Category: Alternative Football

Linebackers are sometimes called “quarterbacks of the defense,” and Birmingham Stallions hitman Kyahva Tezino has certainly been a vocal leader in that role.

It’s no surprise, then, that he harbors dreams of calling plays on both sides of the ball – once his playing career is over.

“If you’re a player wherever you go, you try to take a little from each coach and see what you can put in your coaching style one day,” Tezino said on Wednesday. “I think whenever it’s my time to coach, I’ll use what I’ve learned from (Birmingham head coach Skip Holtz) all the way to my Pop Warner coach and take it forward.”

At age 26, the United Football League standout has plenty of time to plan for his next vocation.

Right now, though, Tezino’s mind is focused on stopping the Michigan Panthers.

Not only do the Stallions (8-1) play the Panthers (7-2) in a Week 10 matchup, they’ll face them again a week later in the USFL Conference Championship Game.

Both contests will be played at Protective Stadium.

Birmingham won a Week 2 matchup with the Panthers, 20-13, at Ford Field in Detroit.

Tezino had five tackles and an assist in that contest, one that saw the winners limit Michigan to just 205 yards of total offense.

“It’s hard to beat a team three times,” he said. “But it can be done. Last year I was with the (Pittsburgh) Maulers and we beat Michigan three times, so it just comes down to the kind of want you have. You’ve got to know the situation. Somebody might say this is a ‘waste week’ or a game where we see what they do for next week, but I think we know what we’re playing for, and that’ll help us for this week.”

Through nine games with Birmingham, Tezino leads the team with 65 tackles (37 assisted), and also has a half sack as well as four pass break-ups. Among all UFL defenders, he ranks fourth in number of tackles.

As a senior at San Diego State University, Tezino was an Honorable Mention All-American as well as First Team All-Mountain West Selection. In five seasons as an Aztec, he made 148 solo tackles, assisted on 140 more, had 14.5 sacks and also picked off a pair of passes.

His single-game best was a 17-tackle showing against Army in 2017.

The 6-0, 235-pounder was taken by Pittsburgh in the 31st round of the 2022 United States Football League Draft.

During the 2023 season with the Maulers, he had 94 tackles (54 solo) and two interceptions. Stallions fans might recall he led Pittsburgh with 11 tackles in a 28-12 loss to Birmingham in the USFL Championship Game.

A year earlier in the Maulers’ debut campaign, he registered 55 individual takedowns and 70 in all.

Tezino was signed by the San Francisco 49ers last year before being waived in August, and originally entered the NFL after signing with the New England Patriots as an undrafted rookie free agent on April 27, 2020. Following his release three months later, he inked a deal with the Carolina Panthers as a practice squad player but was let go on August 16, 2020.

With designs on getting back to the NFL – something he hopes to do before transitioning to coaching – that means there are no off days. Week 11 has much higher stakes than Week 10, but Tezino has no plans to take it easy in the first of a two-game set.

“With a 10-week regular season you don’t have a bye week, so if you make the championship, you play 12 games straight games,” Tezino said. “But everybody knows that, and everybody is trying to get to the NFL, so you just have to take your soreness with a grain of salt.”

Saturday’s game is set for 1 p.m. and can be seen on ESPN and listened to on ESPN Xtra on SiriusXM.

To say it’s been a trying couple of weeks for the Birmingham Stallions would be a bit of an understatement.

For openers, the 2024 Stallions won’t be joining the 1965 Charleston Rockets or the 1972 Miami Dolphins as professional football teams that went through an entire season with a perfect record.

Last Saturday’s 18-9 loss to the San Antonio Brahmas made sure of that, snapping a 15-game winning streak in the process.

“The San Antonio game was a tough loss,” Birmingham coach Skip Holtz said on Tuesday. “You know, any loss is tough, but especially your first one of the year. I’m just glad we got to wait until the ninth week. We had a good run going, and I think we’ve had some success along the way.”

For two games the team found itself short one coach, with defensive coordinator John Chavis sidelined by illness before the game against the Houston Roughnecks and now no longer with the club.

Corey Chamblin has taken over the DC role and Anthony Blevins has been added to the staff.

