2009 UFL season in review: Las Vegas Locos
The Las Vegas Locos won the first ever UFL championship on the strength of a 4-2 regular season record, a great three point victory in the UFL championship game. It is kind of ironic that the Locos are owned by William Hambrecht, who happens to be the found of this upstart UFL league. For their wonderful inaugural season they were awarded the William Hambrecht trophy. Even though they won the first championship, they are as of right now the second best team in this league.
That is not to say they are not a great football team, because they are. They gained 2,149 yards, and only turned the ball over five times by far the lowest in the league. On the field they were led by QB Jake Losman who went 123 for 198 for 1,386 yards and nine TD’s. All of that while throwing just 2 INT’s. On the ground Losman was backed up my RB Marcel Shipp, who ran the ball 81 times for 289 yards and three TD’s. However this team’s strength lies in the fact that six different receivers had double digit receptions, and eight different receivers caught TD passes from Losman.
The Locos defense was led by Teddy Lehman and Wale Dada, and as a unit they were able to force their opponents to cough up the ball 17 different times. Lehman had 44 tackles and a sack, while Dada had 37.5 tackles and two INT’s. All together this defense had 350 tackles, 12 sacks, 8 picks and 11 forced fumbles recovering 7 of them.
A better story than all of that is Locos Kicker Graham Gano. Gano is the man that scored the first ever points in the UFL, and with a field goal to beat the undefeated Florida Tuskers on overtime of the Championship game, Gano scored the final points of the inaugural UFL season.
