March 24, 2026
By Evan Lepler
In the midst of March Madness, summer-like temperatures, and preseason optimism, we’re exactly one month away from UFA opening day.
On Friday, April 24, the 121-game regular season begins with a pair of South Division showdowns: Atlanta and Houston open the 2026 campaign in Texas, while Carolina visits San Diego in the season premiere of Friday Night Frisbee. It’s the start of a six-game opening weekend and a 13-week journey toward the playoffs and, ultimately, Championship Weekend in Madison.
This will be the 14th season for the Ultimate Frisbee Association—which began as the American Ultimate Disc League back in 2012—and I truly believe there are more compelling storylines and possibilities than ever before. From superstars switching teams to franchises chasing dynasties—and others simply seeking respect—there’s no shortage of intrigue as the new season approaches.
So today, with exactly one month to go, I’m diving—briefly, by Tuesday Toss standards—into five of the most interesting angles I’m contemplating as opening day approaches.
Daan De Marrée Takes His Talents to New York
Plenty of good players changed teams this offseason, but Daan De Marrée joining the (evil) Empire is, in my mind, absolutely the story of the winter.
Many teams vied for Daan’s services, but the 24-year-old Belgian decided that the Big Apple was the best spot for him—and it’s a massive coup for the Empire.
For New York, the fit is obvious.
The Empire’s core remains elite, but aside from John Randolph, it’s aging. Ben Jagt is 33. Jack Williams is 31. Marques Brownlee and Antoine Davis are both 32. Still excellent, still capable of dominating stretches of games, but no longer in the heart of their primes.
That’s where De Marrée changes everything.
New York can still rely on Jack in big moments, trust Jagt to win aerial battles deep, and lean on Marques and Antoine to anchor the defense. But the natural evolution of great teams requires transition, and De Marrée eases that shift immediately. He doesn’t replace the Empire’s legends—he extends their window.
And just as importantly, he can help define what comes next.
Players like Axel Agami Contreras, Matt LaBar, Sam Jonas, and Jacob Cowan—all 25 or younger—now get to develop alongside someone who could soon be the standard for their generation. Whether they become elite role players or something more, De Marrée’s presence raises the ceiling for everyone around him. It’s entirely plausible that these guys could become the foundation for the Empire’s next dynasty.
Remember, not that long ago, New York was untouchable. From 2019 to 2023, the Empire had as many titles as losses, going 57-3 and winning three championships in four seasons. Since the start of 2024, they’re 15-11, winless in the playoffs, and no longer the league’s measuring stick.
They had already enjoyed a strong offseason—adding Alex Atkins from Colorado, Braden Eberhard from Salt Lake, Elliott Moore from Austin, and the promising international pickup Nicholas Whitlock from New Zealand—but De Marree is unquestionably the signing that transforms good into terrifying.
He has the potential to be an all-time great. And for 2026, he’s wearing New York pinstripes.
The season is still a month away, but it already feels like the Empire are in first place at 1-0.
The UFA’s New Top Rivalry
For over a decade, New York vs. DC has been the league’s defining rivalry. And from a team perspective, that still holds.
But individually, there’s a beckoning Belgian battle that could captivate the frisbee universe for the next decade.
Daan De Marrée vs. Tobe Decraene.
Two young Belgians. The last two Rookies of the Year. The top two MVP finishers from last season. Both openly chasing the title of best player in the world.
Add in the natural Boston-New York spice, and we’ve got the perfect storm of frisbee drama.
They’ll meet for the first time in the UFA on June 5 in Boston, a game that’ll be featured on Friday Night Frisbee. One week later, there will be a rematch in New York.
(Where’ll FNF be that June 12 evening, you ask: Minnesota at Oakland, just another interdivisional tussle between title contenders…how’s that for an unreal, can’t miss Friday frisbee doubleheader! Mark your calendars immediately, folks!)
Ok, back to the column.
For years, De Marrée and Decraene have been intertwined—pushing each other, developing in parallel, carrying Belgium ultimate into the global frisbee spotlight. There’s always been a strong rivalry there, but also plenty of mutual respect.
Now, with De Marrée in New York, the dynamic shifts.
It’s almost absurd that two young Belgians could become the UFA’s version of Larry Bird and Magic Johnson. But that’s the reality of this astonishing moment in time.
Whether they match up directly or simply trade haymakers on opposing O-lines, seeing Decraene and De Marrée sharing the stage and competing for supremacy as part of this iconic regional rivalry is a gift from the frisbee gods.