“Nobody wants to go through what we’re going through,” Holtz said. “Two weeks ago, when John was dealing with a medical issue and he missed the game, we tried to put band aids on it to get through. We were fortunate in the Houston game (a 35-28 victory on May 18) that we were able to score enough points to win. But you’re also coaching a coach down, and you only have three coaches on defense.

“And the role that Corey was playing when Coach Chavis was calling the defense was echoing the calls of the secondary, getting the personnel groups and getting your different packages in on defense. There was nobody there to take that role.”

Enter Blevins.

Last summer – before the USFL and XFL announced their merger – he was tapped as the new head coach of the XFL Vegas Vipers. But when the Vipers found themselves among seven other spring clubs that were not absorbed by the United Football League, Blevins was out of a job.

“Anthony has a Birmingham background, he has a spring league background, he’s got a huge pedigree in the NFL with special teams, defense and linebackers … he just fit the bill,” Holtz said.

Blevins was a member of Watson Brown’s first recruiting class at UAB in 1995, and had five tackles in a 29-0 loss to Auburn on August 31, 1996 – UAB’s first game as a member of the NCAA’s top division.

The Pleasant Grove product was part of the Bill Walsh Diversity Coaching Fellowship Program with the Chicago Bears (2008), Arizona Cardinals (2010) and Indianapolis Colts (2011).

And Blevins also managed to get a PhD in instructional systems and workforce development at Mississippi State in 2015, meaning the Stallions now have a doctor on their defensive staff.

Holtz admits his team’s psyche could use a bit of healing heading into Saturday’s matchup with the Michigan Panthers (7-2) at Protective Stadium.

“They’re disappointed, they’re upset and probably a little bit angry, which is all good because I feel like we got their attention and I’m looking forward to a great practice today and getting ready for a tight contested matchup this week,” Holtz said.

Despite the loss to the Brahmas and upheaval on the staff, Birmingham is hardly stuck on a gloom and doom loop.

Still on the table is a chance to join the 1929-31 and 1965-67 Green Bay Packers as pro football three-peaters.

The two-time defending United States Football League champions have the best record in the inaugural season of the UFL at 8-1. And no matter how Saturday’s game turns out, the Stallions and Panthers will square off again a week later at the same venue in the USFL Conference Championship Game.

“We play Michigan back-to-back, which is very unique,” Holtz said. “It’s something that I have not been involved with but something that we’re going through, and we’re putting two game plans together this week.

“We’ll learn some of the things they’re going to be doing to us that we’re going to have to make adjustments for in game two, but we need to come back we need to get back on a winning track.”

Mess with the bull, and sometimes you get the horns.

After more than a year of competition and 15 consecutive victories, the Birmingham Stallions finally wound up on the wrong end of the scoreboard again. The San Antonio Brahmas (7-2) ended the run, topping the two-time defending United States Football League champions, 18-9, on Saturday in front of 11,839 fans at the Alamodome.

“All right, what a win,” San Antonio coach Wade Phillips said. “I mean, credit to Birmingham for not losing a game for two years … what an accomplishment. But our team stepped up. I thought all sides of the ball really played well.”

Birmingham (8-1) still has everything to play for in this inaugural United Football League season, with a host date against Michigan in the USFL Conference Championship Game set for June 8 at Protective Stadium.

San Antonio, meanwhile, locked up dome field advantage for the XFL Conference Championship Game against St. Louis with the upset coupled with the Battlehawks’ loss to Arlington.

Skip Holtz’s team was down 12-3 to San Antonio at intermission (their lowest first half point output since starting play in 2022) and had generated only 111 yards of total offense.

Still, they battled back over the final 30 minutes and trailed only 12-9 with 9:34 left in the fourth quarter. However, with San Antonio facing a third-and-26 play at the Birmingham 27, Kenny Robinson was called for unnecessary roughness. That penalty against the Stallions kept alive a drive that led to a Brahmas’ TD and 18-9 cushion.

Yet with two minutes to go, San Antonio had to punt the ball back to Birmingham from deep in its own territory. The kick went 64 yards, and the visitors needed a touchdown and 3-point conversion to stay alive.

Instead, Teez Tabor picked off an Adrian Martinez pass at the 1-yard line with 22 seconds to play.

“Brad Wing had a 64-yard punt at the end of the game that was a game winner basically,” Phillips said. “Our defense came up with an interception, and our offense played really well.”

