The United Football League officially kicked off its second season, the 2025 season, on Friday night in Houston, where the Roughnecks were ridden over – roughly – by the St. Louis Battlehawks.
St. Louis was a rude guest, dealing Houston a 31-6 loss, which was also the largest margin of victory in the history of the Battlehawks’ franchise.
The rest of the UFL’s opening weekend is in front of us.
The Arlington Renegades open the season at home against the San Antonio Brahmas in just a short while, at 4 p.m. Eastern / 3 Central, on FOX. That’s at Choctaw Stadium in Arlington.
Those were teams on the opposite ends of the spectrum last year. Arlington struggled – mightily – in the win-loss column, even though the Renegades were competitive in every single game. San Antonio, on the other hand, seemed to escape a few tight games, and parlayed their way into the first-ever UFL Championship Game. They lost that game in June to the Birmingham Stallions.
And tomorrow (Sunday), ESPN has a doubleheader. The Memphis Showboats, at Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium (the Liberty Bowl), will host Michigan in the early game, a noon Eastern / 11 a.m. Central start, and the aforementioned defending champion Stallions journey to Washington, D. C.’s Audi Field, where they’ll face the D.C. Defenders.
The Defenders have had to reboot just a little bit after head coach Reggie Barlow left only recently to accept the head football coach’s position at Tennessee State University; they promoted quarterbacks coach Shannon Harris to the vacancy (Defenders’ Barlow leaves for Tennessee State; Harris new head coach | The Football Beat).
Back to Houston, where the Roughnecks had a difficult time stopping St. Louis; the Battlehawks set a new single-game rushing yardage record (273), and finished the game with 460 total yards, the second-highest single-game total in the brief history of the league (Birmingham had 466 last year in one of its games against Memphis).
The answer to the trivia question of who scored the league’s first touchdown in 2025? Well, that would be St. Louis running back Jacob Saylors, on a 4-yard run after teammate Qwynnterrio Cole snagged an interception on the Roughriders’ first pass of the game.
St. Louis would take an 18-0 lead into the half.
Houston’s only score came in the fourth quarter, a 5-yard pass caught by Justin Hall. The fourth-and-12 attempt (instead of the onside kick that the rest of football utilizes) failed, and St. Louis re-claimed the ball.
Up next for Houston: they’ll make the short trek to Arlington to meet the Renegades next Sunday, April 6, a noon Eastern / 11 a.m. Central kickoff on ABC. St. Louis also will play next Sunday, but they’ll be home, hosting San Antonio in a 6:30 p.m. Eastern / 5:30 Central kickoff on Fox Sports 1 (FS1).
