TUCSON — Max Meylor got his payback. And it came at the expense of his former team. Leading the Rattlers with big-play throws and great escapes, Meylor carried the Rattlers to a 62-51 victory over the Green Bay Blizzard on Sunday, Aug. 16, before a crowd of 4,900 at Tucson Arena for the Indoor Football League national championship. It was the Rattlers' third IFL title since entering the league in 2017 and their eighth as a franchise. The first five came in the Arena Football League. The Rattlers' past six titles have come under coach Kevin Guy. Last year, when Meylor was the league's MVP for Green Bay, he came up 1 yard short of a championship, stuffed just short of the goal line as time expired in a 64-61 loss to the Vegas Knight Hawks at the same arena.
This time, the Blizzard stopped Meylor only once — in the first series of the game. The Western Conference champion Rattlers (14-5) scored on every possession but one — a missed 45-yard field goal try as the first half expired — and the defense arrived in time to derail gritty quarterback Liam Thompson. "A lot of emotions," Meylor said. "I really felt for Green Bay. I knew it was going to come to this. But, you know what, I lost the IFL national championship last year. I didn't want to go through that feeling again."
The Rattlers fell into a 9-0 hole in the first five minutes of the game after the Blizzard (15-4), the No. 1 seed and Eastern Conference champion, started the game with a deuce -- driving the opening kickoff between the uprights for two points. The kickoff is a big weapon in the IFL. Two points are given to a team that kicks the ball through the uprights on kickoffs. But the Rattlers fought back and tied the score at 16, thanks to Matthew Cook's deuce after a Ron Brown Jr. 2-yard touchdown catch from Meylor. The teams traded touchdowns in the final minute of the half, but both failed to connect on long field-goal tries in the last four seconds. Andrew Mevis' 46-yard try with four seconds left hit off a speaker hanging from the Tucson Arena ceiling. That gave the Rattlers the ball at their 20 with a second to play. Cook then missed from 45 yards out and the teams were tied at halftime, 23-23.
The Rattlers' defense, ranked No. 1 in the league, made it hard for Thompson (four TD passes, one rushing score) to create any more magic after he scored on a 30-yard run, threw a 19-yard scoring pass and drove the Blizzard for a touchdown to cut it to 55-51 with 2:27 left. Meylor answered again. He scored on a 2-yard run for a 62-51 lead with a minute left. Thompson converted a fourth down with 39 seconds left. But, after finding a gaping hole to run up the middle, Thompson was stripped of the ball at the 1, and Don Willis recovered in the end zone to seal the title. Meylor passed for three touchdowns and ran for two. Four of the touchdowns he accounted for came in the second half. He ended up completing 12-of-18 passes for 103 yards, and he ran for 90 yards on 18 carries. Afterward, he was presented the game MVP award. "Max was kind of made out to be a bad guy coming here through free agency," Guy said. "I hated that for him. He played his ass off for three years for Green Bay. I was so glad and happy for him that it paid off coming to the Rattlers. He was the MVP today." This was Guy's 10th championship appearance, losing four of them in the Valley. Outside of the Valley, he is 6-0 in title games. But the Tucson Arena crowd was like a home game, with Rattler Nation showing up in force. "I knew we were locked in this morning when I came down for the team meal," Guy said. "Green Bay has won every award. That banquet last night, it was like the Green Bay Banquet. They were winning everything. All we won was the Sidewinders (for best cheer squad). I mean, our girls are great. "But we got the trophy we came down to win." Richard Obert has been covering high school sports since the 1980s for The Arizona Republic. Catch the best high school sports coverage in the state. Sign up for Azcentral Preps Now. And be sure to subscribe to our daily sports newsletters so you don't miss a thing. To suggest human-interest story ideas and other news, reach Obert at richard.obert@arizonarepublic.com or 602-316-8827. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter:@azc_obert This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Max Meylor leads Rattlers over Blizzard for IFL championsh