Thus, the streak was over.

“I want to certainly give an awful lot of credit to San Antonio and Coach Phillips,” Holtz said. “I thought they played as clean as I’ve seen a team play all year. I mean, they didn’t put the ball in danger, they didn’t have a lot of penalties. They protected the quarterback and I thought they played one of their best football games of the year.”

Martinez was 18-32-1 through the air for 211 yards and a TD, while rushing for 56 yards. His favorite target was Jace Sternberger, who caught seven balls for 110 yards and Birmingham’s only touchdown.

“I can’t compliment him enough, the way that that son of a gun stood up and competed,” Holtz said. “We talked about it was going to be a day of contested catches, it was going to be a day that there was gonna be a lot of pulling and tugging and you’re gonna have to make some plays in open space and everything was going to be contested, but that’s what it is against good defensive football teams. And I thought Jace answered that bell today.”

The Stallions managed just 78 rushing yards, a rare case of the ground game being stifled.

Defensively, DeMarquis Gates has seven solo tackles and a sack, while Kyahva Tezino finished with six individual takedowns.

“I feel like we didn’t put our best foot forward today,” Holtz lamented. “In the first quarter we had three drops, and it was hard to get anything going.”

The news was much better for the winners – obviously.

They rolled up 329 yards of total offense and Chase Garbers returned to the lineup. Although he didn’t start, he finished with 139 aerial yards, going 16-23-0.

Jontre Kirklin had 66 receiving yards and threw his team’s only touchdown pass on a trick play in the first quarter.

Morgan Ellison was San Antonio’s big scorer on the afternoon with two rushing TDS but it was Anthony McFarland who put the most dents in the Birmingham defense, getting 82 yards on 15 totes. He also contributed 34 yards on catches.

Jordan Mosely was in on eight tackles and Tavante Beckett took part in seven.

“I’m excited about what we have ahead of us,” Holtz said. “I certainly didn’t like the way we played, and I’ve got to do a better job in a lot of areas, but I credit San Antonio. They did what they needed to do tonight to win the football game.”

Scoring plays: San Antonio, Justin Smith, 36-yard reception from Jontrae Kirklin, 6:49 first quarter, 2-point conversion failed, Brahmas 6, Stallions 0; Birmingham, Ramiz Ahmed, 34-yard field goal, 9:16 second quarter, Brahmas 6, Stallions 3; San Antonio, Morgan Ellison, 1-yard run, 5:47 second quarter, 1-point conversion failed, Brahmas 12, Stallions 3; Birmingham, Jace Sternberger, 15-yard reception from Adrian Martinez, 12:49 third quarter, 2-point conversion failed, Brahmas 12, Stallions 9; San Antonio, Ellison, 9-yard run, 8:35 fourth quarter, 1-point conversion failed, Brahmas 18, Stallions 9.

Standout stat: 3. The number of points the Stallions scored in the first half, the fewest in the team’s history.

Next up: The Stallions close out the regular season against the Michigan Panthers next Saturday at Protective Stadium. The game is set for 1 p.m. ESPN is providing TV coverage and fans can listen on ESPN Xtra on Sirius XM.

Historic ties: Birmingham and San Antonio have shared space in seven different alternative football leagues – the World Football League, American Football Association, original United States Football League, World League of American Football, Canadian Football League, Alliance of American Football and now the UFL.

The cities’ first meeting on the pro football gridiron came on September 13, 1975, when the WFL Birmingham Vulcans defeated the San Antonio Wings, 33-24, at Legion Field.

Until today their most recent meeting was in 2019. The San Antonio Commanders edged the Birmingham Iron, 12-11, in an AAF clash at Legion Field.

OTD in 1991: The Birmingham Fire of the World League of American Football closed out the regular season with a 28-7 victory over the Raleigh-Durham Skyhawks in front of 16,335 fans at Carter-Finley Stadium.

The win, which wrapped up a playoff berth for Birmingham (5-5), was highlighted by James Henry’s 50-yard punt return for a TD. The teams also combined for 11 turnovers – seven courtesy of the winless Skyhawks (0-10).

OTD in 1995: Former Alabama quarterback Danny Woodson was one of 28 players released by the Birmingham Barracudas as the franchise made its final roster cuts in preparation for its inaugural Canadian Football League season.