Who could’ve ever imagined that Jeff Babbitt—after stunningly leaving the Empire to join the Glory—would no longer be the epicenter of the Boston-New York rivalry? I didn’t think it would be possible to conjure a storyline juicier than Babbitt’s buzzer-beating playoff heroics eliminating his former team, but here we are.
The present sure feels like a present, and I’m going to cherish it for every single second.
New Coaches Making Plans
It’s been almost 40 years since philosopher/boxer Mike Tyson cleverly mused, “Everyone has a plan ‘till they get punched in the mouth.”
It’s a great line, and still feels poignant for anyone who’s focused on preparing for an upcoming challenge. No matter how much work you put in or how ready you might feel, adversity is inevitable, and adapting to the struggle in the heat of the moment is an entirely different beast.
Ten of the league’s 22 franchises have new head coaches in 2026, the largest single-season leadership turnover in recent memory. And I can’t help but wonder how these new coaches will fare.
I’m excited to see the creative innovations that may emerge, and I’m also bracing for the growing pains we’ll assuredly witness in the realm of game management. Timeouts, end of quarters, coffin corner pulls, and strategic double-teams are all specific UFA staples that can flummox the unprepared. And even when you are prepared, costly mistakes can still happen.
As the level of play keeps rising, the margin for error keeps shrinking, creating a reality where these special team situations can frequently determine who gets the W on a particular day.
“UFA is interesting because you don’t actually have to get more breaks than the other team,” said new DC Head Coach Xavier Maxstadt. “As long as you’re the team that scores at the end of each quarter, you’re gonna have a pretty massive advantage.”
Maxstadt is one of several coaches that’s taking over for a team with genuine Championship Weekend ambitions. No team in the UFA has made the playoffs for more seasons in a row than the Breeze, and Maxstadt acknowledged the pressure to maintain the team’s high standards.
Meanwhile, out in Oakland, 28-year-old Liam Kreiss is the new sideline leader of the Spiders, an organization that was devastatingly close to making the semifinals last year. With a three-goal lead heading into the fourth quarter in the West title game against Salt Lake, the Spiders were clearly outplayed late, perpetuating an all-too-common situational shortcoming that plagued the team throughout the 2025 season.
It’s something that Kreiss (which is pronounced Krice, rhymes with “rice”) is very much focused on improving in 2026.
“I wasn’t a part of the Salt Lake loss,” said Kreiss. “I just watched on WatchUFA.tv, but I still felt that pain and the frustration and the disappointment and the nagging feeling that this is inevitable; this team just finds a way to beat us. It also happened in the regular season…There is a mental shift or understanding that needs to happen. We’ve shown that for three and a half quarters, we can end up with a higher score. But we can’t just rely on being a better team on paper. It doesn’t matter what your team is on paper. What matters is that you don’t make mistakes when the game is on the line, that you do all the little fundamentals.”
Perhaps no team underwent a roster overhaul quite like the Indianapolis AlleyCats, with new Head Coach/General Manager Nathan Bussberg bringing in more than a dozen high-profile additions from other teams around the league. His first goal was to add talent, but he also understands that having more good players, while helpful, does not guarantee that wins will follow.
“No one on our team’s won a UFA championship,” said Bussberg. “We’re a team full of people that are hungry…We’ve accrued talent, but talent doesn’t mean shit unless you win. We have a lot of things to work on before I can chalk up a win [in our season opener] against a Madison team that’s historically been one of the most well-run and systematic teams in the league.”
Time will tell which new coaches find the right buttons to push, but the 2026 season will definitely be shaped, in part, by how quickly all these new leaders acclimate to the specific styles of the UFA.
Early Season Showdowns
As previously mentioned, the opening Friday night of the season features Carolina and San Diego, two teams that finished last year with the same 7-5 regular season record. Why did the Growlers make the playoffs while the Flyers were left out? Because San Diego narrowly edged Carolina by one in double overtime in their lone 2025 matchup. This year’s lid-lifter could be equally consequential.
But beyond the start of Friday Night Frisbee, the opening weeks of the season deliver a slew of dynamic duels. On the first Saturday, DC and Boston collide in a rematch of last year’s East Division title game. While the Glory are the reigning champs and should be quite strong again, there’s also some uncertainty about the early-season status of several of the team’s standout players, due to various injuries and life circumstances. Frankly, I expect a much closer contest than Boston’s 17-9 rout—which wasn’t even that close—in the East final.
On the same night—Saturday, April 25—the reigning South Division champion Atlanta Hustle head to Austin on the second night of a back-to-back. The Sol are one of those 10 teams under new leadership, with former assistants Joe Iannacone and Casey Hogg becoming Co-Head Coaches. With a fresh outlook and refurbished roster, Austin will be determined to make an early-season statement against the Hustle.
