July 16, 2026
By Charlie Hoppes
Advanced analytics are a very good thing (be sure to check out Shown Space and their ground-breaking work in ultimate!), and have pushed sports forward on the field. Unfortunately, however, more and more pro teams lean heavily into the “solved” versions of their sport. Threes and layups in basketball, walks and home runs–even at the expense of striking out far more–in baseball. In doing so, they give themselves a better chance to win, but at the cost of a unique identity.
In ultimate frisbee, we still have teams with drastically unique play styles and strong identities. Most years, the teams at Championship Weekend look so different from each other. Here are a few fun ones to soak up as a fan, as we head into the playoffs.
Boston Glory: Hero Ball
Let’s be clear: the Glory are a championship team full of excellent players. Thomas Edmonds is having one of the best seasons of his excellent career, Ryan Dinger has been a rock, and the defense has this quality of slowly taking the air out of opponents’ possessions. They win and lose as a team as much as anyone else.
But make no mistake, the reigning MVP has become the biggest centerpiece of any offense in the league. Tobe Decraene–who has matched or surpassed most of his counting stats from last year in three fewer games–has his fingerprints on everything. He leads the league in assists (59) by twelve, and still has time to be ninth in goals too (31). He is third in the league in completions (463), and first in huck receptions (24). Those things do not go together! In fact, you’d have to combine the twelve completion leaders other than Decraene before you pass him in huck receptions; of that group, only Will Hoffenkamp has as many as a third the number Decraene has put up. If you want to dig into advanced metrics, Decraene is in the 100th percentile in Receiver Adjusted Expected Contribution, and merely the 99th percentile in Thrower Adjusted Expected Contribution, and all the way down at the 96th percentile for Lag Contribution, the Shown Space stat that measures how well your throw sets up the new thrower to do something valuable with the disc.
This takes shape in many forms. Decraene starts most Boston offensive possessions at the front of the stack. If he wants to take off deep, he can do so from shallow. If he wants to get in the backfield, he can do so at a moment’s notice. And he is most lethal making horizontal cuts and beating his defender by enough that his mark is late to arrive and easily manipulated. In the red zone, Decraene gets the disc every other, and makes most of his dynamic throws. It’s also a double-edged sword–more than half of Decraene’s turnovers this season have been in the red zone (11/21). He’s third in the league in red zone turns, and the only other player in the top ten that plays for a team with a winning record is Sean Mott.
One thing is certain: if you turn on a Boston Glory game, you’ll see Decraene everywhere, every time he’s on the field. It’s how they want to play, and their 10-1 record says that the defending champs have something by continuing to feed the Hungriest Wolf.
Indianapolis Alleycats: Swing and Shoot
I know the new-look Cats wish their record was a bit better, and a young team experiencing growing pains is a classic narrative. But for a team that was dramatically rebuilt in the off-season by GM/Head Coach Nathan Bussberg, it sure found an identity fast.
The Alleycats huck far less than you think they do–they are sixth both in total huck attempts and in huck attempts by an O-line, and 11th in D-line huck attempts. But if you watch one of their games, you’d be forgiven if you thought the disc was going up every third pass. Elliot Hawkins (73 percent on 37 huck attempts) and Jake Felton (65 percent on a league-leading 46 huck attempts) are forcing defenses to consider any area of the field a viable option. Hawkins is second in the league in assists despite playing only seven games. He famously owns the season-high for assists in a single game with 15 against Chicago in his season debut. He’s also tied for second in assists in a single game with nine against Madison. Felton had a game where he put in eight assists himself–in the very same game against Madison where Hawkins had his nine. With a stable of excellent downfield options, including Seth Gudeman, Sofiène Bontemps, William Wettengel, and all-time scoring leader Cameron Brock (congrats on 1,000 career scores, Cam!), the duo still uses their legs plenty themselves–Felton has eight huck completions to Hawkins, and Hawkins has six huck completions to Felton. Bontemps has also proven to be an aggressive shooter as well, and has chipped in nine huck completions on 11 attempts across five games.
