Birmingham Stallions could clinch UFL playoff spot with fourth starting QB in 8 games
With the opportunity to clinch a spot in the United Football League playoffs, the Birmingham Stallions will start their fourth quarterback of 2025 in their eighth game of the season on Saturday.
But it won’t be a new quarterback, just one who made his most recent start for the Stallions on April 15, 2023.
J’Mar Smith will be back under center for Birmingham against the St. Louis Battlehawks.
The Stallions started the season with Alex McGough at quarterback. He got hurt in the second game and went to injured reserve. Matt Corral stepped in, but he got hurt in the fourth game and went to injured reserve. Case Cookus stepped in, but he had to leave Sunday’s game against the Houston Roughnecks.
Smith came in for the final three possessions, which produced two touchdowns and a kneel-down, as Birmingham beat Houston 33-25 in the biggest comeback in UFL history.
The Stallions also had Cook’s backup, Andrew Peasley, get hurt two weeks ago. Birmingham’s QB-injury epidemic caused Holtz to turn again to Smith, who played for the coach at Louisiana Tech before becoming the Stallions’ No. 1 quarterback in 2022. He held that status in 2023, too, until he dislocated a finger in the opening game.
Birmingham coach Skip Holtz said teaching a new quarterback the offensive playbook is like having the QB learn a new language. He knew Smith already spoke the lingo.
“I think J’Mar is pretty fluent now,” Holtz said. “I think he’s probably in like German 6 or something. He knows the terminology, so it’s been more of a polish than it has been starting over. …
“The reason that we brought him in here was because he could speak the language rather than having to start over. And there were some other quarterbacks out there that were very attractive, but none of them speak this language as fluently as J’Mar does. I think he’s done a great job of polishing some things up this week.”
Smith said he “stayed ready” and “never thought he was done with football” after it became apparent the Stallions didn’t have room for him as a player when training camp opened after he played strictly a reserve role in 2024.
“I give credit to my quarterback trainer in Birmingham, Demetric Price,” Smith said. “He has PEQA – Price Elite Quarterback Academy. I remember when I had the conversation with coach Holtz right before camp, I took like a couple days off from throwing, and then my trainer, he went out of town and came back, and he was like ‘We’re having a throwing session downtown.’ And we usually throw under the highway right by the BJCC in that little area. And I was like ‘I’m just going to go out here, have fun. Not overstress it, not overthink it. Just whatever the drill is, let’s do it and just have fun out here.’
“And I felt great, and I was like, ‘Nah, man, I’m not done.’ And we had a conversation, it was like, ‘Are you done?’ And I was like, ‘I don’t feel like it. I still feel like the gas tank is full, and I still have more energy left.’”
Smith hopes to bring that energy to the field on Sunday and get the Stallions’ “second-half engine” started in the first half.
Cookus and Peasley also made the trip to St. Louis after progressing during the week. While McGough came off injured reserve this week, he is not ready to play, Holtz said.
The Stallions and Battlehawks will square off at noon CDT Saturday at the Dome at America’s Center in St. Louis. FOX will televise the game.
Each team enters the game with a 5-2 record and tied for the lead in its conference.
“They are really stout at home,” Holtz said of the Battlehawks. “When you take a team with their talent level and give them the homefield advantage of the fan base that they have, the crowd noise playing in the dome, from a venue standpoint I think their players really feed off it. I feel like they are a different team at home than they are on the road. And so it’s going to pose a great challenge for us.”
Birmingham is tied with the Michigan Panthers for the top spot in the USFL Conference with three weekends remaining in the regular season. The top two teams in each conference advance to the playoffs. With the conference’s third-place team, the Roughnecks, at 3-4 and three games remaining on the Stallions’ regular-season schedule. Birmingham will clinch a playoff berth this weekend if it defeats the Battlehawks. The Stallions also would be in the postseason if Houston loses to the Panthers on Saturday.
“The ultimate goal is at hand, which is to try to make the playoffs,” Holtz said, “and that’s what we set off to do from the very beginning of the season. We knew that, especially with some of the injuries we’ve had, the ups and downs, it was going to be a hard season, but at the same time, the ultimate goal is get into the playoffs and continue to get better and see where we were at the end of the season.
“I think we played our best half of football last week in the second half of the Houston game, where I felt like as a football team we really kind of came together and played really well. Hopefully, we can start to see a complete game of all four quarters with that type of effort and that type of execution as a football team.”
Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on X at @AMarkG1.