Category: Alternative Football

Spoiler alert: Adrian Martinez will be the starting quarterback when the Birmingham Stallions (10-1) face the San Antonio Brahmas (8-3) in Sunday’s United Football League Championship Game in St. Louis.

Will Matt Corral see playing time? Well, that plotline will be spoiler-free until the game is under way.

Martinez is the newly named MVP of the UFL. The signal caller threw for 1,749 yards and 15 touchdowns while rushing for a UFL-best 528 yards during the regular season. It’s a body of work worthy of the first-year league’s top award.

“I’m excited for him,” Birmingham coach Skip Holtz said. “I think it’s a well-deserved honor. I think there are a lot of people that could have received it. I don’t think it’s an individual award … it takes an offensive line, it takes skill players making plays, it takes a defense giving us the opportunity to get the ball back. I think Adrian would be the first one to tell you that that it’s not an individual accolade, it’s a team award.

“But it’s awesome that Adrian is being recognized because he is a total pro.”

Corral went 36-62-2 in six regular season appearances for Birmingham, piling up 494 yards and two TDs.

Martinez got the QB1 nod last Saturday in a the USFL Conference Championship Game against the Michigan Panthers, going 10-19-1 for 164 yards and a TD toss.

But …

The Stallions trailed, 18-12, with 4:04 remaining in the third quarter, and Holtz decided his club needed a spark.

In came Corral, who finished out a 31-18 victory with a stat line that reads 9-11-1 for 120 yards and a touchdown.

Martinez was hardly ineffective, but Corral closed the deal, meaning Holtz had a hard choice to make when he penciled in the depth chart.

But while it might’ve been a tough decision, there is no wrong answer.

Martinez and Corral are two of the best quarterbacks in the UFL – they just happen to play for the same team.

“We’ve gotten here with Adrian as our starting quarterback and right now, Adrian will be the quarterback,” Holtz said on Tuesday. “Now, I don’t know what’s going to happen the third or fourth series, you know what I mean? Now that we’re in these games that mean everything, I will not hesitate to play two. I’m willing to play both, and I think they both bring something special to our team.

“And if we need both to win this game then I am certainly excited to play both just like we play two receivers, two quarterbacks, two tight ends …”

Ever since the Stallions were reborn in the modern United States Football League back in 2022, Holtz has tried to give all the QBs on his roster playing time.

In the inaugural season Alex McGough was the first QB drafted but J’Mar Smith – who he coached at Louisiana Tech – was also added. McGough was named the starter but dealt with injuries, giving Smith most of the snaps.

The result was a USFL championship.

Last year the roles were reversed for Smith and McGough, with Smith lost for the season in the opening game. McGough took it from there, earning MVP honors while helping spearhead a repeat.

That dual-threat philosophy carried over into 2024 and the dawn of the UFL.

“I said at the very beginning of the year – and everybody wanted me to name a starter – and I said at the time that they’re both gonna play,” Holtz said. “The first two or three games, I rolled both of them. They both had a great camp, they both have learned the offense very well. They’ve both done a really nice job.

“A two-quarterback system worked with Alex and J’Mar and I played both of them quite a bit, and I played both of these guys quite a bit.”

Holtz stresses that virtually every player in this league is trying to get film and get to – or back to – the NFL. Preparing both Martinez and Corral for that opportunity is a big part of his job.

“I’ve never been in a season where you didn’t need both quarterbacks, and we need both of them,” he explained. “I want to get them both ready and after about three or four weeks, I think it was after the D.C. game, I made the decision to go with Adrian (as the starter). I think we could have made the decision to go with either one and I think it has been very hard on Matt.

“But I’ve also talked about the respect I have for the way that Matt has handled it, for the way that Matt has prepared every week, like he was going to be a starter, that he was going to get his opportunity again, and he got his opportunity last week and I thought he made the most of it.”

With everything on the line, Holtz will try to make sure the best players on the roster will be the ones on the field.

And in the case of the Stallions’ quarterback room, Holtz knows he’ll always have a winner behind center. Remember … while Smith has been inactive this season, the championship QB is still on the roster.

“You have two quarterbacks that are not only good enough to win with, but two quarterbacks that you can win because of,” Holtz said. “And I would even throw in J-Mar in that conversation, because the last time J’Mar was the starter we were 11-1 and won a championship. So, I think we have three really good quarterbacks.

