Stallions quarterback Tracy Ham responded by throwing 213 yards with a touchdown of his own, while Huerta kicked two more field goals to round out Baltimore's scoring as they dominated the Stampeders for a 37-20 victory to become the first American team to win the Grey Cup. Popp said outsiders started to take notice of the city's passion for football. This Musician-Approved Brand's True Wireless Earbuds Are Finally Under $100, George Segal, ‘The Goldbergs’ Star, Dead at 87, Robert Fripp and Toyah Willcox on Their Viral Quarantine Videos: ‘We’re in This With You’, How the Dream of a Porn-Content House Fell Apart, See Post Malone Cover Sturgill Simpson’s ‘You Can Have the Crown’ at Texas Benefit, Ring Doorbell, Fire TV Stick and Echo Speakers Sale — These 3 Deals Are Worth Caring About, Super Bowl 50: The Big Game Becomes a Big Pain. As they kept winning, the fans kept showing up. Flutie won the Most Outstanding Player Award that year, but Pringle had become a bona fide star. Reading Time: 7 minutes. And with the Ravens (née Browns) headed east for the 1996 NFL season and beyond, the only question was what would ultimately happen to the Stallions. The Stallions also got an 82-yard punt return for a touchdown by Chris Wright and a 4-yard scoring run by Alvin Walton off O.J. The 1995 Stallions remain, to this day, the first team in CFL history to win 18 games. The CFL’s American expansion ended after the ’95 season. However, as discussed below, celebrations for the franchise was short-lived after their Grey Cup triumph. Chris Armstrong became the team's top receiver and the defense continued dominating opponents by allowing only 369 points-against, ranking the squad third in team defense. directors show up to work the event, which means Cosentino was among some 55,000 fellow Canadians, holding his breath that B.C. With longtime Cleveland Browns owner Art Modell moving his franchise to Baltimore, fan support the Stallions evaporated. For the 1995 season, they were officially known as the Baltimore Stallions. After the 1995 season, the CFL decided to disband all American franchises with the exception of the Stallions and Texans. Perhaps if the team had survived to establish a more well-known identity, it wouldn’t seem so out of place, but knowing that the CFL is likely never to expand into the U.S. again means it now lives in its own singular bubble for all time. As the media relations director for the Sacramento/San Antonio franchise, Tim McDowd lived this crash course in CFL football, as did many of his stateside colleagues. So when the free agency came around, the Stallions did pretty much nothing except add Las Vegas Posse kicker Carlos Huerta. You get three downs to gain ten yards (not four). These factors made it the most successful American team in the CFL, especially when they became the 1995 Grey Cup champions. I did not expect the league to contract so quickly. The team became the first (and to date, only) American-based football team to win the Grey Cup. American Football Database is a FANDOM Lifestyle Community. “It’s still football at the end of the day, and I think that that’s what we learned: focus on the football, focus on trying to get the community to know the players, let the players become the face of the franchise,” he says. As a nameless team adorned with a horsehead on its helmet – the NFL sued to keep them from dubbing themselves the “Colts” – the Baltimore team made it all the way to the 1994 Grey Cup and lost to the B.C. Pringle and many teammates made the move to Quebec. The Alouettes have since become one of the league's most successful franchises, winning the Grey Cup in 2002, 2009 and 2010. There are 12 players aside (not 11). Owner Jim Speros' approach was simple: he knew that Canadian football was different from the American game, and therefore made a point of hiring personnel and players with CFL experience. They left the Lions’ home stadium in Vancouver disappointed but determined to return. Yes Baltimore was back in the NFL, but it was a death sentence for the Stallions. Baltimore had been without a … Despite the Stallions success, attendance dropped. © Copyright 2021 Rolling Stone, LLC, a subsidiary of Penske Business Media, LLC. Football, NFL, sports. On the back of that program is a motion-blurred shot of Mike Pringle, perhaps the greatest running back in the history of the CFL. He dove over for Baltimore's lone touchdown of the half. Under the guidance of CFL Commissioner Larry Smith – himself a former CFL player for nine seasons in Montreal – Canadian football officially entered the American market in 1993 with the Sacramento Gold Miners, excavated from the remains of the Sacramento Surge of the defunct World League of American Football. There’s this perception that it’s all just NCAA cast-offs and players who maybe can’t cut it in the NFL. Huerta was a native of South Florida, was an All-American at Miami and won a national championship with the Hurricanes in 1991. Baltimore led the CFL in attendance in 1994, averaging 37,000 fans per game, roughly 7,500 more than the next team, Edmonton. We had so much talent on that team. In addition to being the most successful of the U.S. CFL teams on the field, Baltimore was far and away the most successful of the CFL's American teams at the box office. The Stallions led the CFL in attendance in their first season by an average of more than 7,000 fans. A notable performance in the 1995 Grey Cup would all but assure that gamble paid off. But in 1995, Smith orchestrated a radical expansion project that essentially split the CFL conferences into direct, opposing entities: the North Division with eight Canadian teams and the South Division with five American teams. Cornerback Karl Anthony became the first player on the losing team to be awarded the Grey Cup's Most Valuable Player. Brigance's blocked punt. That team was the Baltimore Stallions, a franchise in only its second year of existence. So when the free agency came around, the Stallions did pretty much