Every year deserving teams miss out on a spot at the Big Show. Who was snubbed in 2025 and is out for revenge in 2026?
September 25, 2026 by Aidan Thomas in Opinion
Ultiworld’s coverage of the 2026 club season is presented by Spin Ultimate; all opinions are those of the author(s). Find out how Spin can get you, and your team, looking your best this season.
The Line brings together lists of sevens from our reporting staff.
While the 2026 Club Championships is nearly assured to feature many familiar faces, particularly in the latter stages of bracket play, there are some new faces across all three divisions that could make some noise in San Diego. For this edition of the Line, let’s break down seven teams from the three divisions that weren’t at Nationals in 2025 but could challenge for a bracket victory in late October.
Seattle BFG
Let’s start with an obvious one in a team that stunningly failed to qualify for last year’s Club Nationals after their upset loss to Seattle Mixtape in the game-to-go of the one-bid Northwest. Entering the postseason ranked sixth per the USAU rankings, #7 Seattle BFG are once again a huge favorite in the region, which, mercifully for BFG, has two bids. Even with Mixtape lurking as a potential bid-stealer, BFG would have to be upset twice to be left out of the field.
A win over #4 Sacramento Tower is BFG’s crowning win of their 2026 campaign so far, highlighting a resume that features a litany of top-20 wins. BFG’s star-studded crew, led by Ian Sweeney, Cheryl Hsu, Conor Belfield and others, is more than capable of returning to their familiar spot in the semifinals, a round they reached in 2023 and 2024 before last season’s shocker at regionals.
San Francisco Polar Bears
#6 Polar Bears haven’t been to Nationals since they reached the quarterfinals in 2022, but San Francisco quickly established themselves as a contender in 2026, with a myriad of high-profile additions including Itay Chang, veteran Lexi Zalk, and longtime Revolver contributor Byron Liu. Those veterans joined alongside high-level college talent to form a core that has been formidable this season, posting a 14-4 regular season record. They boast a win over BFG, along with a win over #12 Fort Collins shame., three wins over in-city rival #13 San Francisco Mischief, and a pair of wins over #15 Los Angeles Lotus.
Can Polar Bears get back to the quarterfinals this season? Maybe even a semifinal for the first time since 2015?!
First thing’s first, the Polar Bears must lock in and defend their bid in a loaded Southwest regional tournament. But should they do that, look for this team to be making noise at Nationals.
Austin Doublewide
In the men’s division, #16 Austin Doublewide hung onto the final strength bid by the skin of their teeth. After losing out on a Nationals berth in 2025 on universe in a one-bid South Central, Doublewide are primed to return in 2026. They last won a bracket game at Nationals in 2022, but Doublewide have the talent to get back to quarterfinals this season. They displayed their ceiling early, toppling #7 Boston DiG at the early-season PEC East. It was DiG’s only loss at the tournament. Doublewide also pushed #10 Atlanta Chain Lightning to universe point at PEC East, did the same to #9 Raleigh Ring of Fire at Pro Championships, and hung with #6 Washington D.C. Truck Stop in the Pro Champs quarterfinals.
Austin has had some notable success this season as an ultimate city, reaching the UFA semifinals, and Sol / Doublewide stars like Mark Henke and Matthew Armour will try to lift Austin to an upset in San Diego to get back into the final eight at Nationals.
Vancouver Furious George
To do this, #15 Furious George must first outduel one of #3 Seattle Sockeye or #14 Eugene Dark Star at Northwest Regionals, as only two of the three teams can survive and make their way to Nationals. Furious George lost some high-level talent to #12 Toronto GOAT this season, but they bounced back to earn a bid. Powered by the exploits of Malik Auger-Semmar and Quinn Snider, along with the precise throws of Rex Yuen, Furious George still have starpower on this roster. But it’s a steep hill to climb: it was a full decade ago that Furious George last won a bracket game at Nationals. They’ve made the field four times since but never pushed past prequarters.
This season, Vancouver has thoroughly beaten the aforementioned Doublewide squad, 14-10 at Elite Select Challenge, and they impressively stuck with a nearly full strength Revolver squad at PEC West, losing that game just 13-10. If Furious George earn their way to San Diego, they’ll be battle tested from a grueling regionals, and they may just be prepared to earn the first bracket play win in ten years for the once-vaunted program that dominated the early-2000s.
Amherst Sprout
This is pretty much entirely a theory. There is no factual evidence to back up that #25 Amherst Sprout can stay on the field with a quarterfinals-level team at Nationals. In fact, it’s probably entirely wrong and you can save this screenshot and laugh at me later. But rules of the Line say I must have seven teams for this piece, and this is a fun dark horse to monitor.
Sprout have an influx of talent from 2026 college champions UMass Zoodisc, a team that battled health and availability issues throughout the regular season before absolutely throttling everyone in the postseason. Sprout, which lost some bad games early in the season, is 18-5 on the season after sweeping Sectionals, and in their past two tournaments, nobody has played them closer than three points. Sprout must first win a massively competitive competition for the third bid out of the Northeast, but if they do, they’ll be entering Nationals as hot as anyone with some top-25 wins under their belt, and a whole lot of (college) postseason winning experience on their roster.
Join the campaign for 2026 quarterfinalist Amherst Sprout. Or screenshot it and laugh at me later. Your choice.
Minneapolis Pop
The women’s division is probably lacking the most qualified contenders for an article like this, but #14 Minneapolis Pop made seven straight Nationals appearances before failing to crack the field last season. So they’ve definitely got experience in San Diego. However, it hasn’t been an incredibly successful stretch of appearances, as those seven showings netted zero bracket wins. In fact, in ten overall appearances at Nationals, Pop have yet to win a bracket game.
But this could be the year that all changes, as Pop will lean on the veteran experience of Stephanie Wood and Makella Daley, and they also brought back Madelyn Lander, a strong contributor on the 2024 Nationals squad that played in Baltimore in 2025.
This would take quite the upset, but Pop earned a late-season win over #11 Flipside, who ranks eighth in the official club rankings. That’s around the caliber of team that Pop would need to defeat to earn a bracket victory, so they’ll need to draw on that experience and confidence to repeat the feat in San Diego. This all assumes, of course, that Pop do indeed return to Nationals, which #23 Madison Heist may have something to say about at Regionals.
Philadelphia Flight
Let’s get spicy and throw another team on the list with zero bracket wins in their program history. And we’re taking the heat up a notch by making it a team that has never qualified for Nationals in their history. #9 Philadelphia Flight have lost the past two game-to-go clashes in the Mid-Atlantic, but as the second-highest ranked team in a three-bid region this time around, they seem ready to break the streak and book their trip to San Diego.
Getting there and winning a bracket game are two entirely different things (as Pop could well inform them). However, Flight have mixed in a couple strong results, including a double-game-point loss to #8 New York BENT, a 15-8 win over Pop, a 15-7 battering of #16 Chicago Nemesis, and a dominant 15-5 victory over #19 Oakland LOL. The big acquisition this year for Flight was undoubtedly Quincy Booth, the record holder for assists at College Nationals. Stunningly, given her young age, Booth did play at Club Nationals a whopping seven years ago for Atlanta Ozone as the youngest player at the complex. Hard to say that experience would be a factor, but it’s nice to know that one of their biggest stars has been on the stage before. Can Booth and Co. push Flight to heights never seen before?