“I love the room, but more importantly I love the way that their personalities have gelled and their unselfishness and that – right now – everybody just wants to win.”

When Adrian Martinez signed with the Birmingham Stallions last December, the news didn’t exactly make waves.

Although 2023 United States Football League MVP Alex McGough had moved on to the NFL, Birmingham still had J’Mar Smith, who was the presumptive starting quarterback before being injured in the opening game and opening the door for McGough.

And then once Matt Corral agreed to a deal with the Stallions in February, some pundits had already handed him the job, expecting Smith and Martinez to battle it out for QB2.

Instead, Martinez proved all the doubters wrong.

On Monday he was named the United Football League’s Most Valuable Player thanks to a regular season that saw him throw for 1,749 yards and 15 touchdowns while rushing for a UFL-best 528 yards (9.8 yards per carry).

Martinez was responsible for 18 scores and ranks second in the circuit in total offense with 2,277 yards. He is the only UFL QB to throw for more than 300 yards twice during the 10-game slate.

His four TD passes against Memphis on April 4 is a UFL record, and his 138-yard rushing effort against Houston on April 27 was second-best during regular season action.

Even more remarkable is that Martinez and Corral split time as starter through the first four weeks of the season; Martinez didn’t “win” the job until the following game against Houston.

“The journey has been up and down,” Martinez said in April. “I mean, that’s been the story of my football career and it’s just been the story my life so far and, and honestly, I’m thankful for it. I would be lying to you if I told you this is where I expected to be right now in my life, but I’m thankful I’m here.

“I’m thankful I’m playing for (Stallions coach Skip Holtz). I’m thankful I’m on this really, really good team with a lot of talent. And it’s definitely a learning experience. And at the end of the day, I love ball. I love football, and it’s an opportunity, and an opportunity to get back to the NFL.”

On Saturday when Birmingham defeated Michigan, 31-18, in the USFL Conference Championship Game at Protective Stadium, it was Martinez’s seventh consecutive start and eighth overall. He went 10-19-1 for 164 yards and a touchdown before being replaced by Corral, who was 9-11-1 for 120 yards and two TDs.

Martinez spent four seasons at the University of Nebraska, completing 670 of 1,055 passes for 8,491 yards and 45 touchdowns with 30 interceptions.

He closed out his college career at Kansas State, going 118-184-1 for 1,261 yards and six TDs.

But he was even more accomplished as a running quarterback, amassing 2,928 yards over five seasons and reaching the end zone with his legs 45 more times.

He was signed by the Detroit Lions as an undrafted free agent last May and released in August.

Four months later, the Stallions came calling.

Whether you hold a championship game in Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium in Canton or The Dome at America’s Center in St. Louis, you can bet the Birmingham Stallions are gonna be there.

Skip Holtz’s spring football kings, winners of back-to-back United States Football League titles, earned a shot at the United Football League crown on Saturday with a wild 31-18 victory over Michigan in front of 10,287 fans at Protective Stadium.

Birmingham beat the Philadelphia Stars, 33-30, in 2022 and the Pittsburgh Maulers, 28-12, in 2023, winning both USFL title games in Canton.

The UFL Championship will be in St. Louis on June 16, and the Stallions will face the winner of Sunday’s contest between the St. Louis Battlehawks and San Antonio Brahmas.

A pick-six by Daniel Isom in the third quarter allowed the Stallions to erase an 18-12 deficit against the Panthers in the USFL Conference Championship Game, while Matt Corral came on in relief of Adrian Martinez and threw a pair of fourth quarter TDs to seal the deal.

“We have a little saying that we always talk about … don’t flinch,” Holtz said. “No matter what happens, we’re gonna find a way to win this game. And even with the offense sputtering the way it was, the defense kept creating turnover after turnover, and then they said, ‘Hell, if you can’t score, we will.’”

All’s well that ends well but, good grief, did the eventual winners ever make it hard on themselves for much of the hot afternoon.

Birmingham (10-1) trailed 18-3 at one point, turned the ball over four times, was slapped with 11 penalties for 111 yards and committed enough mental mistakes to last a season.

Errors were not the sole domain of the hosts, though; the teams combined for eight turnovers, and six were committed in the third quarter alone.

But champions find a way, and the Stallions scored the final 28 points of the game – good enough to get another chance at another trophy – while Michigan’s season ends at 7-4. Three of those losses came against the Stallions.

