Author: Scott Adamson

In the modern United States Football League, the Birmingham Stallions had a perfect record against the Michigan Panthers, beating them 33-17 in 2022 and 27-13 last year.

You can forget all about that now.

The Week 2 United Football League matchup between the clubs on Sunday at Ford Field is something of a reset for both, who enter the contest coming off season-opening victories.

Birmingham downed the Arlington Renegades, 27-14, on UFL launch weekend while Michigan nipped the St. Louis Battlehawks, 18-16.

“I don’t think we can look at last year’s game,” Stallions coach Skip Holtz said. “I don’t think we can say, ‘Well, we beat them last year’ … I think it’s a totally different team. They may have some of the same schemes but they’ve got a new offensive coordinator (Marcel Bellefeuille), who I think is making them better.”

The headline for Michigan, of course, was Jake Bates’ 64-yard, game-winning field goal. The winners’ offense generated 280 yards on the day with 168 coming through the air.

QB E. J. Perry was 12-24-2 for 176 yards with running back Wes Hills – the USFL’s leading rusher in 2023 – amassed 85 yards on 11 carries is his first game with the Panthers.

Wideout Devin Ross had two catches for 46 yards in the win and looks forward to Sunday’s showdown.

“Clearly, they’re a good team,” Ross said. “They’ve won the (USFL) championship two years. They have a lot of good D-linemen … a lot of speed on the edge. I feel like it’s gonna be a great game. They have good personnel and great coaching.”

Defense was the Panthers’ strong suit last week, with the ‘Hawks’ passing attack limited to 199 yards and QB A.J. McCarron sacked 3.5 times.

Kai Nacua led the charge with 11 tackles.

“We had a practice against (Birmingham) a couple of weeks ago,” Panthers coach Mike Nolan said. “It was a practice, not a scrimmage, but I think both teams felt like they got a lot of work out of it. Look, they’re  a very good football team. They’ve won the league two years in a row and they beat a very good team the other day and it wasn’t very close.

“Early in the season it’s hard to say what the matchups look like. We’ve got one game and they’ve got one game to look at of us, and based on that I know, they’re a very good opponent.”

Holtz knows his team’s first trip away from the Arlington hub will be a challenge.

“Mike has been a longtime college and NFL coordinator, and he’s the head coach but when you look at him, you also see a defensive coordinator. He’s got great fundamentals and I think his team plays hard.

“He knows his defense. He knows what he wants to do. There’s a lot of people that you go against that you may hurt him in the first half, and they can’t make the adjustment until the second half after they’ve had a half to talk about it. With Mike, if you hurt him, the very next play, he’s plugged it up.”

Following a couple of early turnovers – and a first half that ended with the score knotted at 11-all – the Stallions took control against the Renegades.

Quarterback Matt Corral had 201 passing yards and TD toss, while backup Adrian Martinez rushed for 52 yards on three carries before having to leave the game with a foot injury.

Waiting in the wings in former Stallions starter J’Mar Smith, who was a major reason Birmingham won the inaugural USFL title in 2022.

“Like (offensive line coach David Deguglielmo) told me, having J’Mar is like you’ve got a fire extinguisher under the sink,” Holtz said. “You’ve got a guy that’s played an awful lot of football. If the dam breaks, you got a fire extinguisher to put out any mess that’s been made.”

There were seven different pass catchers for Birmingham, with Deon Cain reeling in three balls for 66 yards and a score.

Tight end Jace Sternberger had two receptions for 32 yards.

“I gave the way we played like a six out of 10,” Sternberger said. “I felt like for everybody it was a typical first game, and we still scored 27 points. We want to always score more than 30.

“I played against (Michigan) last year and they’re a well-coached team. Very, very, sound defense from a technique standpoint.”

C.J. Marable had 18 carries for 67 yards against Arlington while Ricky Person Jr. contributed 31 yards and scored a rushing TD.

Kyahva Tezino had six tackles in the win, and Chris Jackson and Carlos Davis finished with five each.

Davis also had a sack and forced a fumble.

“I was really pleased with the way we played defensively,” Holtz said. “With that being said, I think we can play 20 or 30 percent better – just some of the misalignment situations, things that we can correct. I think we can be a pretty good defensive football team.”

The game kicks off at 11 a.m. CDT with ESPN providing TV coverage.

Back in January, I did a bit of a flip-flop – all in the same column.

That’s when the United Football League announced that it would pay homage to the merger of the United States Football League and XFL by keeping their names alive in the form of UFL conferences.

While writing that I didn’t care for it and hoped to see the USFL and XFL abbreviations retired, I warmed to the idea as part of the fledgling circuit’s inaugural season.

Considering all the jawing between fans of the “old” leagues, I figured maybe they could get it out of their systems  by the end of the 2024 campaign. A little infighting might be fun.

On Wednesday, I asked Birmingham Stallions tight end Jace Sternberger how long he thought the USFL vs. XFL rivalry might last. Birmingham – the two-time defending champion of the USFL – is coming off an impressive 27-14 victory over the 2023 XFL champion Arlington Renegades.

Thus, Skip Holtz’s team and the USFL earned braggin’ rights in the blended family feud.

Sternberger, however, doesn’t think the “us vs. them” dynamic will last.

“I think it’s gonna die … it’s gonna fizzle out,” he said. “I think right now it’s kinda fun to say, and I know on our team we’re more joking because we had to hear about it from a lot of guys who aren’t even in the league anymore, like older XFL guys, but that was more like poking fun.”

