stallions dominant en route to ufl title
JUNE 16, 2024 - BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA
By Steve Irvine
Three seasons, three spring football league championships for the Birmingham Stallions. The latest came on Sunday in the UFL Championship Game inside The Dome at America’s Center in St. Louis.
The script, in the latest championship, was a heavy dose of defense, a dominating effort by the offensive line, the physical running of Ricky Person Jr. and timely plays by MVP quarterback Adrian Martinez. Mix it all together and it churns out a 25-0 victory over a San Antonio Brahma team that handed the Stallions its lone regular season blemish.
Afterward in the postgame press conference Stallions head coach Skip Holtz surprisingly didn’t field any questions on whether the Stallions can officially be termed a spring league dynasty. The truth is, though, that question has already been answered on the field.
“You know, it is hard to continue to win,” Holtz said. “You put a target on your chest, and everybody's shooting for you. Everybody's circling that game and you are going to get everybody's best effort. But as I have told the team, the only thing that's better than playing against the Stallions is having the opportunity to play for them. The pride that they take knowing that everybody's going to take their best shot at us.”
The Brahmas defense, which led the UFL in total defense in the regular season, received much of the pregame chatter regarding that side of the ball. On Sunday, though, the Stallions were not only clearly the best defensive unit on the field but they also pitched the UFL’s first shutout in the final game of the league’s inaugural season.
At the forefront was linebacker Kyahva Tezino, who was the leading tackler on a Pittburgh Maulers team that lost to the Stallions in last season’s USFL title game. This time, he led the Stallions with nine tackles, two forced fumbles and a fumble recovery. He pointed to the regular season loss in San Antonio as motivation.
The Brahmas managed just 208 total yards with 52 of those yards coming on the ground. They had just 11 first downs and were just 6 of 16 on conversion downs. San Antonio punted on six of its 10 drives, lost a pair of fumbles to end two of the drives and turned it over on downs twice.
“I just feel like our mentality, you know, we were undefeated when we played San Antonio the first time and if I'm being real with ourselves, we were comfortable, we were complacent, and we kind of needed that,” Tezino said. “You know, Coach Skip actually came in the locker room and said he would rather lose that game and win the championship (than it) be vice versa. So, we just came together and we said that we're not going to let (running back Anthony McFarland) beat us, we're not going to let this offense beat us and we just go come together and play our butts off and that's what we did.”
He also dished out some defensive credit.
“Shout out to the D -line,” Tezino said. “It starts with them and then everybody else falls right behind them. It's just a team effort.”
Holtz said the team’s defense allowed him to keep things conservative on offense, even when they were struggling on that side of the ball for most of the first half.
“I told the team in the meeting today I was going to run the ball 25 times, and they said 30,” Holtz said. “I told them if they can average over four yards of carry, I'll call them 30 times. We wanted to run the ball in this game. That was the game plan going in. I was getting flustered when we went three and out, three and out, had a couple third down drops or (bad) reads or (bad) throws. We couldn't execute. But it was easy to stay with it when the defense still does zero on the scoreboard. Because even though it seemed like it was bad, it was still 0 -0.”
Martinez and the offense changed the complexion of the game on the final drive of the first half and opening possession after halftime. Martinez got the Stallions on the board with 40 seconds left in the half on an 8-yard scoring pass to Gary Jennings and hit Amari Rodgers on the 2-point conversion. Martinez ran 11 yards for a touchdown on the opening drive of the second half and found Jordan Thomas for the 2-point conversion.
On this day, the way the Stallions played defensively, a 16-point advantage was impossible to overcome. It got even worse for the Brahmas on the next Stallion possession when Martinez wedged in from a yard out to build the lead to 22.
Overall, Martinez was 13 of 23 for 98 yards through the air while adding 52 yards on 11 carries. However, it was Person (13 carries for 102 yards) and CJ Marable (10 carries for 45 yards) and the offensive line, which included starters Cole Schneider, Derwin Gray, Zack Johnson, Armani Taylor-Priouleau and Matt Kaskey, that fueled the offense.
“I think Coach (Holtz) told us, maybe it was last week, that we kind of hit a sweet spot on offense midway through the year (and) we need to find a way get it back for the playoffs,” Martinez said. “We did that tonight. I think our defense has a lot to do with that. You know, it's a true team effort, so, I’m thankful to be here, thankful for the UFL and this opportunity.”