PANTHERS POUNCE ON STALLIONS TO WIN USFL CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIP
JUNE 9, 2025 - BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA
By Steve Irvine
The Stallions will not play in the final game of the season for the first time since spring football returned to Birmingham in 2022.
Instead, it will be the Michigan Panthers representing the USFL Conference in the UFL Championship Game. The Panthers punched their ticket with a 44-29 victory over the Stallions on Sunday afternoon at Protective Stadium.
Afterward, for the first time as a professional football head coach, Holtz was forced to hold his final team meeting in a locker room filled with disappointed players.
“I hate what happened today,” Holtz said in his postgame press conference. “You want to bite, kick, scratch and claw (to win). When it doesn't happen you want to scream, yell and holler. But, we are very blessed to have this opportunity to represent this organization and to play this great game. I think God brought this team together for a reason. The journey that we went through, the relationships that are built. We just got to keep our heads up. I'm proud of this team, proud of what they've accomplished. And, you know what, better to have gotten here and lost than to have never run the race.”
What went wrong in the final steps of the race basically was a mixture of too much Bryce Perkins, too many turnovers and a season filled with quarterback injuries keeping the offense from reaching its full potential.
On this day, in this game, the best place to start with was the play of Perkins, who missed the final three games of the regular season because of an ankle injury. The 6-foot-2, 220-pound Perkins, who still isn’t completely healthy, mixed in some spectacular moments during a game when he was steady and consistent. He was 20-of-25 for 238 yards passing with a touchdown and no interceptions. He carried the football eight times for 34 yards, including a you-have-to-see-it-to-believe-it 29-yard gain on 3rd-and-14 with the Panthers clinging to a four-point lead in the third quarter.
On a day when Michigan converted 7-of-12 third downs, Perkins made the plays when they needed to be made.
Holtz had a lot to say on the way Perkins played on Sunday. But he also succinctly summed it up when he said, “Their quarterback is a stud.”
Quarterback play was a different story for the Stallions. J’Mar Smith started for the fourth consecutive game and threw an 18-yard touchdown pass to Jordan Thomas in the second quarter. But he was also just 4-of-10 passing and his day ended nearly four minutes following his touchdown pass when he threw an interception that turned into a 25-yard touchdown by Kai Nacua. There was 2:43 left in the first half at that point and Holtz pulled Smith in favor of Matt Corral.
“Why I pulled the trigger was we threw a pick-six and we throw it to the guy that's our movement key,” said Holtz, whose team trailed 21-6 after the interception. “I mean he's the guy that intercepted it. It’s not like oh, I never saw him. That's the only guy we're reading and he threw a pick-six. I just said, ‘You know what, we need a boost, we need a spark.’ I put Matt in and I thought he did a good job with getting us back in the football game.”
Corral had not played since getting hurt at Houston on April 19. He hit Deon Cain for a 20-yard gain on his first play and was 5-of-6 for 73 yards during a drive that ended with C.J. Marable scoring on a 1-yard run with 56 seconds left in the first half. Corral hit Ricky Person Jr. on two-point conversion pass to trim the deficit to 21-14 at halftime. The Stallions scored on a 56-yard field goal by Harrison Mevis on the opening drive of the second half.
But stopping Perkins and the Panthers offense remained a problem throughout and Corral showed signs of rust after sitting out most of the season.
“A couple times he’s like ‘Coach just call base plays,’” Holtz said of Corral who finished 12 of 25 for 147 yards. “He hadn’t been on the field in seven weeks.”
Michigan built the lead to 34-17 late in the third quarter. The Stallions responded like an organization that is accustomed to winning championships. Corral and Davion Davis hooked up on a 3-yard touchdown pass to trim the deficit to 34-23 with 14:19 left in the game. The Stallions defense then forced a turnover on the first snap of the ensuing possession when cornerback Steven Gilmore knocked the ball loose from a Michigan receiver. Shyheim Carter recovered the football at the 21-yard line. Three plays later, Corral and Thomas connected on a 3-yard scoring pass and the Stallions trailed 34-29 with 13:10 left.
“It was exciting there for a minute and then we just couldn't get off the field on defense,” Holtz said.
Michigan scored the final 10 points of the game and any chance of countering ended with an interception and lost fumble by Corral. Michigan advanced to the championship game against the DC Defenders.
“We lost to a better team today,” Holtz said. “They were the better team. They did a better job of protecting the ball. We were sloppy. We just did not play with a lot of consistency, which was my biggest concern coming into this game because you don't have any stability.”