Coach Leach is one of the 7 founding coaches of the league. His career got off to a good start, going 6-8 and 8-6 in his first two seasons. 2011 would be some what of a third year leap for the coach, going 10-4 winning a regular season title, and appearing in the playoffs for the first time. They’d lose in the first round, but each year Forge Flyers had improved.
The next 2 seasons were ok. In 2012 they went 6-8, by no means a bad season, and in 2013 they went 8-6, again narrowly missing out on playoffs. But this is where the good seasons stopped, for a while. In 2014 Forge Flyers would post a 2-12 record, the tied worst in a season in LOC history. In 2015 it wouldn’t get much better. They went 3-11, a combined 5-23 over 2 seasons. 2016 was much improved (by comparison), going 6-8, more wins than they had combined over the previous 2 seasons. However this season was really a tale of what could have been.
2017 would make all that pain and angst well worth it though. It started off with a strong draft. Coach Leach was picking from the 4th spot. They selected LeSean McCoy in the first round, Todd Gurley in the second, and Leonard Fournette in the third. These 3 would form a strong foundation for the team all season long. They also added contributors in Larry Fitzgerald, Marcus Mariota and Ben Roethlisberger.
Week 1 got off with a bang. Facing Gridiron Gang, they won 105-79 on the backs of their 3 running backs. Through weeks 1-9, they would only lose 1 game, going 8-1. From weeks 10-12 they would have a bit of a blip, going 1-2, but would then precede to win out, going 11-3, good for a regular season title.
In the first round of the playoffs Forge Flyers faced Gridiron Gang. Coach Leach made some bold decisions, and some crucial additions. He was starting Blake Bortles, Marquise Goodwin, Rick Seals-Jones, and Kenyan Drake. 3 of those players would prove crucial in Forge Flyers first ever playoff victory, to the tune of 157-106. Bortles got 31, Goodwin 12.4, and Drake 17.3. Combined this with the 21.6 points from McCoy and a whopping 42 from Gurley, Forge Flyers was going to their first ever Corona Bowl.
When you get to the title game, it’s easy to shy away and play it safe. You want to win the game, but at the same time you don’t want to lose it. Perhaps those years of pain served Coach Leach well, as he was coaching like a coach that had nothing to lose. He doubled down with his starting of Blake Bortles and Kenyan Drake, as well as bringing Mike Wallace and Antonio Gates in. Once again, these paid off. Bortles got 26, Wallace 6, Drake 6 and Gates 14. McCoy chipped in another 15, Fitzgerald got 19 too. But once again, Gurley stepped up with another 40 points. Forge Flyers won their first title 136-77.
After all the agony of the years before, being a middling LOC team for so long, Coach Leach finally broke the barrier and won the title in impressive fashion, leaving 2 founding teams left without a title. In this magical year, Coach Leach lead his side to 11-3, a regular season championship, a Corona Bowl IX victory, and posted the highest scoring week of the season with 157. A large part of this success was due to the second round pick Todd Gurley, who had those 2 incredible playoff weeks, but was also the RB1 in scoring in 2017. A truly great season worthy of a hall of fame nomination.
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