After 6 weeks, both UFL conferences have ties at the top

May 5, 2025 by CollegeFootballPoll.com Staff

Week 6 of the 2025 UFL season in is in the books and it saw the home teams go 4-0 after away teams were 3-1 a week ago.

St. Louis saw attendance dip below 30,000 for the first time for its Friday night win over Arlington. But getting 26,684 fans to show up on a night when their Major League Baseball team, the Cardinals, and their NHL team, the Blues, were also home with the latter playing a playoff game. (NOTE: The Blues won 5-2 tie their series with Winnipeg at 3 games apiece with 18,096 selling out the Enterprise Center, but they lost 4-3 in double-overtime on Sunday in an elimination game. The Cardinals were 9-3 losers to the Mets in front of 27,966 at Busch).

There is a quite a battle for the top being waged in both conferences.

XFL Conference

We entered this past weekend with DC in sole possession of first place of the XFL Conference, but the Defenders were routed, 38-14, by Michigan at Ford Field in the early Sunday game in front of an announced crowd of 11,653. The loss came a week after DC rallied from a 15-point deficit 37-33 win at Arlington.

Now, the Defenders find themselves in a first-place tie with St. Louis with 4-2 records as the Battlehawks improved to 8-1 at home since the start of the UFL last season by adding a 12-6 win over Arlington on Friday night. The loss dropped the Renegades to 3-3 and in solo third place. San Antonio, which lost 25-0 to Birmingham in last season's championship game, fell to 1-5 with a 26-3 loss at the Stallions in Sunday's late game. The turnstile count in Birmingham was 9,627.

USFL Conference

Birmingham's win over the Brahmas, in tandem with Michigan's romp over DC, leaves the Stallions and Panthers still tied at the top of the USFL Conference with 4-2 marks. Meanwhile, Houston's victory in a 21-20 squeaker at home over Memphis keeps Houston in 3rd-place at 3-3 while the Showboats bring up the rear at 1-5.

Miscellaneous

Birmingham continues to find a way to win, even with the QB injuries to Alex McGough (shoulder) on the teams' first play of the season, and Matt Corral (hip) in week 4. McGough was a 7th-round draft pick of the Seattle Seahawks in 2018 out of Florida International (FIU) and he has also tried to latch-on to jobs with the Jacksonville Jaguars and Houston Texans.

Matt Corral, who played four seasons at Ole Miss and threw for 8,281 yards with 57 TD's and 21 INT's, was taken in the 2022 draft in the third round by Carolina where he suffered a lisfranc injury in his second preseason game. He missed the season, but returned to play in three preseason contests with the Panthers in 2023. In 2024, he saw limited action (threw 4 passes) in two preseason games with Minnesota.

Chase Cookus (Northern Arizona) made his second start on Sunday, but Skip Holtz also utilized Andrew Peasley (Utah State, Wyoming). Cookus was 16-of-23 passing for 166 yards and two touchdowns while adding 16 yards rushing. Peasley was 5-of-8 for 79 yards with 10 yards added on the ground. The 21 combined catches were made by ten different receivers with Cade Johnson leading the way with 5 for 61 yards, while Amari Rodgers and Jace Sternberger each had a scoring haul with Rodgers' covering 43 yards and Sternberger 5.

After the season concludes, keep an eye on the transaction wire at FanDuel.com to see how many UFL players get a tryout with an NFL club. In 2024, more than 250 out of 400 UFL players (60%) received NFL tryouts. Additionally, 78 UFL players signed contracts to attend 30 NFL team training camps, and 21 UFL players are now on NFL rosters.

San Antonio has scored just 71 points through six games while the Michigan offense leads the UFL with 156. The Brahmas have had to deal with the losses of offensive coordinator AJ Smith and head coach Wade Phillips. Smith stepped down after the team scored just 9 points in each of its first two games. Phillips, who was dealing with lingering health issues, left the team after week 3. Payton Pardee was first given the OC duties and then the head HC responsibilities. The 28-year-old was actually the acting head coach in the week 3 game vs. Michigan when the Brahmas scored 23 points, but lost 26-23.

Of course, DC lost head coach Reggie Barlow right before the start of the season (March 22) and QB coach Shannon Harris has been serving in an interim capacity. Barlow had been named head coach of the FCS football team at Tennessee State to replace Eddie George after the latter was hired as the HC at Bowling Green.

Jim Turner became the interim head coach for Memphis on March 24 after Ken Whisenhunt walked away on April 16. Turner had coached week 1 when Whisenhunt said he was temporarily stepping away and returned for weeks 2 and 3 before resigning "to take a break from football".

Here is the current list of all of the league's head coaches:

List is in alphabetical order by team city. The won-loss record in parenthesis includes the UFL and predecessor leagues, the XFL and USFL, if applicable. Won-loss records are combined regular season and playoffs

Arlington - Bob Stoops (14-19)
Birmingham - Skip Holtz (35-6)
DC - Shannon Harris, interim (4-2)
Houston - Curtis Johnson (9-18)
Memphis - Jim Turner (1-5)
Michigan - Mike Nolan (15-13)
St. Louis - Anthony Becht (18-9)
San Antonio - Payton Pardee (1-3)

UFL Standings

Legend:
SoS=Strength of Schedule
SoV=Strength of Victory
c=Clinched Conference
p=clinched playoff
e=Eliminated

XFL Conference	W	L	PCT	PF	PA	Home	Road	Conf	ConfPct.	Streak	SoS	SoV
DC Defenders	4	2	.667	131	133	2-1	2-1	2-1	.667	Lost 1	.472	.500
St. Louis Battlehawks	4	2	.667	131	105	3-1	1-1	2-2	.500	Won 2	.500	.458
Arlington Renegades	3	3	.500	122	92	3-1	0-2	2-2	.500	Lost 2	.556	.444
San Antonio Brahmas	1	5	.167	71	156	0-1	1-4	1-2	.333	Lost 2	.611	.667

 

USFL Conference	W	L	PCT	PF	PA	Home	Road	Conf	ConfPct.	Streak	SoS	SoV
Birmingham Stallions	4	2	.667	111	82	2-1	2-1	2-1	.667	Won 1	.444	.458
Michigan Panthers	4	2	.667	156	111	3-1	1-1	2-1	.667	Won 1	.417	.292
Houston Roughnecks	3	3	.500	97	105	1-2	2-1	2-1	.667	Won 2	.389	.167
Memphis Showboats	1	5	.167	94	129	0-2	1-3	1-4	.200	Lost 1	.611	.667

Week 6 Results

Home team BOLD, Attendance, venue and location in parenthesis.

Friday, May 2
St. Louis 12, Arlington 6 (26,684 at the Dome at America's Center, St. Louis)

Saturday, May 3
Houston 21, Memphis 20 (4,134 at TDECU Stadium, Houston))

Sunday, May 4
Michigan 38, DC 14 (11,653 at Ford Field, Detroit)
Birmingham 26, San Antonio 3 (9,627 at Protective Stadium at Birmingham)

Week 7 Games (all times eastern)

Friday, May 9 - DC at San Antonio | 8:00 PM | FOX
Saturday, May 10 - Michigan at Arlington | 1:00 PM | FOX
Sunday, May 11 - Houston at Birmingham | 12:00 PM | ABC
Sunday, May 11 - St. Louis at Memphis | 3:00 PM | ESPN