Game thread: UFL Championship, Birmingham Stallions vs San Antonio Brahmas, Sun June 16, 5:00 PM ET, FOX

[4th&long]

Attendance at The Dome at America's Center announced as 27,396. #UFL

LAxrteme calls the Attendance !  WTF!  Give us some lottery numbers please!

[4th&long]

And of course Birmingham's running away with it.

Just what an upstart league needs, a dynasty ruining all of the other teams' hopes of actually competing for a title.

BREAK. IT. UP.

This isn't the top level. You're not compromising integrity. It's for the betterment of the league.

The issue is how did all those other teams pass on Corral and or Martinez?

Also this looks alot like Houston Fizzle end of 2023 - is AJ Smith in way pver his head.

Recall that SA won 2 games with two late 10 point miracle comebacks (Houston Memphis).

[4th&long]

SA should not have gone for 4th down after Garbers choked.  Kick and next drive Dormandy.  No way his head was in game at that point.

And YES take the FG here if no TD

[4th&long]

Take the FG

And they don't - its a 4 score game - take the points and get a turnover or 3 and out

Stay alive if even on paper - ALWAYS give your team a reason to play hard

 

[4th&long]

43 UFL games

1 shut out

in the biggest game

Wade could have avoided the S/O - wnt for 3rd and 21  ugh

[johnnyangryfuzzball]

And of course Birmingham's running away with it.

Just what an upstart league needs, a dynasty ruining all of the other teams' hopes of actually competing for a title.

BREAK. IT. UP.

This isn't the top level. You're not compromising integrity. It's for the betterment of the league.

The issue is how did all those other teams pass on Corral and or Martinez?

Also this looks alot like Houston Fizzle end of 2023 - is AJ Smith in way pver his head.

Recall that SA won 2 games with two late 10 point miracle comebacks (Houston Memphis).

Also recall that SA was the only team to actually beat Birmingham this year, though this looks like a totally different team.

As for Corral and Martinez... I don't think they mattered much. Birmingham did this with Alex McGough in '23 and J'Mar Smith in '22. They could have put Christian Hackenberg back there and gotten a championship. There's something systemic going on with the Stallions, and of course it all goes back to them being the flagship team in 2022 getting 10 home games while the other seven teams got none and had to play in empty stadiums. You put those two on any of the other teams, I don't see them having the same success.

I shudder to think of what they would have had had McCarron taken a hometown discount. That team would've been darn near unstoppable.

[4th&long]

And of course Birmingham's running away with it.

Just what an upstart league needs, a dynasty ruining all of the other teams' hopes of actually competing for a title.

BREAK. IT. UP.

This isn't the top level. You're not compromising integrity. It's for the betterment of the league.

The issue is how did all those other teams pass on Corral and or Martinez?

Also this looks alot like Houston Fizzle end of 2023 - is AJ Smith in way pver his head.

Recall that SA won 2 games with two late 10 point miracle comebacks (Houston Memphis).

Also recall that SA was the only team to actually beat Birmingham this year, though this looks like a totally different team.

As for Corral and Martinez... I don't think they mattered much. Birmingham did this with Alex McGough in '23 and J'Mar Smith in '22. They could have put Christian Hackenberg back there and gotten a championship. There's something systemic going on with the Stallions, and of course it all goes back to them being the flagship team in 2022 getting 10 home games while the other seven teams got none and had to play in empty stadiums. You put those two on any of the other teams, I don't see them having the same success.

I shudder to think of what they would have had had McCarron taken a hometown discount. That team would've been darn near unstoppable.

Holtz knows how to squeeze these QBs to get what he needs out of them.  I disagree that Hackenberg (good one though) would win there.  Look at the teams in the playoffs this yr - they were all in playoffs last yr (or 7-3 near miss) - coaching is a big part of as is a top GM.

J Mar and Corral may have improved some of those other teams and perhaps Birm loses to MIch without a Corral as back up.  XFL IMO tip the scales to get Perez out of Vegas and into Arlington, perhaps UFL needs something like that too,  But at the end of the day Skip is a nut case driven coach and wants to win like all these Alpha coaches.

And Wade and AJ don't get a pass here... they come up small too.

We'll have something to talk about off season for sure.

[GregParks]

Disappointed to end a good season on such a dog of a game, especially one where you may draw in some viewers who haven't watched the product before. I can't imagine they were impressed. San Antonio was terrible and aside from the third quarter, Birmingham wasn't much better, at least offensively. Oh well. On to 2025.

[4th&long]

Disappointed to end a good season on such a dog of a game, especially one where you may draw in some viewers who haven't watched the product before. I can't imagine they were impressed. San Antonio was terrible and aside from the third quarter, Birmingham wasn't much better, at least offensively. Oh well. On to 2025.

 

Unfortunately top 2 Def wasn't going to be a shoot out.  But SA Offense really shit the bed.  The Garbers slide clearly short of 1st down yardage was not only dumb but ridiculous and embarassing - apparently the SA def on the bench lost it.

Hate to say it but Wade and AJ simply didn't have the Brahmas ready for this game.  Even the run Def was manhandled. And run game stifled.

We had 2 fun playoff games - unfortunately AB had called a few bonehead plays (a double flee flicker to fumble and a pass to AJ McLimp?) and StL missed the championship.  Ah what could have been... but wasn't meant to be.

Disappointing after vast number of games competitive and entertaining.  League needs about a million or so viewers to top 840k viewers a game for full season.  Hopefully they reach that.

[slammer66]

First and foremost I think this says a lot about Skip Holtz.   Nobody saw this from him when he was hired, least of all me.   It's just one of those cases where the man meets the perfect opportunity for him.   As for the game the Stallions offensive and defensive lines dominated the game and the skill players won by not making too many mistakes and letting it play out.  The league was competitive all year, the championship shutout was very unusual.   

As for what I saw.  Aside from the Stallions lines dominating I was not impressed with Garbers, not last night and not previously.    He's great with short range passing sideline stuff but I didn't see much down field passing ability.   If you can't pass downfield the defense has a huge advantage strategically.    Last night Garbers didn't look particularly interested in the game either and some suggested afterwards that he had a NFL opportunity waiting for him and he didn't want to get hurt, which would explain him bailing on the 1st down slide.   If the Brahmas had someone with more advanced passing ability like AJ McCarron that game would have been very competitive in my opinion.

I don't think for one minute the vast majority of the players were worried about their NFL opportunities.   The numerous pushing and shoving incidents suggested both sides really wanted to win,  but Birmingham's defense had a death grip on them and the game got away from the Brahma's.  

If The Stallions have any other tricks it's that they have been better by far at finding diamonds in the rough.   Forgotten players who had potential and they have been able to bring that potential to the surface.  Martinez and Matt Corral are probably both in the top half of the QB talent in the league and my guess is both could have been had by other teams but other coaches do not see what Skip and his child prodigy GM Zach Potter see.

For those who do not know Skip hired a 21 year old kid (Potter) as his player personnel guy three years ago.   Who does that?  Everyone else hires some grey headed cigar smoking vet from the NFL.   But in Skips world there are those who can do it and those who can't and he isn't worried about appearances.  

As a Stallions fan since the 80's this is a dream come true but I also know that eventually Potter and Holtz will move on and the Stallions will drop back to the pack.  Until then Giddy UP!