77 of the Alleycats’ 168 hucks have come immediately after a pass that traveled at least 10 yards horizontally. Quick horizontal movement followed by a vertical strike is a challenge for any defense to cover on the huge UFA field, especially considering just how much vertical space is in danger. Hawkins leads the league with 18 huck completions over 60 yards, with Felton in second with 16. Extend that to 70-plus yards, Hawkins leads with 12, Felton in second with 10. And if you push it to 80-plus yards, more than twice the distance of what the UFA statistics qualify as a huck, Hawkins leads with seven, with Felton tied with teammate Xavier Payne and a few others for second with two such long-range bombs.
Should a team rely on the huck this significantly in 2026? Probably not, no. But the sheer audacity of the shot selection has to give pause to opposing defenders and make them think hard about what areas of the field they must protect. The Cats have shot themselves out of games this season, and they may well do so again before the season is up. Again, this volume of chucking is unadvisable to build a sustainable offense around. But when one of the AlleyCats’ shooters gets going, they can play with anyone. If both of them get going, as they did in Madison a few weeks ago, they can beat anyone. The Indy playoff run could be one game, or four. However it shakes out, it’ll be an extremely fun watch.
Austin Sol: Field Flippers
The Sol are having a very Sol season in 2026. It’s got all the hallmarks we’ve come to love: a weak schedule that more or less ensures them a playoff spot in the crowded South Division before it starts, the voices of a million haters pointing out that fact, Kyle Henke and Evan Swiatek building excellent cases for All-UFA honors, opponents frustrated with the level of physicality of their defense. There have been the typical clutch moments, going a thrilling 4-0 in overtime and double overtime, a league record. And it has featured my personal favorite Sol thing: the desire to aggressively reverse the field.
It really is incredibly simple, and it’s nothing short of brilliant. The Austin Sol have long had athletes at nearly every position on both lines, paired with a lack of critical mass of players with the ability and/or desire to grind out long possessions. And on the UFA field, Austin has decided, quite correctly, that the best way to maximize their athletes is to get the disc across the field with an urgency and creativity and pace that isn’t seen anywhere else. The Sol are tied with the DC Breeze for first in the league with passes that travel 20 yards or more in horizontal space, with 108. If you bump that number up to 30 or more yards in horizontal space, the Sol stand alone by a wide margin, with 58 such completions dwarfing Pittsburgh (42) and New York (39) on the podium. It’s a statistic they have led every season since 2022, and it’s one of the major reasons they have competed with Atlanta and Carolina–perennial title contenders–year in and year out, including a legendary run through them both on the road to win the South and qualify for Championship Weekend in 2023.
It’s the way they go about it that’s unique, alongside the commitment to the tactic. Most players on the team have the green light to throw these passes. And these aren’t safe completions either. The Sol rip blades and hammers, or flat, hard throws, across the field. These throws contain higher risk, but Austin has determined that reversing the field is only the first step to getting those athletes in space. They need to reverse the field quickly, before the defense can orbit, recover, and reset. Henke in particular is a master at this, often gaining plenty of yards while also switching sidelines. It’s a big factor to his value in Shown Space’s advanced metrics, where he stands seventh in Total Adjusted Expected Contribution, and in the 98th percentile of Lag Contribution (again, a stat to measure how much value the throw after a player’s throw has). He is dominant all over the field, and is one of the best throwers and receivers for these sharp field-flipping throws.
Austin once again has some impressive wins, and seem as poised as ever to make a deep run. This tactic is one that will serve them well as they take Texas-sized swings at San Diego and Carolina, and if they return to Championship Weekend this August, you’ll see fearless blades cutting down defenses.
ABOUT CHARLIE HOPPES
Charlie Hoppes has coached ultimate for 20 years, including several stints in the UFA. He was co-head coach of the New York Empire–helping to lead them to undefeated championship seasons in 2022 and 2023–and is currently a coaching consultant for the Indianapolis Alleycats. Hoppes provides individualized coaching services to players, coaches, and teams at all levels through Charlie Hoppes Ultimate Coaching & Consulting (CHUCC). Learn more at charliehoppes.com
