The UFL is back for its third season of spring football. You have to go back to the 1980’s when the original USFL lasted three seasons. We have had multiple spring leagues open up shop and then close the doors immediately since the original USFL folded because of Donal Trump. The USFL reboot lasted two seasons and could have gone further. The merger of the USFL and the XFL had to happen to keep spring football alive. The UFL added a new business investor in Mike Repole, who has taken over the business side of things in the league. His first goal was he wanted to have all his teams playing in smaller venues so the game looks better on television. In the bigger venues like huge college fields, for years the spring games looked like they had 5 people in attendance. Only St. Louis will play in a mammoth stadium because they know fans will fill up the former professional football stadium that was used by the Rams for years. Repole opens up three new markets: Louisville, Orlando, and Columbus. The league is not expanding yet so they will still feature 8 teams. Opening up three new markets means three old markets have to relocate. On the chopping block of relocation were Memphis, Michigan, and San Antonio. The Michigan move is a head-scratcher. The Panthers were in the top of the league in attendance and sold more tickets than the year prior. With Michigan out, I have to find another team to show my allegiance to. The league will have 6 new faces as the head coach positions. It will also bring Friday Night Lights games every week. We definitely had some roster roulette play out in the off-season. Every team does have familiar players on every roster. How the QB will play out in year 3 is always one of the biggest questions in these spring football leagues. We will roll out the first set of power rankings as we make an educated guess where each team will be before even playing a snap on the field. We may look like geniuses after week 1 plays out or idiots. Either way we will still throw our two cents into the fountain.

#1. DC DEFENDERS (Last season went 6-3 and defending champions)

The Defenders are the only team in the UFL that are coming back with the same head coach. Shannon Harris was thrown into the fire when the former Defender head coach Reggie Barlow took another job right before week 1 last season. Harris got the Defenders to post-season and they thrived. The Defenders roster is still pretty much intact from last year.

You know the beer snake will be slithering well at home games for the Defenders. The Defenders have one of the better quarterbacks in the UFL in Jordan Ta’amu, who has a ton of spring football experience and a championship to back it up.

#2. BIRMINGHAM STALLIONS (Last season went 7-3 and made the playoffs but lost in the first round.)

How will the Stallions play without their legendary head coach Skip Holtz? Holtz’s replacement is a solid hire by the Stallions in former NFL and XFL Quarterback AJ McCarron. He played two seasons with the St. Louis BattleHawks as their starting quarterback. He has ties to Birmingham playing his college ball at Alabama University. Skip walking away from spring football leaves McCarron with a very good roster starting with a defense that has been very good at forcing turnovers. They have a veteran spring quarterback in Matt Corral who has played with the Stallions the last few seasons and has the tools to thrive in this league.

The Stallions added a huge play-making running back in Anthony McFarland who is a former Brahma and Steeler from his NFL days. His ability to make catches out of the backfield will help Corral and that entire Stallions offense to take the next step into one of the best scoring units in the UFL.

#3. COLUMBUS AVIATORS (Last season as the Michigan Panthers they went 6-4 and went to the post-season, but lost to the Defenders in the UFL Championship)

The Columbus Aviators are one of three new cities in the UFL. The Aviators inherited the best team out of the three cities from last year that relocated. The Aviators went with a new head coach instead of retaining the Panthers old head coach in Mike Nolan, which is a mistake. Nolan was a solid leader for the Panthers. The Panthers new head coach is Ted Guinn, a former NFL wide receiver. Guinn has never been a head coach. This former Panthers team’s biggest loss is their starting QB Bryce Perkins who was MVP last year. He took his talents across the border to play in the CFL with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.

The Aviators will have a seasoned veteran spring QB in Jalen McClendon, who started a few games last year for the Houston Roughnecks and did well. Houston in the second half of last season made a push for the post-season and came up short. The Aviators will have a solid defense and have a talented back field with multiple solid running backs. This team should be in the mix all season long.

#4. ST.LOUIS BATTLEHAWKS (8-2 last season while making the playoffs to be eliminated in the first round.)

You know the BattleHawks will be one of the top teams this season. They have a new head coach as their old leader Anthony Becht is now coaching the Orlando Storm. His replacement was in-house as St.Louis is going with former NFL wide receiver Ricky Proehl as the new face of the franchise. The BattleHawks roster have lost some big names like running back Jacob Saylors who is living his best life in the NFL with the Lions. The BattleHawks at the QB position are going with a spring veteran in Brandon Silvers, who was a back up last year for St.Louis. Look for the offense to be designed as pass heavy rather than getting off the bus and running like last season was for the BattleHawks.

