Less than three months before its first game is to be played, the USFL has finalized its head coaching roster.
The league on Thursday announced Jeff Fisher as the head coach of the Michigan Panthers and Larry Fedora as the head coach of the New Orleans Breakers.
The full roster:
South Division
Birmingham Stallions -- Skip Holtz
New Orleans Breakers -- Larry Fedora
Houston Gamblers -- Kevin Sumlin
Tampa Bay Bandits -- Todd Haley
North Division
Michigan Panthers -- Jeff Fisher
New Jersey Generals -- Mike Riley
Philadelphia Stars -- Bart Andrus
Pittsburgh Maulers -- Kirby Wilson
Fisher's hiring gives the USFL three coaches with NFL head coaching experience, and seven of the league's coaches have been head men at either the NFL, FBS or CFL levels. (Wilson is the outlier.)
Fisher is the most famous and most accomplished of the head coaches, having taken the Tennessee Titans to within one yard of forcing overtime in a Super Bowl. He owns a 173-165-1 record as the head coach of the Titans and Rams organizations with six playoff appearances. (None of his final seven teams reached the playoffs or finished above .500).
Fisher has not worked full-time since his 2016 dismissal by the Los Angeles Rams, though he has been publicly interested in returning to football. He accepted an advisor role on Eddie George's Tennessee State staff for the 2021 season, and interviewed for the Montana State job that ultimately went to Brent Vigen.
Fedora claims a 79-62 record as the head coach at Southern Miss and North Carolina. His teams went 34-19 with a Conference USA title in four seasons in Hattiesburg, then posted a 45-43 mark at UNC. His 2015 team went 11-3 and reached the ACC Championship, UNC's only appearance in the league title game.
Let go by North Carolina in 2018, Fedora spent 2019 as an analyst at Texas and 2020 as the offensive coordinator at Baylor.
Though the league has exhumed the identities of the teams that played from 1983-85, all 43 games of the USFL 2.0 will be played at Birmingham's Protective Stadium.
As always, stay tuned to The Scoop for the latest.