the two teams in the finals. We scheduled ourselves the toughest competition we could find in order to be better prepared for the playoffs, and ended up with the toughest schedule in the country -- our opponents had a combined winning percentage over .665! We did suffer our first two regular-season losses as a result (8-2), yet still went on the road to win our second successive NAFL Northwest Conference Championship before losing again in the League Semifinals to end up 10-3.
In 2002, the NAFL grew to 111 teams, and we were shifted to the Midwest Division of the Northwest Conference. We added additional coaches and increased our talent depth for another attempt to win an NAFL National Championship, and finished the regular season at 11-1. The growth of the League westward eventually required the longest 'road trip' in our history, to Salt Lake City, where we won our third straight Northwestern Conference Championship and the right to play in a league-record third straight semifinal game. Unfortunately, we came up short in that home game in front of a record crowd of 1500 rabid Rifles fans, finishing our year at 14-2.
In 2003, the League realigned from four to eight regions, moving us into the South Central Division of the Southwest Region. We achieved a 10-2 regular-season record, but missed winning the Division title on a tiebreaker. We did win a wildcard, and proceeded to beat an undefeated opponent for the Southwest Region title, our record fourth consecutive regional crown and trip to the NAFL semifinals. That game broke our one-year-old record for longest 'road trip', requiring a 3000-mile flight to Seattle, where we were defeated and ended our season at 14-3.
The Springfield Rifles' overall record for five seasons is 63-10 (.863 win %), against quality opponents -- a 517-350 record (.596 win %).
The goals of our organization are:
To provide an opportunity for post-college athletes to continue playing the game that they love;
To provide a vehicle for exceptional athletes to advance to professional levels of football;
To provide action-packed, family entertainment for the Springfield area; and
To work with various local agencies to benefit the youth of the area.
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