USFL sets all eight coaching staffs
For those keeping score at home, the revived USFL kicks off next month, giving us our fourth different spring football league in as many springs.
The spring of 2019 brought the Alliance of American Football, a heralded arrival -- bigger opening night ratings than the NBA! -- that didn't finish its inaugural season. The following year gave us the XFL 2.0; the pandemic shut it down before completing its first season, and the effort was abandoned shortly thereafter. Last spring we had the FCS, a one-time-only endeavor that was the first of the three to actually crown a spring football champion. The XFL returns for a second time next spring, but in the meantime the USFL 2.0 has a chance to stake its claim to spring football -- so long as it can finish its season.
The reincarnated USFL brought back all eight original teams, except all eight teams will play their regular season games at Birmingham's Protective Stadium (the new home of UAB in the fall). At playoff time, the scene shifts to Canton's Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium.
With kickoff less than a month away, the USFL has introduced all eight coaching staffs.
Birmingham Stallions
Houston Gamblers
Michigan Panthers
New Jersey Generals
New Orleans Breakers
Philadelphia Stars
Pittsburgh Maulers
Tampa Bay Bandits
Training camps open Monday, and the Generals and Stallions will kick off the season Saturday, April 16 at 7:30 p.m. ET on NBC and Fox, "making it the first scheduled sporting event to air on competing broadcast networks since Super Bowl I in 1967." The semifinals will be played June 25, with the title game on July 3.
As always, stay tuned to The Scoop for the latest.