Remember, the lone regular season meeting between these two teams last year was marred by a torrential downpour, field flooding, and an 11 PM opening pull that only allowed the two teams to play two quarters of frisbee before calling the game at midnight. The Sol and Hustle are scheduled to play twice in 2026—the rematch in Atlanta is set for July 11.
In Week 2, Saturday’s WatchUFA.tv slate features a perfectly staggered pair of postseason rematches. At 7 PM ET, Chicago’s at Minnesota. Two hours later, Salt Lake visits Oakland (in the second game of the weekend for the Shred). It echoes last August’s Divisional Championship Saturday, when frisbee fans nationwide were left stunned and speechless by the unreal twists and turns in those two matchups. And now, by the end of the night on May 2, new narratives will form, and the 2026 Central and West races will take their own shape.
Furthermore, Week 3 offers Salt Lake at Colorado, Atlanta at San Diego, and DC at New York, all games between 2025 playoff teams that should be appointment-viewing. There’s also the intriguing opener for the aforementioned AlleyCats on Saturday, May 9, as they host Madison at 6 PM. Will Indy be a legitimate contender after an extravagant offseason, or will the ‘Cats get rolled by the Radicals in a way that’s reminiscent of recent memory? In the teams’ past four meetings, the aggregate score has been Madison 99, Indy 58, so the AlleyCats have quite a bit of ground to overcome.
Overall, the 2026 schedule brings the heat early, so teams better be ready.
Cellar Dwellers Determined to Defy Expectations
Every year, the preseason is filled with endless optimism. Even teams that have struggled in the past can embrace new hope and belief, along with a renewed and relentless work ethic toward trying to become 1-0.
But I am also here to pour some cold water on that hype. Whether it’s demoralizing or motivating, time will tell. To put it bluntly, I think each division has a team that appears destined for the basement.
In the South, the Vegas Bighorns are still searching for the franchise’s first victory. After going 0-12 in the team’s inaugural 2025 season, they failed to retain their few premier playmakers. They lost their top two goal scorers, their top two assist throwers, and their top four completion leaders from last year. New Coach Ryan Courtney has a brutally difficult job in front of him, though a single victory would definitely be viewed as a landmark moment. Maybe June 26 at home against Houston? If not then, the first triumph could remain elusive until 2027.
In the Central, the Pittsburgh Thunderbirds are the clear choice to finish at the bottom, though the T-Birds do have a bunch of players that I like. I expect them to be pesky, particularly at home, but it remains to be seen if the team’s continuity and consistency issues that plagued them in recent seasons have been resolved. And even if they have, Pittsburgh could still be considered an underdog in every single game on their daunting schedule. As a reminder, no team in the league has more interdivisional tests than the Thunderbirds, who will meet Montreal, New York, Philly, Carolina, and Toronto in the first couple months of the season.
Out West, Oregon looks like the team most lacking experience. The Steel have a few exceptionally talented young gunslingers like Ben Thoennes and Felix Moren, but compared to the established blue-chip stars on every other team—Quinn Finer in Colorado, Walker Frankenberg in Oakland, Jordan Kerr in Salt Lake, Garrett Martin in Seattle—Oregon is still looking to develop that level of firepower combined with winning frisbee.
And in the East… I’m sorry, Philly. Perhaps I’ll be burned for trusting Toronto, but I think the Phoenix are the team that looks destined for the cellar in 2026. Obviously, the East is a beast, and the Phoenix opened last season by winning in DC. But Sean Mott now plays for the Breeze, the Grossberg brothers are sitting out the season—at least at the start—and past playmakers like James Pollard and Nate Little are now with Indianapolis. That’s a lot of responsibility on the capable shoulders of Scott Heyman, who still could contend for All-UFA prominence if he’s able to maintain efficiency despite an astronomically-high usage rate. Heyman is that good, but I’m just not seeing it with the rest of the roster, and considering the additions and growth with both Montreal and Toronto, I think it could be a cooling season for the Hotbirds.
If any of these four franchises can prove me wrong, I’d be absolutely delighted. Any marquee wins for these four teams would be incredible stories to cover, and while I’m not anticipating another improbable 3-0 start for the Phoenix, I’d be genuinely thrilled to write that colorful column for the second season in a row.
Consider the bulletin board material provided, and good luck making some madness happen.
The 2026 season launches in 31 days, and I’m genuinely giddy about the return of frisbee.
