Stallions in unfamiliar underdog role as they try and clinch a playoff spot Saturday against St. Louis
MAY 17, 2025 - BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA
By Steve Irvine
The stakes are high for the Birmingham Stallions over the next two weeks.
Four teams enter the final three weeks of the UFL regular season with a 5-2 record. It would take drastic measures over the three weeks for those four teams – the Stallions, Michigan Panthers, D.C. Defenders and St. Louis Battlehawks – to miss out on the four-team playoff. But a division championship is still up for grabs.
Birmingham’s task over the next two weeks is find a way to win in St. Louis on Saturday at noon and secure at worst a tie for the USFL Division with a win over Michigan at Protective Stadium. Quarterback J’Mar Smith, who will get his first start of the season in St. Louis, made it clear that the focus doesn’t go past Saturday’s game against the Battlehawks.
“Each week we go 1-0,” Smith said of the team’s approach.
St. Louis struggled early in the season, losing two in a row to drop to 2-2, but comes into Saturday with a three-game winning streak. The Battlehawks put together the streak without starting quarterback Manny Wilkins, who was hurt on the opening drive in a loss to Arlington on April 19. Max Duggan played the remainder of that game and is 3-0 as a starter. Duggan’s numbers don’t jump off the page but he’s helping the team win. Duggan, who was the quarterback on the TCU team that lost to Georgia in the 2023 national championship game, is 39-of-72 passing for 453 yards with three touchdowns and three interceptions. He’s also rushed for 239 yards with three touchdowns.
The running game has been very good for the Battlehawks. Jacob Saylors leads the UFL in rushing yards with 348 yards on 91 carries and has four rushing touchdowns. As a team, the Battlehawks lead the UFL with 136.6 yards per game. Birmingham comes into the game with the league’s best rush defense, allowing 78.7 yards per game.
On the other side, the Stallions are coming off one of their better rushing games of the season. The Stallions had 142 rushing yards in the win over Houston with Ricky Person Jr. and C.J. Marable combining for 104 yards on 23 carries with each one scoring a touchdown on the ground. The only time this season that Birmingham rushed for more yards in a game was in a loss to Memphis when the Stallions had 148 yards on 22 carries. A strong running attack would be helpful in Smith’s first start but St. Louis allows just 95.7 yards per game on the ground and have allowed four rushing touchdowns.
One more interesting matchup today features a pair of players not on the field at the same time. Birmingham’s Harrison Mevis and St. Louis’ Rodrigo Blankenship have been the top field goal kickers in the UFL this season. Mevis is 15-of-16 with his lone miss coming from 63 yards out. Blankenship is the league’s lone kicker without a miss after making all 16 of his kicks.