nothing except add Las Vegas Posse kicker Carlos Huerta. A few months later, the CFL quashed the entire American expansion effort, folding the teams in Birmingham, Shreveport, Memphis and San Antonio, and moving the Baltimore franchise to Montreal. “Oh, man, it was bittersweet,” Pringle said. Just as the Stallions had returned football to Baltimore after a 10-year wait, they would now bring football back to Montreal nine years after the Alouettes folded before the 1987 season. (The Stampeders date back to 1935, older than all but eight NFL teams.) Finally, on November 6, 1995, two days after the Stallions defeated the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, 36-21, in the first round of the CFL playoffs, the news was made official. Popp and Matthews, in turn, brought in experienced players like QB Tracy Ham, RB Mike Pringle, LB O. J. Brigance, DT Jerald Bayliss, DE Elfrid Payton and former National Football League veteran K Donald Ig… They won 15 games and the roster was stocked with talent on both sides of the ball. And even though it resulted in the successful return of football to Montreal – a public relations coup for the league that probably can’t be overstated – and the eventual retraction of the CFL to a purely Canadian endeavor, the idea of an American team in possession of the Grey Cup is still a lamentable fact of history for some. After the game, Tracy Ham became the Grey Cup's Most Valuable Player. And Baltimore rewarded its fans with a surprise run to the Grey Cup, and that was a wakeup call to Canadian fans. On the sidelines during that game was Carlos Huerta, who had been named the CFL’s West Division Rookie of the Year as a kicker for the Las Vegas Posse. The club’s Grey Cup celebration almost went unnoticed by local media. Even though they lacked an official name, the Baltimore franchise finished second in the CFL East Division with a 12-6 regular season record, which became a CFL record for the most wins by an expansion team; this record still stands today. “They deserved to win, but yeah, if you’re just talking about that question: How do you feel as a Canadian with the Grey Cup sitting in Baltimore? History of the Baltimore Stallions, The most successful American CFL team. The Baltimore Stallions existed officially for 2 brief years in the CFL, playing just two seasons, 1994 & 1995.. Now they are being talked about once again. And now, a controversial season had come down to one night in Regina. 1985 Baltimore Stars Results. With Pringle at running back, fellow future CFL Hall of Famer Tracy Ham at quarterback, and an offensive line that dominated at will, the offense was quick and explosive when needed. Baltimore is still the top draw in the CFL, with an average attendance of 30,183. In an effort to sell Canadian football to American fans, the CFL printed up thousands of promotional booklets in 1995 titled FIRST & TEN FROM THE FIFTY-FIVE: CANADIAN FOOTBALL EXPLAINED. His 57 field goals that season are still the second-most in CFL history, and in the semifinal game against the San Antonio Texans, Huerta nailed seven field goals in a 21-11 win. In the New York Times’ 1,200-word story about Modell the next day, the Stallions were not mentioned even once. The Baltimore Stallions was a Canadian football team based in Baltimore, Maryland, which played the 1994 and 1995 seasons. ), sometimes called the Baltimore CFLers. The only second-half scoring Calgary could muster was a 1-yard touchdown run from Flutie, and Baltimore won the Grey Cup in a laugher, 37-20. “We were going to stay on the field offensively as long as we could – and keep Doug on the sideline,” Pringle says. “I’m sure for some people it was enraging,” Cosentino says. All thanks to a new book, The Baltimore Stallions: The Brief, Brilliant History of the CFL Champion Franchise by Ron Snyder.. Baltimore had the upper hand against the Lions, leading 17-10 at halftime and silencing the Lions' faithful; however, the Lions came back in the second half, winning by a score of 26-23 on a last-second Lui Passaglia field goal. It doesn’t help that the pamphlet stresses words like “product” and “brand,” like the result of some overeager marketing executive, but the gist of the pocket guide is to convey the sense that not only are American and Canadian football not that dissimilar, but that it’s those differences that give the CFL a more exciting sport with higher scoring and unique rhythms – “a fast-paced, sizzling brand of football which is taking North America by storm,” as it reads. And among all the American CFL franchises, the Stallions were regarded internally as the only one pulling its weight at the turnstiles. In the playoffs, the Baltimore franchise hosted the Toronto Argonauts in the East semifinals at Memorial Stadium and won the game, 34-15. A Broncos-Cardinals Super Bowl Wouldn’t Be So Bad – Right? We closed down the whole country.”, A Grey Cup win for a Canadian franchise could bring out hundreds of thousands of fans for a downtown parade. One of the key strategies in the Lions' victory was limiting Pringle to just 71 rushing yards in the game. We’re creating our own niche. By the time Baltimore finished its regular season 15-3, the rumors that Art Modell was thinking of relocating the Cleveland Browns were full-blown. Baltimore had wanted to make him the highest-paid kicker in CFL history before the season, but Huerta chose to play out his option year in the hopes of a bigger eventual payday or even a legit shot at a starting NFL job. But the reality is that these rosters are consciously Canadian, stocked with players who were born in Canada and played their college ball there. To this day, the Stallions’ victory remains an odd footnote in CFL lore. The Colts plummeted to 1-11-0 and experienced a decrease in attendance for a 25,397 average. CFL game results on Aug. 12, 1995 for Memphis 25 @ Baltimore 15 including depth charts, stats, boxscore, attendance, weather and broadcast details. 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