The Stallions’ former league finished 3-1 in opening week, with the Michigan Panthers topping the St. Louis Battlehawks, 18-16, and the Memphis Showboats nipping the Houston Roughnecks, 18-12 (the Roughnecks are the USFL Gamblers rebranded).

The only intraconference XFL game saw the San Antonio Brahmas defeat the DC Defenders, 27-12.

Obviously, Sternberger’s opinion is just one of many; with more than 400 players in the league, I’m sure you’ll find a few who’ll want to take the trash talk as far as it’ll go.

But it makes sense that as the season progresses, the teams will be more concerned with their current identities, not their former ones.

Defenders quarterback Jordan Ta’amu is one player who has already fully embraced the merger.

“I love how the USFL and XFL combined,” Ta’amu said. “I love the eight teams that they chose to keep. I expected this level of competition … I think this is the best level of competition that we’ve seen in spring league football because it’s kinda like all-star teams from the 16 teams we had last year.

“After they shrunk it down to eight, it’s the best competition we’ve seen in the spring in a long time.”

You had to realize with two professional spring leagues competing against each other, the only realistic options were the merging of two or the dissolution of one.

In a way, we got a bit of both.

Only half of the USFL and XFL came together, meaning eight of the 16 USFL and XFL teams didn’t make the cut.

That’s not to say that sides called the New Jersey Generals and Seattle Sea Dragons are gone forever, but if they do come back, they’ll have no ties to their old leagues other than repurposed nicknames.

And really, if the UFL survives and thrives, I’m hoping expansion teams won’t be confined to a USFL or XFL box.

In other words, if Los Angeles get a franchise, maybe give strong consideration to calling it something besides the Express (original USFL), Xtreme (original XFL) or Wildcats (XFL 2.0).

And once more cities are added, perhaps the USFL Conference and XFL Conference designations will have run their course. Personally, I like “Legacy Conference” and “Heritage Conference,” but In the grand scheme of things what you call a division or conference is a small matter. The key now is for all the teams in the UFL to grow strong together, regardless of where they came from.

“Week in week out, we’re really not thinking about that anymore,” Sternberger said. “It’s fun and it’ll get some clicks here and there, but at the end of the day, we’re all pushing toward the same goal and want to do the same thing.”

When it comes to season-opening games, there have been two constants about the modern-day Birmingham Stallions.

One, they’re going to win.

And two, one of their quarterbacks is going to get hurt.

When they debuted in the United States Football League in 2022, starter Alex McGough was injured against the New Jersey Generals and replaced by J’Mar Smith.

The next season, it was Smith who got the start but was knocked out of the contest against the Generals, leading to McGough taking over.

However, as Skip Holtz’s former USFL club moves forward in the United Football League, perhaps we’re seeing an important alteration to that script.

Sure, Birmingham still got a “W” – 27-14 over the Arlington Renegades – but the odds are good that both starter Matt Corral and backup Adrian Martinez will see time against the Michigan Panthers on Sunday at Ford Field.

Corral finished 12-21-1 through the air for 201 yards and a . Martinez was just 2-6-1, but was the team’s second-leading rusher behind C.J. Marable with 52 yards on three carries.

Unfortunately, he injured his foot on the third tote and left the game in the second quarter.

Holtz said today he hopes Martinez will be back in action this weekend.

“He looked good walking around out there today,” Holtz said. “I think the trainer’s very encouraged. So, he’s not ruled out right now. We’re gonna have to wait and see what he can do, but he felt really good this morning and we’re gonna take him out on the field here a little bit later this afternoon and see him run around a little bit and throw the ball.”

Holtz has been a proponent of using a two-quarterback system ever since he took the helm of the Stallions, and the approach was quite effective against the Renegades.

“People wondered what Matt Corral and Adrian Martinez were gonna look like, and  I certainly don’t think they disappointed with their first game performance,” Holtz said. “I know Matt had an interception early on the opening drive that kind of went through a receiver’s hands, and then Adrian had an overthrow down there on the goal line, but I think some of the plays Matt made with his arm shows the excitement and energy and what he can be as a quarterback.

“But I also think what Adrian Martinez did with his feet, rushing three times for 52 yards, helped change the complexion of the game. And I’ve said it all along … we’re going to play both quarterbacks and I feel that way strongly, not just in the opening game, but going forward. I think they both earned the right to play. I think they both deserve to play, and I think they both bring a winning formula to our football team right now.”

The signal callers were aided by strong offense line play. The big men up front allowed just one sack and one tackle for loss the entire afternoon.

“You’ve got Alex Taylor-Prioleau, Zack Johnson, guys who weren’t here last year, and Cole Schneider and Derwin Gray.” Holtz said. “But then we have Deonte Brown, who unfortunately got injured in the first quarter and ended up coming out of the game, but I think when you look at it, I think it speaks to the level of depth.

“We had three guys that were on our offensive line a year ago that came to camp that were no longer here when we went into the opening game. It speaks volumes for those gentlemen we just mentioned and the job they did coming in, in learning the offense and showing their talent level.”

After a light practice today, Holtz and the Stallions will give the Panthers their full attention leading up to Sunday’s 11 a.m. CDT kickoff.

“I’m excited to watch our progress and see how much we can improve from week one to week two,” Holtz said.