With this week’s 23–16 win over the Houston Roughnecks, the Birmingham Stallions sit at 3–1.
That leaves them tied with the Michigan Panthers at the top of the USFL conference.
It hasn’t been pretty for the Stallions this season. They have looked great at times. Average at others, and downright bad sometimes.
That begs the question: Who are the 2025 Birmingham Stallions?
Only time will tell for sure, but there have been signs.
Play Calling
I probably sound like a broken record by now. All season, I’ve been calling for the Stallions to put more emphasis on establishing the run.
I’m not suggesting they become a run-heavy team by any means, just that they put some emphasis on it.
They have three talented RBs and a QB who can run it as well. Establishing the run is a great way to take pressure off the passing game.
Against Houston, they finally established the run, and it showed.
Matt Corral had his best rushing day of the season (10 rushes for 52 yards). I liked what I saw from him. Some runs were by design, and others were him aggressively creating something when nothing was open.
The RBs also had great days with the ball in their hands.
C.J. Marable
- 11 rushes for 47 yards
Larry Roundtree
- 7 rushes for 28 yards
All three runners average over 4 yards per rush. It’s much easier to succeed in the passing game when you run the ball well.
Which Stallions will we get the rest of the season? The one that only ran the ball 14 times against Arlington, or the one that establishes the run?
Matt Corral
Matt Corral had his best game of the season against the Roughnecks:
- 14–25
- 195 yards passing
- 2 Tds
- 1 Int
- 52 yards rushing
The best part of the game was that he looked in control of the offense. He consistently made good decisions with the ball.
The one negative is that his ball placement was somewhat inconsistent. If he can improve that, he has a shot at having a great season.
It’s worth noting that Corral did get hurt running the ball. There is no word yet on how serious the injury is.
However, before the injury, he was doing a great job sliding and getting out of bounds. The one time he tried to fight for extra yards, he got hurt.
That begs the question, which Matt Corral will we see the rest of the season? The aggressive and poised one from this week, or the one who makes questionable reads and avoids using his legs?
The answer to that will have a big impact on how the rest of the season goes.
Deon Cain
Last week, Deon Cain missed the game due to the birth of his second son.
Matt Corral was definitely happy to have him back. He reminded everyone why he’s been the Stallions’ leading WR so far this season.
- 3 catches
- 69 yards
- 1 TD
Unfortunately, his special-teams day wasn’t as effective.
In the first two weeks of the season, Cain averaged over 30 yards per return.
Against the Roughnecks, his average was a disappointing 24.7. He also fumbled a ball off his own knee.
We already know which Deon Cain we will see on offense, but what about special teams? Will he be the special-teams ace we saw in the first two games, or will he be a liability?
Defense
The defense has been the strength of the Stallions so far this season.
Watching their run defense makes it easy to see why.
The week after keeping the league’s leading rusher in check, they turned in another great performance.
The Stallions allowed just 64 yards rushing. Thier front 7 clearly takes pride in stopping the run. They fly to the ball and that leads to multiple players getting in on each tackle.
Unfortunately, their passing defense didn’t have its best showing.
Starting QB Nolan Henderson was knocked out of the game early in the second quarter. That would normally be a good sign for the defense, but not this time.
Backup Jalan McClendon found quite a bit of success passing.
- 22–31
- 236 yards
- 1 Int
- 71% Completion percentage
It is worth noting that with the game on the line, the defense stepped up with a game-sealing interception.
So, which defense should we expect the rest of the way?
The dominant run defense, or the one that struggles against the pass?
Offensive Line
The offensive line had another great day.
Not only did they open holes in the run game, but they also excelled in pass protection.
After the week 1 debacle (8 sacks allowed), they’ve now put together three straight games with 0 sacks.
It’s safe to say we know which line we are getting, the good one. But, they will need to continue to prove it if they want to make a run at a championship.
Week 5
The Memphis Showboats are traveling to Birmingham on April 25th.
This is a classic trap game.
The Showboats are in last place in the USFL Conference (0–4).
On paper, the Stallions shouldn’t have a problem taking care of business. However, games aren’t played on paper.
The Showboats have looked better than their record indicates. They played both the Defenders and Roughnecks tough.
The Stallions have played well for most of the season, but they are by no means unbeatable (they’ve already lost this season). They will need to stay focused and take care of business if they want to keep their home winning streak alive.