Martinez exited the game with decent numbers (10-19-1 for 164 yards and a touchdown) but Corral finished 9-11-1 for 120 yards and two scores, giving Birmingham much-needed momentum down the stretch.

Amari Rodgers, Jordan Thomas and Ricky Person Jr. had receiving TDs for the Stallions.

“We needed a spark offensively,” Holtz said. “I’ve said all along. I feel like we have two starting quarterbacks. I feel like we have two players that are very capable of leading this football team to a championship, and I felt like we needed a spark. I think Matt is a very talented individual, but more than anything, I think today is an unbelievable lesson in resolve – not four quarters of resolve, but in two months of resolve – as he has had to stand on the sideline. Yet, he has taken reps every week in practice.”

Corral said he was fully prepared to step in and take charge.

“Like every other day, we practice the same scenarios, same place, each and every day, day in and day out, and we get a lot of reps at it,” Corral said. “And coach does a good job of putting us in place to get done what we’ve got to get done.”

The defense was “bend but don’t break” throughout the day, forcing the Panthers to settle for four field goals.

Ike Brown had a pair of key interceptions, Damon Lloyd recovered a fumble, and Armani Taylor-Prioleau blocked a field goal. The unit had five sacks and Kyahva Tezino led Stallions tacklers with seven takedowns.

And it was Isom’s defensive score that flipped the game in favor of Birmingham.

Panthers QB Danny Etling was intercepted three times, although he did rack up 182 yards and throw for a score.

Siaosi Mariner was on the money end of Etling’s touchdown pass.

“I thought that first half we played well, other than the fact that I wish we had turned a lot of field goals into six points,” Michigan coach Mike Nolan said. “Touchdowns would have made a difference for us.”

Scoring plays: Michigan, Siaosi Mariner, 35-yard reception from Danny Etling, 12:17 first quarter, 1-point conversion failed, Panthers 6, Stallions 0; Michigan, Jake Bates, 53-yard field goal, 8:43 first quarter, Panthers 9, Stallions 0; Michigan, Bates, 42-yard field goal, :40 first quarter, Panthers 12, Stallions 0; Birmingham, Chris Blewitt, 23-yard field goal, 10:30 second quarter, Panthers 12, Stallions 3; Michigan, Bates, 34-yard field goal, 7:10 second quarter, Panthers 15, Stallions 3; Michigan, Bates, 25-yard field goal, 3:59 second quarter, Panthers 18, Stallions 3; Birmingham, Jordan Thomas, 50-yard reception from Adrian Martinez, 3:53 second quarter, 2-point conversion failed, Panthers 18, Stallions 9; Birmingham, Blewitt, 43-yard field goal, :12 second quarter, Panthers 18, Stallions 12; Birmingham, Daniel Isom, 48-yard interception return, 2:37 third quarter, 1-point conversion failed, Stallions 18, Panthers 18; Birmingham, Amari Rodgers, 7-yard reception from Matt Corral, 13:42 fourth quarter, 1-point conversion failed, Stallions 24, Panthers 18; Birmingham, Ricky Person, 15-yard reception from Corral, 4:04 fourth quarter, 1-point conversion reception by Thomas from Corral, Stallions 31, Panthers 18.

Standout stat: 28. The number of unanswered points the Stallions scored in Saturday’s victory.

Next up: Birmingham plays Sunday’s winner between the San Antonio Brahmas and St. Louis Battlehawks on June 16 in St. Louis in the UFL Championship Game. The contest is set for 4 p.m. CDT and can be seen on FOX and listened to on FOX Sports on SiriusXM.

OTD in 1974: Several hundred fans got their first look at the Birmingham Americans as the team in the fledgling World Football League held their first scrimmage at Robinson Memorial Stadium at Marion Institute.

George Mira, who would earn the starting job at QB, completed five passes for 45 yards including two to former Alabama receiver Dennis Homan for 16 and 14 yards, respectively.

OTD in 1985: The Birmingham Stallions of the original United States Football League defeated the Baltimore Stars, 14-7, in front of 24,300 fans at Byrd Stadium.

Cliff Stoudt hit Jim Smith on a pair of touchdown passes and helped the playoff-bound Stallions improve to 12-4 and win their fifth consecutive game.

The Stars – defending USFL champions – slipped to 8-7-1.