March 2024 - Page 2 of 6 - Adamsonmedia.com

Marable excited about UFL opener

In the pass-happy world of professional football, running backs can sometimes be afterthoughts. And in a 10-game season – which is the format of the United Football League – a ballcarrier has to display all-around talent quickly or he’ll be shown the door.

C.J. Marable knows all this.

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And he also knows that when his opportunity arises, he needs to make the most of it.

Last season he was quite the multi-threat for the Birmingham Stallions, racking up 525 rushing yards (4.4 yards per carry), 235 through the air and 319 on special teams.

His three rushing TDs and two more as a receiver were key to Birmingham’s USFL championship repeat, and now he’s ready to display his talents to the UFL.

He gets his first chance on Saturday when his former USFL team battles the Arlington Renegades, a charter member of the 2023 XFL, in a clash of league champions.

Kickoff is set for noon CDT with FOX providing TV coverage.

“It’s very exciting,” Marable said Wednesday during a practice break from Arlington, Texas. “Especially playing an XFL team, because I think a lot of people thought that the XFL was way better than the USFL. So, you know, we can’t wait to go out there and just to prove those people wrong, and let them know that, hey, we have an expectation and that expectation is to win every time we step out on that green grass, no matter who we play. We want to three-peat.”

Marable headlines a stable of running backs that includes Ricky Person Jr. and Larry Roundtree III.

Person had 83 yards and a TD for the Stallions last season while Roundtree played for the Los Angeles Chargers in 2021-22 and was on the Houston Texans practice squad a year ago.

“You know, when we came in (to the USFL) we didn’t know what to expect,” Marable said. “We didn’t know the playbook, so we were just out there learning. Now in year three, we have a couple of veterans on the team. A guy like myself, I know the playbook like the back of my hand so I can help out a new guy like Larry Roundtree.

“We meet in the hotel, we stay up all night, study the playbook and different things like that, and he knows he can come to me and ask questions and different things like that.”

Although there’s a mix of old and new faces on the team this year, Marable said Birmingham is determined to claim the first UFL title and the third in a row since forming in 2022.

“Camp is going great … very impressive, especially the (offensive line).I can feel the spirit and I feel like the line is really showing what they can do in how they’re performing. “They’re tremendous, and at the quarterback position, all our quarterbacks (J’Mar Smith, Matt Corral and Adrian Martinez) are ballers, and it’s very impressive to see. All of them go out and compete every day.”

After Saturday’s game against Arlington, Birmingham will head north to Detroit to play the Michigan Panthers on April 7.

The home opener is April 13 against the Memphis Showboats, and Marable said he “can’t wait” to play before a pro-Stallions crowd at Protective Stadium. “I miss Birmingham and being there where people recognize you when they see you in town and support you,” he said. “I just can’t wait to go out in Week Three and show everybody what we can do with this Birmingham-style offense.”

The gym rat

The sound of the basketball thundered throughout the gymnasium, with each bounce creating a reverberating thump. Joining in the hardwood concert were well-worn high-tops, adding their own rhythmic squeak as the player worked from left to right, then shifted from right to left, and finally raced from one baseline to the other.

Sometimes when he shot, the clank of the rim signaled a missed opportunity. Sometimes, but not often.

Usually when the ball was catapulted by his right hand, the only sound was a swish.

Harley Mayfair was born to play basketball. His father coached the local high school boys’ team – the Freetown Firebirds – and Harley started tagging along to practices and games from the time he could walk. He was the quintessential “gym rat.”

He loved the sounds in a gym … all of them. The furious grunting that could be heard during suicides, the sound of his dad shouting, “You never know what’s next, so always be ready” after every drill, and the roar of the crowd whenever the Firebirds hosted a game.

He often thought back to the first time fans cheered for him. It was during the opening game of his freshman season. With just a couple of minutes to go in a blowout win over Milton High, his dad decided to put him in to get some game experience.

He recalled how dry his mouth was as he took the court and how embarrassed he was when a small group of his friends starting chanting, “Harley! Harley!”

He thought he was going to throw up.

But when one of the seniors brought the ball up court and passed it to him, he calmly raced toward the top of the key, stopped, pulled the ball to his chest and launched a beautiful set shot that barely touched the net on its way through the hoop.

The crowd, as they say, went wild.

By the time he was a sophomore he had replaced the set shot with a dead-eye jumper, and finished the year as the region’s leading scorer.

The word “superstar” wasn’t a phrase used much during his prep years, but he most certainly was one. In fact, he was so good by the time he finished high school he had college scholarship offers from across the country.

