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2025 UFL Energy Rankings: Stallions, Battlehawks headline preseason checklist

2025 UFL Energy Rankings: Stallions, Battlehawks headline preseason checklist

Sports The 2025 United Football League season is handsome all around the corner, and the 50-man rosters for all eight groups are now first price after the terminate of coaching camps all around the league. 

Your whole, finalized rosters for every squad can even moreover be stumbled on right here.

That acknowledged, or no longer it is time for my first power rankings of 2025 sooner than UFL Kickoff Weekend, which begins Friday on FOX.

[MORE: What is the UFL? Everything to know about the 2025 United Football League ]

8. Houston Roughnecks 2024 file: 1-9 (left out postseason)
Odds to obtain 2025 title: +1800

The addition of broken-down Oregon and Boston College quarterback Anthony Brown brings slightly of pedigree to head coach Curtis Johnson’s Roughnecks, who’re hunting for simply their 2nd obtain since the formation of the UFL. Small doubt that can mean getting on the identical page with Houston’s most productive offensive weapon in Justin Hall, who done third in the league in receptions (56) and receiving yards (603) despite having simply three receiving touchdowns underneath his belt. 

The Roughnecks will deserve to search out varied ways to switch the ball after ranking 2nd to last in the league in rushing yards and offensive efficiency in 2024.

7. DC Defenders 2024 file: 4-6 (left out postseason)
Odds to obtain 2025 title: +600

In spite of leading the league in passing and starting up all 10 video games, quarterback Jordan Ta’amu and the Defenders couldn’t muster a file above .500 last season. There’s hope that the Defenders would possibly perchance perhaps explore more continuity in their speed game this season, as they continue to earn outstanding play out of 2024 All-UFL returner and wideout Chris Rowland, who caught 20 passes for 262 yards with three rankings.

On the opposite hand, broken-down Defenders head coach Reggie Barlow’s decision to wander away the UFL to return to coaching HBCU football at Tennessee Disclose — where Eddie George, who has since change into head coach at Bowling Green, was once on the helm last — one week before DC’s first game against defending UFL champion Birmingham is a setback. The Defenders, led by newly minted head coach Shannon Harris, will enter an abilities with simply their 2nd head coach since the XFL returned to spring football in 2023.

[MORE: Who’s coaching the UFL this season? See the complete staffs for all eight teams ]

6. Memphis Showboats 2024 file: 2-8 (left out postseason)
Odds to obtain 2025 title: +1400

Memphis enters this season with its fourth head coach in three years, with intervening time head coach Jim Turner stepping in for broken-down NFL head coach Ken Whisenhunt, who is for the time being taking a wander away of absence for non-public reasons. 

The Showboats will behold against broken-down Brown superstar E.J. Perry as neatly as UFL light Troy Williams to handbook them at quarterback. At Brown, Perry was once a 2021 finalist for the Walter Payton Award, given to the nation’s most productive FCS participant, after passing for bigger than 3,000 yards and setting the one-season file for whole offense by a Hold.

The Showboats are also headlined by the return of wideout Daewood Davis, who led the franchise in catches (41), yards receiving (446) and receiving touchdowns (5) last year.

5. Arlington Renegades 2024 file: 3-7 (left out postseason)
Odds to obtain 2025 title: +1100

The Renegades’ 2024 season was once a let-down in comparability to the year prior, once they won the 2023 XFL Championship Sport. This season, head coach Bob Stoops will hope to return Arlington to its championship glory with quarterback Luis Perez again for the third consecutive season. Along with Perez, tight discontinue Sal Canella and wideout Tyler Vaughns return after combining for 98 catches, 998 receiving yards and 9 touchdowns last season.

The Renegades were outstanding at taking the ball away last season — leading the league with 16 — and taking care of the ball, ending with the fewest giveaways (9). The pieces are there to make a speed. Finally, the Renegades scored one of the substances of any crew in a single game (47) last season and done 2nd in whole offense, in the again of most productive Holtz’s Stallions.

