AlleyCats finally look like offseason contenders after Week 11 surge

Indianapolis beat Madison and Chicago by multiple goals in Week 11, and the AlleyCats finally looked like the roster people expected when the offseason ended. The sharper road trip mattered because it came after a 1-4 start, two one-goal losses to Madison and a June résumé that had included only one win over last-place Chicago.

That opening stretch made the turnaround easy to dismiss as hype until the results changed. Indianapolis had been one of the offseason’s loudest stories after new head coach and general manager Nathan Bussberg attacked free agency, and the front office stacked the roster with more than a dozen notable additions, including Cameron Brock, Jon Mast, Xavier Payne, James Pollard, William Wettengel, Jeremiah Branson, Joe Cubitt, Jake Felton, Elliot Hawkins and Nate Little. The Week 11 burst against Madison was the best evidence yet that the talent was starting to fit together.

The clearest reason is the shape of the offense. Hawkins leads the AlleyCats in scores per game, assists per game and yards per game, while Sofiène Bontemps sits near the top of the goal chart and has graded as one of the roster’s top impact players. Hawkins had already flashed the ceiling earlier in the season, when his 2026 debut produced the largest EDGE score in five years and came close to a new league record. Bontemps, the Belgian player raised in Brussels, gives Indianapolis another downfield creator who can start possessions, finish them and force defenses to cover more of the field than they want to.

That role clarity showed up late in Madison, where Indianapolis closed with an 8-2 run after previously failing in similar spots against the same opponent. It also showed up in the numbers attached to the team’s road win, which marked Indianapolis’ first-ever road game with 30-plus points against anyone other than Detroit. For a franchise that entered the league in 2012, owns a 93-81 regular-season record, has Central Division titles from 2012 and 2019 and last reached the postseason in 2023 before falling to Minnesota 21-18 in the division championship, that kind of finish signals more than a hot week. It suggests the AlleyCats are turning offseason promise into a structure that can survive beyond a favorable stretch.