The Birmingham Stallions were technically the road team this afternoon in a game against the New Orleans Breakers in week 7 of the USFL regular season, but you couldn’t tell from the large contingent of red and gold in the stands. The crowd was treated to a beautiful Saturday afternoon in the Magic City that culminated in the hometown Stallions getting a much needed victory over the Breakers 24-20.
“Where I was most proud today was the way our team played. I thought they played really smart football. We've talked about following a plan. I've talked about it here. I've talked about the big four, and how important they are. I thought this game was won being plus-one on the turnover battle and I thought it was won in the red zone. I mean where we were three out of four and they were one out of four. I think that was the difference in this football game right there”, said Stallions Head Coach Skip Holtz.
One of the offensive stars this afternoon for the Stallions was Mr. do-it-all running back C.J. Marable, who not only carried the ball 17 times for 87 yards, but also snatched six balls out of the backfield, after following the scouting report and expecting lots of zone coverage Saturday afternoon.
“We talked about that before we went out before the game. I knew I was one-on-one with the linebacker, just make a play, and I knew Alex (McGough) was going to throw it to me”, said Marable.
The game came down to a "Hail Mary" in the final seconds of the contest. When it comes to those last second situations, many coaches overthink the scenario. Using big wide receivers, or larger tight ends to play safety as a last line of defense. Not Holtz, he’s confident his back end in the secondary will get the job done. “We've got big, tall, lean defensive backs, we don't need to grab a big wide receiver, I think Brian Allen is as tall as anyone we have in our receiver corps, we got some length in our secondary so we let those guys take care of it”, said Holtz.
Up next for the Stallions will play host to the Philadelphia Stars, the same team they beat in Canton last season to win the USFL Championship. That game will be played inside of Protective Stadium on June 3rd, with kickoff set for 2:00pm.