The Nashville Knights were a

women's American football Women's gridiron football, more commonly known as women's tackle football, women's American football, women's Canadian football, or simply women's football, is a form of gridiron football (American or Canadian) played by women. Most leagues play ...

team of the

Legends Football League The Extreme Football League (X League) is an American women's semi-professional tackle football league. The league was originally founded in 2009 as the Lingerie Football League (LFL), and later rebranded as the Legends Football League in 2013. ...

(LFL) based in

Nashville, Tennessee Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the seat of Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the most populous city in the state, 21st most-populous city in the U.S., and ...

. The team played its home games at

Nashville Municipal Auditorium The Nashville Municipal Auditorium is an indoor sports and concert venue in Nashville, Tennessee. It opened October 7, 1962 with both an arena and exhibition hall. The former exhibition hall has been permanent home to the Musicians Hall of Fame ...

in downtown Nashville. The Knights were the LFL's 22nd, and final expansion team in the history of the LFL's U.S. league. The team was to become a franchise of the Extreme Football League (X League) in 2020, but missed several deadlines and the league suspended the Knights. The league replaced them with the Kansas City Force.

History

In 2010, the then-Lingerie Football League almost established a franchise for the Nashville area, but the plans were canceled due to a successful petition by locals to keep it out of the area. This was due to the controversy of the uniforms worn by LFL players when the league started. The league was renamed to reflect the fact that the uniforms became less revealing after the 2011–12 season. Seven years later, the now-Legends Football League made the announcement that they would expand to include a Nashville-based franchise to be named as the Nashville Knights in April 2018. Former

Seattle Mist The Seattle Mist was a team in the Legends Football League, formerly the Lingerie Football League, and were founded as part of the Lingerie Bowl's expansion into a full-fledged league in 2009. They played their home games at the ShoWare Center i ...

tight end and middle linebacker Danika Brace was named the Knights' head coach. This makes Brace the first female coach in the history of the LFL, and the first female to coach any kind of professional sports team in the Nashville area, as well as the state of

Tennessee Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...

. Brace also served as the

general manager A general manager (GM) is an executive who has overall responsibility for managing both the revenue and cost elements of a company's income statement, known as profit & loss (P&L) responsibility. A general manager usually oversees most or all of ...

. The Knights replaced the Pittsburgh Rebellion as the fourth Eastern Conference team because the Rebellion began searching for a new home venue. In December 2019, the LFL was rebranded as the Extreme Football League (X League). The Knights were the only LFL team to not change names in the transition to the X League and were scheduled for games against the Omaha Red Devils,

Chicago Blitz The Chicago Blitz was a professional American football team that played in the United States Football League in the mid-1980s. They played at Soldier Field in Chicago, Illinois. Team history The Blitz were one of the twelve charter franchis ...

Los Angeles Black Storm The Los Angeles Black Storm are a women's American football team in the Extreme Football League ( X League) based in Irvine, California, in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. History The Extreme Football League ( X League) was announced in Decem ...

, and the

Seattle Thunder The Seattle Thunder are a women's American football team in the Extreme Football League ( X League) based in Kent, Washington, in the Seattle metropolitan area. History The Extreme Football League ( X League) was announced in December 2019, as ...

. However, on January 7, 2020, the league announced that the Knights had missed several procedural deadlines for participating in the 2020 season and was replaced by a new franchise, the Kansas City Force.

Seasons

2018 season

Open tryouts were held at D1 Sports in Franklin on December 9, 2017. The Knights' recruitment proceedings resulted in a rule change concerning free agency. The team recruited seven of the starters from defending champion Seattle Mist, where head coach Danika Brace also played in the previous season, essentially transplanting the Mist's lineup to a new team nearly intact. This move prompted the league to institute a rule only allowing five free agents per team. As a result of this rule change, the Knights franchise was forced to turn away two of their free agency recruits who returned to Seattle. Further controversy ensued when the Mist's former coach Chris Michaelson, who had retired in the off-season, reappeared as the offensive coordinator of the Knights. The Knights went undefeated in the franchise's inaugural regular season with wins against Austin, defending Legends Cup champion Seattle, Denver, and Omaha. The road game against Seattle, however, was dubbed by Seattle Mist fans as the "Traitor Bowl" due to several former Seattle players now playing for the new Nashville team, including the likes of Stevi Schnoor, Dominiqué Malloy,

Jade Randle Jade is a mineral used as jewellery or for ornaments. It is typically green, although may be yellow or white. Jade can refer to either of two different silicate minerals: nephrite (a silicate of calcium and magnesium in the amphibole group o ...

, and K.K. Matheny. The team's inaugural season was a high-performing season for the Knights as the offense scored a league-high of 268 points over the four-game regular season, while the defense allowed the second-lowest number of points by opponents. As the top seed in the Eastern Conference Championship game, the Knights had their first loss when they fell to the

Chicago Bliss The Chicago Bliss is a women's American football team based in the Chicago area. The Bliss is one for the first four teams to participate in the Lingerie Bowl and was carried over to the formation of the Lingerie Football League (LFL) in 2009. ...

, who would eventually win the Legends Cup two weeks later.

Schedule

2019 season

Open tryouts were held at Boost Fit Club in Nashville on December 8, 2018 in preparation for the 2019 season. The Knights 2019 schedule basically mirrors that of last year, except in reverse, but instead of Seattle, the schedule includes a rematch of the 2018 Eastern Conference Championship game against the

. Yuri Howard was named new head coach for this season, with Danika Brace now serving as assistant coach and defensive coordinator.

Schedule

References

External links

Official website
(Archived June 18, 2019 at the

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

) {{Legends Football League American football teams in Nashville, Tennessee Legends Football League US teams American football teams established in 2017 American football teams disestablished in 2020 2017 establishments in Tennessee 2020 disestablishments in Tennessee Women's sports in Tennessee