4 Comments
by Ken Granito
You did a great job of talking about the unevenness of the Stallions this year. I agree. I do feel that some of that unevenness has been thrust upon them by the league. For whatever reason and I think I know why, the league has called an uneven amount of penalties on the Stallions. They have not called as many against their opponents. Since I was a kid I was told that the league can call holding on any team they want to on any play. It’s just the way it goes. I also feel the league takes that and does what it wants with that. For instance one year the Indianapolis Colts played the role of Cinderella and made it all the way to the Super Bowl…..Was it with Peyton Manning or Andrew Luck that I am talking about this Cinderella team, no it was Jim Harbaugh. That team had 0 holding penalities in 4 playoff games. You need to have help to make that happen. Even if the Colts were playing the best brand of football ever the chances of them having no holding penalities is crazy. Even more crazy is to get to the Super Bowl they beat a Chiefs team that had Derrick Thomas who had set a sacks record earlier that year. The league can do whatever it wants. Last week when watching the game it was provided that the Defenders beat the Stallions in a game where the most money in UFL history was bet on one side of the line. Funny that that money was on the Stallions and the Stallions lost and that Sport betting advertises on the UFL. If this was the financial world and this was the SEC there would be an awful lot of auditing around it, but we hear nothing. You Greyson are not allowed to report that. People are told they should not be a conspiracy theorist, but really doesn’t it all make sense. The game the Stallions were 3 1/2 point favorites against Renegades. The Renegades weren’t called for a penalty until the 3rd quarter and the first one was when the right end jumped way past the line, like it was clearly done on purpose, in protest. He looks around and points to the left ankle. If the league says the are going to promote points so they aren’t calling penalties, why did the Stallions have 7 penalites for 70 yards by the time the Renegades had 1
by Ken Granito
Continued. I don’t know what happend there. Also, take a look. When you look at the FOX provided stats, they took away penalty yards and just show penalties. Why would they do that? When the league starts being fair the games will be so much better. Don’t go into a game pre-determined to make certain calls. It just ruins the league. The Sunday game was relatively well called and the game was much better.
So it’s good to question what Stallions team shows up each week. The team is over 50% different from last season. They have been through 3 QBs so far and their offensive line has been losing people to injury all season. Plus they lost their starting CB the first week of the season. Could you imagine having their starter Ike Brown and Steven Gilmore. Also, the quarterback play, although they have talent also at times make VERY poor choices, so their own unevenness comes from the position you least want it to. Keep an eye on Andrew Peasley. I saw him with the Jets. I feel he will play well for them and make the right choices if he has to play. That might provide the team with a little more of a baseline. Unless of course the other quarterbacks start to learn of course. The long and short of it is that there are a ton of things lining up to diminish the Stallions this year. Good thing for the Stallions their D-Line has been up to task. And imagine they lost Dondrea Tillman and Jonathan Garvin. All I can say is God Bless them.
by Greyson Alman
You bring up a fascinating point about the penalties. There have been a lot of them on the Stallions this season. Some seem perfectly normal, some seem questionable at best.
I was yelling at my TV during the game against the Roughnecks. I felt like every time Corral slid, he was getting hit. There was even one play where he got full-on punched in the face while sliding and no penalty (the one where he got into it after the play and pulled a guy’s helmet off).
I hesitated to mention it in my article because I’m a Stallions fan, and I don’t want to let that bias my writing any more than necessary. I’m still going back and forth in my head about how much of the penalty discrepancy is real and how much of it is my Stallions’ bias.
by Ken Granito
You are good to hold it back. Unfortunately you cannot call out the league and its bias as a writer. The league needs to understand that if the NFL has 16 games going on and 3 games are point shaving the league for the most part is ok. If you have 4 games and one of the games is being called to point shave and the league has a vested interest in the other team getting to the championship game it looks REAL bad to call games for that to happen, yet they have done exactly that in my opinion. The symptoms are there. My hope is they put that on the side and realize the legitimacy of the league is more important than anything else. It is early in the week. I still have hopes Blaine Gabbert, Jeff Driskel (I think he is waiting for a NFL team.) or even Chase Garbers will be signed and the Dome will have 35k, plus this weekend yes despite the loss. You have Max Duggan with no big names signed you will have 28K. Give the Battlehawks fans what they want. They deserve a big name who can quarterback. You took one away. They deserve it back.
That would give Max Duggan and better yet Trae Self the chance to work into it. Looking at his tape Trae Self will pass the ball well and based on what I saw (It is a highlight reel) he can make those tiered throws. I don’t know that Manny Wilkins will be able to do that consistently. I don’t know why Self he did not stick in the NFL so there might be something to that.