AJ McCarron takes over as head coach of the Birmingham Stallions after one of the most accomplished careers in modern Alabama football. A Mobile native, McCarron quarterbacked the Crimson Tide under Nick Saban from 2010 to 2013, winning three national championships and earning first-team All-America honors as a senior along with the Maxwell Award, the Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award, and the Kellen Moore Award. He left Tuscaloosa as the Crimson Tide's all-time leading passer with more than 9,000 career yards.
Selected by the Cincinnati Bengals in the fifth round of the 2014 NFL Draft, McCarron spent parts of a decade in the NFL with stops in Cincinnati, Buffalo, Oakland, Houston, and Atlanta before reviving his career in the spring. He became the face of the St. Louis Battlehawks starting in 2023, setting a single-season XFL record with 24 touchdown passes that year and leading St. Louis to a 6–2 mark in the 2024 UFL season.
Now moving from under center to the sideline, McCarron inherits a Birmingham franchise that has been among the most successful programs in the UFL, bringing championship pedigree and a quarterback's perspective to a team accustomed to playing in the title hunt.