One of the most important things when creating a league is the division names. After years of having east and west in the PFFL and the original incarnation of the UFFA, a change was needed. Borrowing off of the M.F.L.'s theme of legends, the UFFA went ahead and chose to name them after the great coaches in NFL history. Tom Landry was a no-brainer and the Commish put his own team in that division as well as his brother's team. The Outlaws, Brian Rupnick's team,, was also placed in that division. The Slackers, which would later be the Stallions, and T.N.T. rounded out the division. This league consisted of owners that had come to the UFFA from the Commissioner's personal life: a relative, a roommate, an old high school buddy, and a co-worker.
That left him with the task of assigning teams to a second division. George "Papa Bear" Halas was a natural fit to be the other division name. Santana decided to put all of his acquaintances from Floyd's in the Halas division. This would create natural rivalries and, hopefully, add to the experience of being in the UFFA. Sam Grana was a Floyd's bartender and was one of the first Halas division owners to sign on. He let the Commish know that he had a friend who wanted in. That turned out to be Dan Wever and the Rynos. Al Smith and Noodles Scanlan were also patrons of Floyd's and that gave him four owners for the new Halas division. With a spot open, the Dirty Dozen were invited and that completed the formation of Floyd's Halas division.
In the first season, both races came down to the wire. The Outlaws were fighting off the Gorillaz and Charity's Chumps and eventually won the Landry division due to tie-breakers. With T.N.T. out of the race, the Gorillaz fought off the Slackers--who lived up to their name and were involved in an ownership scandal--and barely managed to win the third playoff spot. In the first round, however, they managed to dispatch the Chumps and advanced to the division final. The Warriors won ugly, but won nonetheless. They beat out the Rynos for the division championship and earned the all important first round bye week. The Tattoo Crew was held out of the playoffs and the Dirty Dozen ended the season with an unbelievable 12-game losing streak that had them playing spoiler by the 5th week. The upstart Roscoes beat the Rynos in the first round the division finals to set up another #1 vs. #3 division final. The Outlaws and Warriors held serve and represented their division in Magoo Bowl I. The Landry division won that season, but in 2002, the rest of the league would find out just how good the Halas divsion was going to be.
With two divisions set and a season in the books, the UFFA was well on its way. However, a funny thing happened during that first season. Eventually, the UFFA had a waiting list about 6 or 7 names long with people that wanted to join. This enabled the UFFA to undergo it's first expansion draft. With this draft came the creation of a third division: the Lombardi division. The worst teams of the two divisions in 2001 were placed in the new division along with two new owners. Jose Guzman--an old high school buddy--and Joe Semro/Steve Ustrak--a pair of bickering fantasy football enthusiasts that Santana had known from his school days--were chosen based on their enthusiasm as well as other factors. This was the Lombardi division and gave the UFFA three divisions of four teams apiece.
The second season saw a couple of teams runaway with their divisions. The Night Hawks rode a nine game season ending winning streak to run away with the Landry division by four games over the Stallions, who had experienced an ownership change in the middle of the season. The Fightin' Antz were a shell of the team that went to the playoffs in 2001 and ended up 3-10 while the defending champion Outlaws just missed the postseason.
The Rynos, meanwhile, battled it out with the Warriors and Tattoo Crew until the last couple of weeks and eventually prevailed. They had quite a season as three Halas division teams made it to the postseason with the Roscoes missing by just one game.
But in the newly formed Lombardi division, the Jorsemen won in their first season by just a game. They used a season ending 6-game losing streak by T.N.T. to overtake them and were the only playoff team from their division. The Dirty Dozen and Wolfpack, meanwhile, fell out of contention early.
In the postseason, the Jorsemen continued their amazing run as the expansion team took out the Stallions and advanced past the first round. This was while the Tattoo Crew beat the Warriors and knocked them out to insure that there would be two new participants in Magoo Bowl II. The Jorsemen's luck ran out as the dominant Rynos shook them off while the Night Hawks, owners of the league's best record, were bounced by the Tattoo Crew and then lost the consolation game to the Jorsemen. This set up an all-Halas Magoo Bowl which was won by the Rynos.
That is the history of the divisions thus far and I look forward to seeing what history we can write this season.