The 2002 AF2 season was the third season of the

AF2 The AF2 (often styled as af2, and short for arenafootball2) was the Arena Football League's developmental league; it was founded in 1999 and played its first season in 2000. Like its parent AFL, the AF2 played using the same arena football ru ...

. It was preceded by

2001 The September 11 attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda, which killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror, were a defining event of 2001. The United States led a multi-national coalition in an invasion of Afghanistan ...

and succeeded by

2003 File:2003 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The crew of STS-107 perished when the Space Shuttle Columbia Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, disintegrated during reentry into Atmosphere of Earth, Earth's atmosphere; SARS became an 2002– ...

. The league champions were the

Peoria Pirates The Peoria Pirates were a professional arena football team that last played in AF2, the minor league to the Arena Football League (AFL). They played their home games at Carver Arena, part of the Peoria Civic Center in Illinois, and were coached ...

, who defeated the

Florida Firecats The Florida Firecats were a professional arena football team based in Estero, Florida. They played in the AF2, the Arena Football League's developmental league, from 2001 to 2009. They did not join the AFL following the leagues' reorganization ...

in ArenaCup III. This is also the first time that both conferences have the same division name (in that case, the American Conference Southern Division and the National Conference Southern Division, respectively). It is also the only season where both conferences have four divisions each, a la the 2002–present era of the

NFL The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the maj ...

League info

Standings

* ''Green indicates clinched playoff berth'' * ''Purple indicates division champion'' * ''Grey indicates best regular season record'' * The Steamwheelers were banned from the playoffs for rule violations.

Playoffs

Awards and honors

Regular season awards

ArenaCup III

ArenaCup III was the 2002 edition of the

's championship game, in which the National Conference Champions

were defeated by the American Conference Champions

Peoria, Illinois Peoria ( ) is the county seat of Peoria County, Illinois, United States, and the largest city on the Illinois River. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 113,150. It is the principal city of the Peoria Metropolitan Area in Centr ...

by a score of 65 to 47.

External links

2002 af2 season

Arena Cup III stats
{{ArenaCup Af2 seasons *