A sharp handicapping angle highlights this UFL matchup, with key betting edges pointing toward a strong home-side prediction.
Birmingham at St Louis
UFL Prediction and Pick
My how the mighty have fallen.
The Birmingham Stallions won the championship in 2022, 2023, and 2024 before falling short last season.
They started this season barely getting past Louisville by two points.
In week two they lost SU, to what might be the worst team in the league, the Houston Gamblers.
On Saturday, the Gamblers team that beat Birmingham SU lost to DC, 45-7.
They lost by 38 points.
Today, the Stallions face a Louisville team who beat that same DC squad 16-10.
And the books made Birmingham a -2′ Favorite??!!
A -2′ point Favorite to a St Louis team playing at home, the only UFL team that you could say has a true home field advantage??!!
I’d say that’s a Wrong Favorite, and Birmingham money has come in at one of our sponsors so you can get it at +3 right now.
Both teams are 1-1 but based on the Strength of Schedule angle St Louis clearly has a large edge.
Also in my favor, this is the third straight road game for the Stallions.
I give a slight edge to Birmingham on the offensive side of the ball, but a huge edge to St Louis on defense where they lead the league with just 240 yards PPG.
The Battle Hawks problems come from their rushing game. They’re at the bottom of the league at just 111 YPG.
Yes, that 111 is a concern, but there’s one standout feature that I took away from last week’s Stallion’s game against the Gamblers – Birmingham couldn’t stop the run.
Louisville entered their week two game against Birmingham after putting up just 46 rushing yards in game one. Against the Stallions they rushed for 173.
I expected Birmingham to make some halftime adjustments on defense, but in the second half the Gamblers continued to power rush up the middle with success.
Missed assignments and missed tackles allowed Houston to convert on seven of 15 third downs, almost 50%, while Birmingham managed to convert just one of five.
The Stallion’s inability to stop the run also allowed Houston to benefit from a huge edge in time of possession, 38 minutes to 22, which led to a tired Birmingham defense that was unable to prevent Houston from getting into range for a game-winning field goal as time ran out.
My play:
St Louis +3
Record: 3-3
Review: I lost my Friday night pick on Orlando -3.
They won by two.
It was my first experience with an OT game in the UFL and it was, in a word, weird.
Here’s how OT works.
Each team gets three possessions starting on their opponent’s 5-yard line.
They get one play, one chance, to score.
If they score, they get two points.
Here’s how bad both teams were on Friday night:
Orlando failed to score on all three of their possessions.
Louisville failed to score on all three of their possessions.
Pitiful, right?
But here’s where it gets really weird.
Orlando won the game by two points, but they did so without ever scoring.
After the first three possessions the game becomes sudden death, first team to score wins.
Orlando goes first.
Louisville gets called for pass interference in the end zone. Because they also had a defensive penalty during one of the first three OT possessions it became the King’s second OT penalty, which automatically awards two points to their opponent.
The Renegades won the game without scoring a single point in OT, in what has to be one of the stupidest rules in any sport.
Yes, I get it.
The league needs a rule to prevent teams from committing pass interferences to keep the other team from scoring.
But don’t just award points as if by magic, make a team earn them.
If there’s a penalty on the defense in OT move the ball to the one yard line instead of the five, because allowing a team to win without even scoring is just ridiculous.
Side note – It looks like relocating one of their franchises was the right move for the UFL.
The Louisville Kings had 14,000 fans in the stands on Friday night.
