The Birmingham Stallions need to win two games to capture their fourth consecutive league championship. Sunday's game is not one of them.
Birmingham will play the Memphis Showboats at 2 p.m. CDT Sunday at Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium in Memphis, Tennessee, in the final game of the United Football League's second regular season. FOX will televise the game.
No matter what happens against Memphis, the Stallions will play the Michigan Panthers in the USFL Conference Championship Game at 2 p.m. June 8 at Protective Stadium in Birmingham. The winner of that contest will play in the United Football League Championship Game on June 14.
"I know people want to talk about that there's not a lot to play for in this game because the die is cast for next week," Stallions coach Skip Holtz said on Friday. "We know we're going to play Michigan at home, and this game is kind of irrelevant. But to this football team, it's still a big deal. We set out to win the USFL division when we started the season. We wanted to try to win the USFL division and get into the playoffs, and once we get in the playoffs, we'll figure it out."
Birmingham and Michigan enter the final weekend of the regular season tied for the USFL Conference lead at 6-3. The Stallions swept the regular-season series with the Panthers, winning 21-12 on April 4 and 26-22 on May 24.
Michigan completes its regular-season schedule against the Houston Roughnecks at 2 p.m. Saturday at Ford Field in Detroit. Because Ford Field will not be available on June 8, the Panthers and Stallions will play in Birmingham in the postseason, even if Michigan wins the division this weekend.
A victory by the Stallions in Memphis would keep that from happening.
"We need to go out, we need to execute at a high level," Holtz said. "What we're trying to do is make sure that we are not just getting into the playoffs, but we are building momentum going into the playoffs."
Even so, Holtz said the Stallions are "going to get an opportunity to see a couple of new faces in this game" on Sunday.
That might include at quarterback, where new faces have become old hat for Birmingham in 2025, although J'Mar Smith will make his third start on Sunday.
"I want to see J'Mar continue to progress," Holtz said. "But I'd really like to see where (Andrew) Peasley is so I can see what I've got walking into the playoffs."
Peasley's only turn on the Stallions' quarterback carousel came in the second half of a 26-3 victory over the San Antonio Brahmas in Week 6, and he didn't make it to the end of the game.
Birmingham started the season with Alex McGough at quarterback. He got hurt on the first offensive snap of the second game. Matt Corral took over until he got hurt in the fourth quarter of the fourth game. Chase Cookus came in until he got hurt in the fourth quarter of the seventh game (with Peasley's cameo in that stretch).
The Stallions' original quarterback in the team's inaugural 2022 season but working at Dunkin' when the 2025 season started, Smith won the UFL Offensive Player of the Week Award for Week 9.
Holtz said "it has been really a mind-boggling adjustment when you go through playing five different quarterbacks."
"The frustrating part for me with the quarterbacks is we've never really had the opportunity to develop anybody," Holtz said. "... We don't have one guy that's had the opportunity to really grow and develop. It's like everybody is getting better in tiny increments. But we don't have that one guy that has had the opportunity to get all those reps and continue to develop, because football's not a game you can simulate. You have to play the game."
When Birmingham played Memphis on April 25, the Showboats won 24-20 in the first overtime game in UFL history. Memphis' only other victory this season also came in overtime - 24-22 against the San Antonio Brahmas on May 16.
"I think our football team is excited to go play this game and put a much better foot forward than we did the first time we played them," Holtz said. "... If we can make the routine play, we're a pretty good football team, and so that's a big emphasis this week. It's just trying to make the routine play. Do your job. Don't try and do too much. It isn't going to take a superhuman effort. It's going to take 11 guys pulling the rope in the same direction."