The BattleHawks have lost some pieces on the defensive side of the ball. However they still have those edge rushers that can cause plenty of havoc to the opponent’s offensive schemes. Travis Feeney and the defensive player of the year, Pita Taumoepenu, will be looking to be once again the leading sack artist in the UFL.

#5. DALLAS RENEGADES (5-5 last season)

The Renegades ditched the Arlington name and turned back to Dallas as their city representative. Bob Stoops is out as long time head coach of these Renegades. The Renegades hand over the headset to long time college and NFL coach Rick Neuheisel.

Ricky Neuheisel knows some things about spring football. He was undrafted out of college and played his first professional season of football in the USFL with the San Antonio Gunslingers back in 1984. He also was the head coach of the Arizona Hot Shots in the AAF (American Alliance Football League) back in 2019. The league ran out of money and could not finish the regular season. Neuheisel had the Hot Shots at 5-3 at the time. They were definitely one of the top teams in the league and would have made it to the post-season. The Renegades may have the best quarterback in the league in Luis Perez who is king of the spring fling over the last several years and multiple teams and leagues. Perez has found a home with the Renegades as he helped them win the entire league in the last year of the XFL. The Renegades have plenty of their roster returning for this season. However this team has lost so many close games at the very end of regulation the last two years. If Neuheisel could change that, then look for Dallas to be one of the top teams in the league.

#6. HOUSTON GAMBLERS (5-5 as the Roughnecks last season)

When the XFL and USFL merged, both leagues had a team from Houston. The league chose the Houston from the USFL but changed their name to the XFL nicknamed Roughnecks. This season Houston will be back to the Gamblers name from the old USFL days. Curtis Johnson was the head coach last year for the Roughnecks. He will move on as the franchise is going back to Houston native Kevin Sumlin, a long time college coach. In 2022 he was the head coach of the Gamblers in the USFL. So talk about circling the wagons. Last year Houston just missed the post-season. They beat two out of the 4 playoff teams from last year in the final weeks. Their veteran QB Jalen McClendon has moved on to the Columbus Aviators.

Could Tua Tagovailoa’s younger brother light up the UFL? At Maryland University, Taulia Tagovailoa had his own version of TUA TIME as he razzled and dazzled opponents in the Big Ten. The Gamblers also have Nolan Henderson who showed some promise last year in the Roughnecks uniform. QB play is the most important factor on the football field. Bad QB play will keep you down in the standings and the power rankings all season long. It will be interesting to see which QB Houston goes with.

#7. ORLANDO STORM (Last season as the San Antonio Brahmas they went 1-9.)

Orlando is one of the new cities in this season’s UFL. The Storm inherited a bad team from last year, the San Antonio Brahmas who had the worst defense in the UFL last year. If you are a new fan of the UFL and live in Orlando, you should feel optimistic because your team has one of the best coaches in the league in Anthony Becht. The last few years Becht was head coach of the St. Louis BattleHawks and he has led them to the post-season in almost every season which includes going back to the XFL days. To improve the defense from last season, Becht has a few guys he coached last year on this Storm team. They are former BattleHawks safety Nate Meadows along with linebacker Tavante Beckett.

The Storm have a law firm as their quarterback in Dorian Thompson-Robinson who played two seasons with the Browns in 2023 & ’24. Dorian’s NFL experience may payoff as he played in 15 NFL games. He won 1 start out of 4 behind center. His stats are not very good with 1 touchdown pass to 10 interceptions. He’s 26 years of age and we have to cut him some slack because he played for a bad Browns organization where QB play in jinxed. The back up is Jack Plummer, no relation to former NFL star QB Jake the Snake. He played his college football at Purdue and Louisville.

#8. LOUISVILLE KINGS (Last year as the Memphis Showboats they went 2-8.)

Louisville is one of the new cities in this season’s UFL. Unfortunately the Kings franchise inherited the Showboats from last season. The good news is the first year in Louisville is not the entire roster from last year’s Showboats team. The Kings will keep some of the players from last season that are roster-worthy.

The new city in the UFL has a new head coach, former NFL quarterback Chris Redman. The city of Louisville will remember Redman as he played his college ball there for the Cardinals. Redman played 8 years in the NFL basically for the Ravens and Falcons. He started 12 games and went 4-8 as a starter. He threw 21 touchdown passes to 14 interceptions in a total of 30 NFL games. He won a Superbowl with the Ravens. All the quarterbacks the Kings have are new to the UFL. Most likely, former Kansas Jayhawks starter Jason Bean will be QB 1 to start the season. Being a back up QB all those years in the NFL, Redman may get the best out of all his quarterbacks. The Kings in this league will have to earn their crowns.