He wanted to stay close to home so his mom and dad could watch from the stands, so he signed with Calico Polytechnic Institute. The CPI Bulldogs played in what looked like an old Army barracks – Calico Hall – and Harley loved the echoes inside the 5,000-seat arena.

He even enjoyed day games, where the sun would often shine in through the windows of the building and provide the north end of the court with something of a spotlight.

And that’s what he was waiting for today – one last day in the spotlight. One last day in his old stomping grounds.

Across the way, the sparkling new Harley Mayfair Memorial Arena was set to have its grand opening in just a few months, and Calico Hall would be razed and replaced with a parking lot.

It was progress, of course. And CPI – now known as Calico Tech – was due for a makeover.

Much had changed since Harley played in the 1950s, and even more since he died in 1997.

But there was one more chance to work from left to right, then shift from right to left, and race from one baseline to the other.

He might even have time to take a set shot before the hydraulic equipment was moved into place for the demolition.

Calico Hall had always seemed like home to him – especially in the afterlife.

After today, though, he’d have to move on.

Like his dad used to say, “You never know what’s next, so always be ready.”

Holtz finds his comfort zone

In April of 2022, Skip Holtz – and the modern United States Football League – embarked on a new spring adventure.

“This isn’t rebuild, this is build,” Holtz said then. “When we get into next year, we’ll still have a good nucleus of this team back, and you’ll then have ‘rookies’ … you’ll have new guys. But in this case, everybody was a rookie, everybody was a freshman coming into this year. Now they’ve got a lot more background and been around a lot more football (than college freshmen), and have a lot more knowledge with their age and how much football they’ve played, but they’re all freshmen in this defense and rookies in this offense.”

Two years and two USFL championships later, Holtz and his Ponies are again part of a new league thanks to the formation of the United Football League.

This time, however, the drill is familiar.

“Oh, I have a lot of comfort because I’ve done it for two years,” Holtz said on Tuesday. “Probably a lot more than I did week one, year one, because year one I’d never been in professional football. I didn’t know what the scheduling was gonna look like, I didn’t know what dealing with the players was going to be like, so overall I would say I now have a comfort level for what spring football is all about.”

But Holtz likes to point out that with each different season comes a different team, and that means the UFL Stallions won’t be quite like the USFL iteration.

“My comfort level with this team compared to last year is totally different,” he said. “So many new faces. So, it’s a lot like year one as far as putting the team together. But from my comfort and confidence level, probably much more year three than year one, if that makes sense.”

Birmingham opens its third season in a new league – a product of the USFL and XFL merger – on Saturday when it faces the Arlington Renegades. The battle at Choctaw Stadium between the two-time defending USFL champions and XFL champions is set for noon on FOX.

“When we put all this together, which was about two weeks ago, we made the cuts down to 58,” Holtz said. “And then we really have had a great two weeks – very competitive two weeks – and great work at practice. We had some hard decisions to make to go from 58 to 50, and after we made our final decision, we really have just been gearing everything towards what game week looks like.

“I don’t know what the exact numbers are, but I would imagine it’s somewhere to 50 to 60 percent of the team is new from last year. So, there’s a lot of familiar faces, but there’s also an awful lot of new players that are on this roster.”

Stallions fans know guys like running back C.J. Marable, receivers Deon Cain, Marlon Williams and Jace Sternberger and linebacker Scooby Wright.

And of course there’s quarterback J’Mar Smith, who was knocked out of action in last year’s season opener but returns to the 2024 lineup healthy.

There’s plenty of intrigue in the quarterback room, however, as Holtz said former Carolina Panthers QB Matt Corral and ex-Nebraska/Kansas State signal caller Adrian Marinez have performed well.

“It’s been a lot of fun for me,” Holtz said. “There is a lot of talent in the room and obviously J’Mar and I go back a long way. And I think it’s really hard to hide from the talent of both Adrian Martinez and Matt Corral. I think the job that both of them have done picking up this offense, really starting in January when these guys signed, meeting with them on Zoom calls and watching film, has been great.”

Holtz declined to name a starter – or even hint at the depth chart – but said he likes to play more than one quarterback when possible.

“I think it’s that close … I think it’s that tight,” he said. “And it’s one of the reasons that I feel very comfortable that I will play more than one quarterback. I don’t think this is going to be just a one quarterback team.”

Regardless of who hits the field first on Saturday, Holtz said all the players are ready to finally get started.

“We’ve got a big work day today and again tomorrow,” he explained. “Thursday we’ll be polishing up the game plan, and then Friday we’ll walk through it and Saturday we’ll play the game. I think there’s an awful lot of excitement. I think our players are tired of going against each other.

“I think they’re ready to start watching a little bit on Arlington.”