Familiar Foes Meet In Birmingham For USFL Conference Championship

JUNE 7, 2025 - BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA

By Steve Irvine

Surprises won’t be part of the equation when the Birmingham Stallions and Michigan Panthers get together on Sunday to settle the equation to determine the USFL Conference champion and punch a ticket into the UFL Championship Game.

Michigan knows Birmingham. Birmingham knows Michigan. So, each one knows what to expect when the football is kicked off on Sunday at 2 p.m. in the USFL Conference Championship Game.

“How do you win the game doesn't change a lot,” said Birmingham Stallions head coach Skip Holtz. “I have great respect for (Panthers head coach) Mike Nolan and the job that he's done. And he's probably a lot like me, a little bit of a dinosaur. He does what he does. They're going to have some wrinkles and they're going to change a couple things. But we're not going to come out and run the wishbone. They're not going to come out and do something completely different. You're gonna dance with the one you brought. I mean, we've got our team, we do what we do. They've got their team, they do what they do.”

What Birmingham has done since spring football returned in 2022 is find a way to win championships. The Stallions won a pair of USFL championships and captured the inaugural UFL title last season. Counting this year’s regular season, Holtz and the Stallions are 37-9 over the past four seasons. Along the way in that journey, the Stallions have beaten Michigan in all seven meetings. Holtz cautions that those seven meetings have nothing to do what will happen on Sunday in Birmingham.

“We don't get to start 7-0,” Holtz said. “The score is still gonna be 0-0 when we start and you look at these games, they've come down to field goals, they've come down to final plays of the game. We've been fortunate to be able to make one more play than they have. So the past records, throw them out, it doesn't matter. You just gotta go play the game. I know this, that when you've been beat by somebody, you have an awful lot of resolve, an awful lot of determination, an awful lot of drive to try and get there. I've always said that the hardest thing to do is maintain something, because once you get there and everybody wants to pat you on the back and talk about your record and your success, but that's when you're susceptible to get beat.”

For the Stallions, the bigger concerns are finding ways to keep the offense humming like they’ve been since J’Mar Smith took over at quarterback and, on the other side, keep Michigan quarterback Bryce Perkins from making big plays.

Smith, who is the fifth Stallions quarterback to play this season and the fourth to start, has confidently led the team to a pair of wins in the three games he’s started. Sunday’s plan could very well call for Smith and the passing game to carry the offense against a Panthers defense that leads the UFL in rushing defense. For Smith, that means getting the ball in the playmakers’ hands.

“It’s just me being in a position to be a point guard,” said Smith, who has thrown for 758 yards and six touchdowns in what has basically been 2 ½ games of action. “I always say that I try to be a point guard, give them the ball, give them the assist to go make plays. And they make my job easy. So it's me being smart, executing the calls, making sure I'm doing what I gotta do. I make sure I'm doing my best to get those guys the chance to make plays.”

Defensively, the task is making sure the 6-foot-2, 220-pound Perkins is limited in his playmaking ability. Birmingham won’t shut him down completely, he’s too talented for that to happen, but the Stallions need to minimize his success.

“Bryce Perkins is a phenomenal athlete,” Holtz said. “He can run, break tackles, elude the rush. I don't think this is a game plan where they're just gonna be dropping back. You don't try and sack him. You try and corral them, you know what I mean? You try and just take the air out of the pocket and shrink it. This is not make a move, run outside, do what you gotta do to beat your tackle to get there. Because as soon as you go outside, he's going inside. He's got a great feel for the pocket. He is incredibly hard to bring down one-on-one. This is a game that you really have to be careful with what you do, because he can make you pay as he's done all year.”