The undercard is done.
Up next is the main event.
Birmingham defeated Michigan, 20-19, at Protective Stadium on Saturday, officially winning the USFL Conference of the United Football League’s inaugural season.
Panthers’ kicker Jake Bates – he of 64-yard field goal fame – pushed a 53-yard effort wide right on the game’s final play, meaning Skip Holtz’s team dodged what would’ve been their first-ever losing streak.
That miss followed a 12-play, 54-yard march by the Stallions that ended with Adrian Martinez hitting Jace Sternberger on a 5-yard TD toss with 59 seconds remaining.
Martinez’s 1-point conversion pass to Marcus Baugh gave the hosts the lead; they trailed 16-6 at halftime.
Birmingham (9-1, 6-0) improves to 4-0 against Michigan (7-3, 4-2) in modern-era spring football, taking both 2024 regular season matchups.
Yet for the winners, there’s no time to celebrate and for the losers, no need to mourn. Once the teams fly back to Arlington, Texas, to the UFL hub, memories of this one will quickly fade.
Their rematch next Saturday here is the one that determines which team plays for the UFL Championship and which one packs it in for the year.
“We do it again next week, and it’ll be it’ll be another good one,” Holtz said. “I mean, these two teams have done that twice. First time was a 20-13 game with them having the ball in the fourth quarter and our defense got a stop, and the same thing happened in this one.
“I’m really proud of our team and how they competed. We certainly didn’t execute very well today as an offense. I thought our defense made some great adjustments in the second half, holding them to three points. But offensively, it was a lot like last week (and 18-9 loss to San Antonio) and we’ve really got to take a hard look at just being consistent with what we do.”
Martinez went the distance and was sacked five times, but came up big when he had to. He was 14-28-0 passing for 163 yards and a TD, and still managed to scramble for 41 additional yards.
Holtz said the team needs to figure out a way to get Sternberger the ball more.
The tight end had just two catches, but they were crucial.
“That’s the beauty of this league … it’s all about opportunity,” Sternberger said. “So, it’s a pride thing. You do want to win and you want to be dominant, but the tape doesn’t lie and what you put out on tape is your resume. And so that’s what I told the guys in the huddle. I said I don’t care if we were playing a Birmingham high school, it’s gonna be televised and it’s a resume day, and every week we have the 1-0 mentality.”
C.J. Marable sparked Birmingham’s ground attack with 56 yards and two touchdowns on 10 carries.
Defensively, Damon Lloyd had seven solo tackles and nine overall for the victors.
Michigan outgained Birmingham, 324-223, and came tantalizingly close to winning despite missing several players due to injury.
Danny Etling was solid behind center, with a stat line of 16-31-0 for 195 yards and a TD through the air, and 36 rushing yards.
After getting just 47 ground yards in their first meeting with the Stallions, the Panthers netted 135 on Saturday.
Siaosi Mariner had seven receptions for 110 yards.
Javin White was a monster for Michigan’s “D,” registering two sacks, six individual tackles and two tackles for loss.
Former UAB standout Garrett Marino, Bryce Torneden and Breeland Speaks joined the sack party as well.
“We played good defense and had some big plays and sacks in the ballgame, which were nice especially on a quarterback like Martinez,” Panthers coach Mike Nolan said. “He’s likely to be Player of the Year for the league. So, there were some good things to come from the game that hopefully we can build on for next week.
“We come right back, obviously, and play them again, and we’re excited for the opportunity.”
Scoring plays: Birmingham, C.J. Marable, 1-yard run, 10:46 first quarter, 2-point conversion failed, Stallions 6, Panthers 0; Michigan, Jake Bates, 39-yard field goal, time 7:03 first quarter, Stallions 6, Panthers 3; Michigan, Danny Etling, 23-yard run, 13:40 second quarter, 1-point conversion run by Toa Taua, Panthers 10, Stallions 6; Michigan, Siaosi Mariner, 46-yard reception from Etling, 6:21 second quarter, 1-point conversion failed, Panthers 16, Stallions 6; Birmingham, C.J. Marable, 20-yard run, 11:56 third quarter, 1-point conversion run by Adrain Martinez, Panthers 16, Stallions 13; Michigan, Bates, 44-yard field goal, 13:49 fourth quarter, Panthers 19, Stallions 13; Birmingham, Jace Sternberger, 5-yard reception from Martinez, :59 fourth quarter, 1-point conversion reception by Marcus Baugh from Martinez, Stallions 20, Panthers 19.
Standout stat: 5. The number of times Birmingham QB Adrian Martinez was sacked.
Next up: The Stallions play the Panthers again next Saturday at Protective Stadium, this time with a trip to the UFL Championship Game on the line. The game is set for 2 p.m. CDT and will be televised on ABC.
Not done yet: News of Scooby Wright’s retirement has been greatly exaggerated.
After suffering a neck injury that ended his 2024 season, the Birmingham Stallions linebacker was placed on IR and implied he was retiring when he tweeted out a photo of his cleats hanging on the crossbar of a goal post.
“I was just upset in the moment, because that’s when I found out I was going to be going home,” Wright said on Saturday. “It is what it is … just some frustration.”
Wright says previous injuries compounded the latest one, and how well it heals will determine if he can make it back on the field in 2025.
“I’ve been playing football since I was 21, and now I’m 29,” he said. “It’s kind of like I have a black belt in football. It’s hard to be away and I want to stay involved.”
If his days on the gridiron are over, though, he already has options moving forward.
“Back in 2021 I went through the Fire Academy and got my firefighter certification,” he said. “All my certifications are in California, so I would do that there. I’ve also done some TV work back in Arizona working on the sidelines.”
He adds that Birmingham will always be a special place to him, regardless.
“I loved being in Birmingham … I personally hated being in Arlington,” he said. “It just didn’t feel the same because I loved being around the community here and being involved in it. If I can come back and play for Birmingham next year, I hope the team will be back here instead of Arlington.”
Attendance: Officially, it was listed as 7,133, but that must have reflected tickets sold because there were no more than 4,000 people in the stands.
OTD in 1974: The Birmingham Americans of the World Football League signed Jim Mitchell, the starting tight end for the Atlanta Falcons, to a multi-year contract set to begin in 1975. Mitchell led the Falcons in receiving in 1973 with 32 catches for 420 yards.
OTD in 1991: The Birmingham Fire of the World League of American Football fell to the Barcelona Dragons, 10-3, in the WLAF playoffs. A crowd of 37,590 showed up at Legion Field for the clash, which saw the hosts get their only points off Win Lyle’s 28-yard field goal in the fourth quarter.
Birmingham finished the season with a 5-6 record.