Are you Ready for Some Outlawz Football?

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Well, it is official. Castle Country has it’s first semi-professional football team.The Price Outlawz have been inducted into the Rocky Mountain Football League. Team owner Eric Hilliard said, “Acceptance into this league is huge for the residents of Carbon and Emery counties as well as our players. It gives us a league, competition for a championship, and an opportunity to create rivalries which are all the ingredients for much needed , exciting sports entertainment in our area.” On Jan. 10, team owner Hilliard and interim Head Coach JP Salisbury went to Pocatello, Idaho to bid for that acceptance into the Rocky Mountain Football League. After a detailed presentation about the Outlawz players, the community, accommodations for both travel and playing in Price and, or Emery County, the Outlawz were voted in with a 11-0 vote from the current teams in that league. “We were a little nervous about our bid initially, we were afraid that teams would be unwilling to travel the great distance to Price,” said Coach Salisbury. The RMFL covers a huge geographical area with teams ranging from Kalispell, Mont. all the way down to Price. This covers an amazing distance of 762 miles, the Outlawz will undertake this journey in their inaugural season when they travel to Kalispell, to play the Glacier Knights in April or May. The RMFL is set up with two conferences and two divisions within each of those conferences. The Rocky Mountain Conference is made up of the eight Idaho and Montana teams and the Utah Conference is the eight Utah Teams. It is set up as follows: ROCKY MOUNTAIN FOOTBALL CONFERENCE Northern Division Southern Division Glacier Knights, Pocatello Predators, Great Falls Gladiators, Boise Roughriders, Helena Titans, Idaho Falls Mustangs, Madison Lionz and Magic Valley Bulldawgs. UTAH FOOTBALL CONFERENCE Northern Divison Southern Divison Davis Vipers, Price Outlawz, Layton Longhorns, Salt Lake Nemesis, Layton Pitbulls, Utah Blitz, South Ogden Rhino-Raiders and Utah Wolverines.
The Outlawz will have four season home games and four away games plus three preseason games resulting in a minimum six home games. The Outlawz home field is currently College of Eastern Utah but they are on the agenda to meet with the Emery County School Board to try to arrange some games at Emery County High School. “We have teams of 50 or so plus coaches and fans coming into our community. They have to eat and sleep therefore putting money back into our economy. If they can see what a great place this is some of them will come back on vacations continuing to support our sponsors,” added Hilliard. The Outlawz would like to play some games in Emery County to support those sponsors and put back into the high school program as well as build an Emery County fan base. “There is a lot of fund raising and help that we can do for the high school,” added Salisbury.” It is our intent to put back into the community and the schools.”
The Rocky Mountain Football League is a well established league that was started in the spring of 1997 in Pocatello Idaho. When Jared Neumierer, current RMFL commissioner, was asked about the league he referred to the mission statement of the RMFL which states “The Rocky Mountain Football League (RMFL) is established to provide competitive, entertaining, recreational tackle football play for adult (18 and over) players at all levels of playing skills in the Rocky Mountain Region of the United States of America.
“The RMFL was developed with the philosophy that sportsmanship, camaraderie and simple opportunity to play football for average to star players are its underlying principles and objectives and all other league goals shall be subservient.” Neumierer was also asked if the Price team could be competitive in this league? ” Obviously it is challenging for expansion and new teams at any level of football. But they seem to have the right components, they are well organized, they practice hard and their win over an established team was a big plus for their program.” The Outlawz played their first game on Nov. 22, 2003 against the Layton Longhorns. The Outlawz won that game 27-6 in the snow with well below freezing temperatures. “We learned a lot from that one game both positively and negatively,” said Coach Salisbury. “First we learned that we have an awesome fan base. There were almost 300 people out there supporting us despite the cold.” He continued by saying, ” We also learned that we need to get deeper at a lot of positions.” The Outlawz rushed for over 300 yards and could not find their way into the endzone on the ground and only found it once in the air. Defense stole the show by recording three safeties and returned a punt for a touchdown. Coach Salisbury added that the makeup of this team is a real unique chemistry. “We have some tough, hard working coal miners, farmers, oil drillers, high school stars that just didn’t get recruited, college students, and even policemen.” Part of the Outlawz mission statements is to develop players that did not get college recruiting that have a continued interest in playing college football. They have some current stand outs that they are trying to develop and provide those opportunities for; Riley Worthen (Lehi), Jerome Bernard (Lehi), Spencer Mateaele (Roy), Tyson O’Neil (Carbon), Stephen Cruz (Carbon), Perry Laulu (Carbon), Kenny Timothy (Carbon), Chris Wharram (Carbon), and they want this list to grow.
The Outlawz are also trying to expand their coaching staff as well. The Outlawz have Offensive Coordinator Vinnie Rondinelli and Defensive Coordinator Buzz Rondinelli Sr. They are currently accepting resumes for position coaches and a head coach. Coach Salisbury said, ” We are trying to develop players to play in college and we are constantly looking for coaches who want to help our young guys achieve that goal.” Any coaches interested in helping the Outlawz should contact JP Salisbury at (435) 687-2570.
The history of the Outlawz is also an interesting story in itself. In September of 2003, there were talks of three teams getting together in Price. This was generated by the defensive coordinator Buzz Rondinelli Sr. The only team that obtained equipment and organization was the Outlawz. Their owner Eric Hilliard made all of this happen he worked out sponsorships and bought equipment to make sure that all players had what they needed. The other two teams folded and a portion of those players have ended up with the Outlawz. With no teams left to play with and a fully equipped team, the Outlawz started the process of joining the RMFL and the rest is history.
The Outlawz thank their sponsors for their support and if you know anyone else interested in sponsoring the team contact JP Salisbury at (435) 687-2570.