The Salt Lake Screaming Eagles were a professional indoor football team based in West Valley City, Utah, near

Salt Lake City Salt Lake City, often shortened to Salt Lake or SLC, is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Utah. It is the county seat of Salt Lake County, the most populous county in the state. The city is the core of the Salt Lake Ci ...

. The Screaming Eagles started as an expansion team in the

Indoor Football League The Indoor Football League (IFL) is a Professional gridiron football, professional indoor American football league in the United States. The league comprises 14 teams, divided equally between the Eastern Conference (EC) and Western Conference ...

(IFL) and began play in 2017 with home games at the

Maverik Center Maverik Center, originally known as the E Center, is a 12,600-seat multi-purpose indoor arena located in West Valley City, Utah, United States. Construction on the arena started in 1996 and was completed in time to hold its first event on Septe ...

. The team folded when ownership left the IFL to start their own league.

History

The team was announced in April 2016 by a group called Project FANchise with the intent on creating an entirely fan operated indoor football team. The project announced that fans would vote on every aspect of the team including the name of the team, signing players, and calling plays. On June 6, the name of the team was announced as the Screaming Eagles after the

101st Airborne Division The 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) ("Screaming Eagles") is a light infantry division (military), division of the United States Army that specializes in air assault military operation, operations. The 101st is designed to plan, coordinat ...

. The name was picked over the more controversial choices of " Teamy McTeamface," " Sandtroopers," and "Stormin'

Mormons Mormons are a Religious denomination, religious and ethnocultural group, cultural group related to Mormonism, the principal branch of the Latter Day Saint movement started by Joseph Smith in upstate New York during the 1820s. After Smith's d ...

." William McCarthy was voted in as the first head coach in franchise history. The team made their debut at home against the

Nebraska Danger The Nebraska Danger was a professional indoor American football, indoor football team based in Grand Island, Nebraska, and a member of the Indoor Football League (IFL). The team was founded in 2011 by Charlie Bosselman as an expansion member of ...

on February 16, 2017. They lost 78–47 in a game which featured the fans storming the field after the Eagles scored the first fan-called touchdown in franchise history. Also, the team introduced their part-owner,

Norm Macdonald Norman Gene MacdonaldThe capitalization of Norm Macdonald's surname has been inconsistently reported in publications such as ''TV Guide''. Books that discuss him, such as ''Shales'' (2003) and Crawford' (2000), as well as other sources such as ...

, who helped call part of the game streamed live on SI.com (

Sports Illustrated ''Sports Illustrated'' (''SI'') is an American sports magazine first published in August 1954. Founded by Stuart Scheftel, it was the first magazine with a circulation of over one million to win the National Magazine Award for General Excellen ...

) and

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

. The team won their first game the next week defeating the

Colorado Crush The Colorado Crush were an arena football team based in Denver, Colorado. They began play as a 2003 Arena Football League expansion team. The Crush played in the Central Division of the American Conference until the Arena Football League suspen ...

42–41 on February 26. On March 1, the team then fired head coach William McCarthy due to philosophical differences and then hired Matthew Sauk as its new head coach without using the fan vote system. However, the FANchise vote system made national news once again when their fans voted against signing former NFL player Greg Hardy on March 30, 2017. On April 20, 2017, ''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' (''WSJ''), also referred to simply as the ''Journal,'' is an American newspaper based in New York City. The newspaper provides extensive coverage of news, especially business and finance. It operates on a subscriptio ...

'' reported that Project FANchise was planning on launching a new league called the "Interactive Football League". Project FANchise CEO Sohrob Farudi confirmed that the Screaming Eagles would finish the 2017 Indoor Football League season and would be leaving the league afterwards. The league was later re-branded as the Electronic Football League (eFL) in October 2017 and then as the Fan Controlled Football League (FCFL) in November 2017. The new league planned to play all of its games in only one city with eight new teams and the Screaming Eagles did not appear to be one the team names considered. The new league eventually began play in February 2021 as

Fan Controlled Football Fan Controlled Football (FCF) is a dormant professional 7-on-7 Indoor American football, indoor football league that played two seasons in 2021 Fan Controlled Football season, 2021 and 2022 Fan Controlled Football season, 2022. The league operate ...

with four teams.

Statistics and records

Season-by-season results

Head coach records

Personnel

Final roster

All-League selections

* WR Devin Mahina * DB James Calhoun

Individual awards

Staff

2017 season

Schedule

Key:

Standings

References

External links

Official website
{{2017 IFL season 2016 establishments in Utah 2017 disestablishments in Utah American football teams established in 2016 American football teams disestablished in 2017