[MORE: 2025 UFL schedule: Dates, times, when does the regular season start? ]

4. San Antonio Brahmas 2024 file: 7-3 (made postseason)

After having to play just a few quarterbacks as a result of hurt in 2024 and silent a hit the XFL Convention title, Brahmas head coach Wade Phillips tabbed a brand new starter at quarterback in broken-down Texas A&M superstar Kellen Mond.

In spite of boasting one in all the league’s most productive defenses last season, the offensive ineptness in San Antonio led to a 25-0 shutout loss in the 2024 UFL Championship Sport. Mond would possibly perchance perhaps offer an antidote. He’s one in all simply three quarterbacks in SEC history — alongside broken-down Mississippi Disclose superstar Dak Prescott and Heisman winner Tim Tebow — to pass for 9,000-plus yards and roam for bigger than 1,500.

3. Michigan Panthers 2024 file: 7-3 (made postseason)
Odds to obtain 2025 title: +650

Mike Nolan’s Panthers will another time be anchored by skill gamers with a healthy dose of a succesful quarterback.

All-UFL safety Kai Nacua, 2024 UFL Defensive Participant of the Year Breeland Speaks and 2023 USFL Defensive Participant of the Year Frank Ginda return to handbook what has beforehand been a stingy Panthers defense. Speaks led the UFL in sacks (9.5) and tackles for loss (13.5) in 10 accepted-season video games last year, whereas Nacua led the league in pass breakups (11) and was once tied for one of the interceptions (three).

On the quite a few hand, All-UFL kicker Jake Bates does no longer return. The NFL’s Detroit Lions signed Bates to a two-year deal last summer season after he kicked just a few 60-plus-yard self-discipline targets — including one from 64 — last season. 

Aged Clemson kicker B.T. Potter made the last roster and expects to provide a bonus in Michigan’s kicking game. Quarterback Danny Etling returns in 2025 after splitting responsibilities with Perry in 2024.

2. St. Louis Battlehawks 2024 file: 7-3 (made postseason)
Odds to obtain 2025 title: +375

The Battlehawks won’t lack abilities at quarterback this year despite the absence of broken-down starter AJ McCarron. The addition of broken-down Hawaii and San Jose Disclose superstar Chevan Cordeiro and broken-down TCU standout Max Duggan to a QB room that functions returning signal-caller Manny Wilkins kinds one in all the good all-around QB corps in the league.

Duggan led TCU to a national title appearance in 2022 after leading the Horned Frogs previous Jim Harbaugh’s Michigan squad in the 2022 Fiesta Bowl. Cordeiro led the Mountain West in passing yards (3,251) and passing touchdowns (23) in 2022. 

They’ll all beget the advantage of fiddling with the league’s most prolific running again in Jacob Saylors, who rushed for 461 yards (4.9 yards per carry) last season, and 6-foot-6 large receiver Hakeem Butler, who led the UFL in receiving yards (652).

1. Birmingham Stallions 2024 file: 9-1 (won championship)
Odds to obtain 2025 title: +225 

Birmingham head coach Skip Holtz won simply two convention championships and 5 division titles in 22 college football seasons. In only four years in the consultants, on the different hand, he has won four league championships and four division titles — and he’s the good man to obtain two championships in the broken-down USFL or XFL. Holtz will likely be the good coach with an MVP in every league after Adrian Martinez won the award in the UFL’s inaugural season (2024). 

The good franchise in spring football is Holtz’s Stallions, and this year he’ll be reunited with 2023 USFL MVP and two-time USFL champion quarterback Alex McGough, who beforehand played underneath him for 2 seasons (2022-23).

RJ Younger is a national college football creator and analyst for FOX Sports activities and the host of the podcast ” The Number One College Football Show. ” Follow him on Twitter at  @RJ_Young and  subscribe to “The RJ Young Show” on YouTube .

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