STALLIONS DEFENSE LEADING THE WAY TO 2-0 START IN UFL

APRIL 8, 2024 - BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA

By Steve Irvine

CJ Marable saw it coming.

Before the season, the Birmingham Stallions running back was asked for an opinion of the strength of the team’s defense during a teleconference with reporters. He raved about the defensive line’s play during preseason camp and said he was looking forward to watching them play.

“To me, our defensive line, it’s the most impressive position throughout training camp,” Marable said at the time. “How they’re performing, it’s tremendous.”

After two regular season weeks, everyone else can also see that the Stallions are deep and talented up front on the defensive side. On Sunday, it was the play of that group – as well as the rest of the defense – that was the key to the Stallions remaining unbeaten with a 20-13 road victory over the Michigan Panthers.

As a unit, the defensive front had 16 tackles, seven sacks and a pair of pass breakups. Defensive end Taco Charlton had three sacks, nose tackle Carlos Davis had two sacks and defensive ends Dondrea Tillman and Jordan Thompson each had a sack. Thompson tipped a pass early in the quarter that turned into an interception by safety A.J. Thomas.

The defensive front started the game with a bang, getting a sack by Thompson on the opening series and a drive-altering pass breakup by Tillman on the next series, to set the tone. They also came up big on the final series of the game as the Panthers attempted to drive for a touchdown and extra point attempt that could either tie or win the game. Davis and Tillman had sacks early in the drive, Davis added another in the final minute and Charlton ended the Panthers’ last chance by forcing quarterback EJ Perry into throwing an incompletion just before getting sacked on 4th-and-7 from the Birmingham 14.

Take away a 76-yard touchdown pass and the Stallions defense dominated the game. Michigan had 205 yards on 55 snaps with just 47 yards on coming on the ground. The Stallions forced two turnovers, including a forced fumble by Tillman and recovery by Kenny Robinson Jr., and kept the Panthers out of the end zone on two red zone appearances.

Stallions head coach Skip Holtz said his team’s secondary also played a big role in helping stop the dual threat capability of Perry.

“Obviously there was a lot of film last week of him being able to extend plays and make things happen,” Holtz said. “We really challenged our defensive line. I thought those guys did a really good job of containing him for the most part. A couple of times he did get out, he was being heavily chased. There wasn’t a lot of space. That was the objective, play great coverage and have that defensive front just keep the ball in front and tracking him down. I thought they did a really nice job of that and it started with the secondary.”

On a day when the Stallions scored just one touchdown in six red zone appearances, the stingy defense was much needed.