Skip Holtz, Mike Riley To Square Off In USFL Opener

Just over a month before the relaunch of the USFL, the league has announced that two teams with familiar coaches will kickoff the 2022 campaign. Longtime college coaches Skip Holtz and Mike Riley are slated to square off on the third weekend of April as Holtz's Birmingham Stallions host Riley's New Jersey Generals.

Fox, NBC and Peacock will all simulcast the opener, making the game the first sporting event to be broadcast on competing television networks since the first Super Bowl in 1966.

Birmingham's opening game assignment will likely involve slowing former Ohio State running back Mike Weber, who figures to sit atop the Generals' depth chart. Former Arizona standout linebacker, Scooby Wright, will be amongst the Stallions tasked with keeping Weber in check.

After those fireworks in Week One, things get even more interesting for Birmingham. The Stallions - Houston Gamblers game on April 23rd will be a rematch of sorts between Holtz and Gamblers coach Kevin Sumlin, the longtime Texas A&M coach.

In 2009, the coaches faced off against one another in the Conference USA Championship Game when both men were college head coaches. The result: Holtz' East Carolina team bested Sumlin's Houston team 38-32. The Stallions and Gamblers will meet once more in the USFL regular season in Week Nine.

Over the course of their 10-week regular season schedule, the Stallions will play each of the USFL's teams at least once, and square off with Houston, New Orleans and Tampa Bay twice.

All eight USFL teams will play their games in a single location -- Birmingham, Alabama. The playoffs will begin in late June, and the league's championship game will be held in Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium, next to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

 

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