Head coach Skip Holtz of the Birmingham Stallions looks on before the USFL Conference Championship game against the Michigan Panthers at Protective Stadium on June 08, 2024 in Birmingham, Alabama. (Photo by Donald Page/UFL/Getty Images)
Birmingham Stallions head coach Skip Holtz appeared on the 3 Man Front show on radio station WJOX-FM 94.5 out of Birmingham on Thursday. He was in town for a special fan event later that evening at Cahaba Brewing Company. Select Stallions players, as well as UFL CEO Russ Brandon and EVP of Football Operations Daryl Johnson, would also be in attendance.
It was a newsworthy interview as Holtz revealed some previously unreported details for the upcoming UFL season. His off-season to this point had been consumed by rebuilding his Florida home after it received damage from the hurricanes that passed through this summer. Holtz noted his house took on four feet of water and had to be completely rewired.
Holtz’s name has been connected to college football head coach opportunities, but he noted that’s nothing new. “(I’ve) had options the last three years,” he said. During that time, Holtz estimated that he’s had somewhere in the neighborhood of 12 schools reach out to him to gauge his interest in their openings.
“I just want to be excited about what I’m doing,” he said, referring to himself as an “adrenaline junkie.” Holtz said each year in spring football has presented a different challenge despite three consecutive championships. “When you win, it’s easy to get soft.”
Right now, those challenges in the spring outweigh any offers he’s received to go elsewhere. “We got a bullseye on our back now. And everybody is circling Birmingham, ‘that’s the game. That’s the one we gotta play.’ That excites me enough that some of these other challenges… don’t excite me as much as that.”
The hosts asked about the off-season roster construction and how the Stallions are handling that. Holtz said “it looks like” each team will bring 64 players to camp this year, down from 75 in 2024. He also noted that “conservatively,” he expects 40 players from last year’s Birmingham roster to be among the 64 (in my recent column detailing each team’s off-season so far, I had Birmingham at 40 players for 2025, with 31 of them back from 2024). During the interview, Holtz mentioned the 50-man in-season rosters, so it appears that will stay the same.
In terms of the time frame to add other players before camp, Holtz referenced the December/January two-month period as one in which UFL teams will likely stay busy. He specifically mentioned after the NFL season when futures contracts are offered – or not offered – to practice squad players. For most teams, that would occur in the beginning of January.
“We are getting to the point as we get toward the end of the (NFL) season, a lot of guys are like, ‘well let me just hold still to see if there’s an injury during the season or maybe something will work for me,’ but as we start to get into this December, it starts to become, ‘you know what? I better solidify my spot in the UFL.'”
Quarterback is always a hot-button issue in spring leagues, especially in Birmingham, where QBs have come and gone but championships are the constant. Holtz mentioned that J’Mar Smith is currently the only quarterback on the team’s roster. He brought up Alex McGough, a former Stallion at the position who is currently a free agent, and said the team’s leadership is still waiting to see how some of the pieces will fall at that spot.
While roster movement during this time of the year was the focus, Holtz also made it clear that he and general manager Zach Potter have a board they keep during the season of free agents they can bring in should injuries strike. It’s a discussion he said they have constantly throughout the spring.
Some teams have been able to add players through the UFL College Draft in July, but Birmingham is one of the teams in which the majority of their draftees are still on NFL teams. Holtz detailed their strategy of drafting players for the future, those that may play in the NFL for a year or two or three, but who might be available to them after that, and who are better off for that NFL experience. He also said some players they drafted two or three years ago, whose rights they’ve retained, are becoming available, so they have some “nice surprises” coming onto the roster.
When asked about the status of the Arlington hub for training camp, Holtz said it’s a “three-year deal,” and expects the UFL to stick with it for stability and as a financial decision to make things more manageable (the initial agreement the XFL signed with Arlington was a three-year deal; it’s unclear if Holtz is referencing that, which would expire at the end of 2025, or three years from the start of the UFL). In talking about the future of the league, he said he expects expansion to 10 teams and selling to individual owners at some point. He alluded to the idea that from the league standpoint, the expectation is that would happen in three to five years.
Holtz was very positive on the future of the UFL, and how ownership is in it for the long haul. He said it’s been a “10 out of 10” in terms of the television ratings versus what was expected, indicating league management and potentially ownership were happy with the results in that regard least season. According to Holtz, schedules should be released “in the next week or two,” and expressed personal anticipation for the added Friday night games this coming season.
You can listen to the full interview at this link. It begins at about the 18-minute mark and runs for a half hour.
