Two former Alabama prep stars who played key roles for Birmingham’s 2022 USFL championship team are back with the Stallions after playing in only one game last season because of injuries.

In Birmingham’s 33-30 victory over the Philadelphia Stars in the USFL Championship Game on July 3, 2022, running back Bo Scarbrough had 135 yards and one touchdown on 13 rushing attempts and wide receiver Marlon Williams had 105 yards and one touchdown on seven receptions.

But Scarbrough’s knee injury and Williams’ Achilles injury sidelined the players after the Stallions’ first game of the 2023 campaign.

“One-day evaluation, they both looked good,” Birmingham coach Skip Holtz said on Wednesday from the Stallions’ training camp in Arlington, Texas. “But day in and day out, it’s probably going to be a little bit more telling on where they are for being able to be healthy for the duration and the course of the season.”

Williams played for McGill-Toolen’s AHSAA Class 7A championship team in 2015 and earned All-State recognition for the Mobile school in 2016. After a 1,000-yard receiving season for Central Florida in 2020, Williams went to training camp with the Houston Texans in 2021 but did not make the regular-season roster.

In 2022, Williams had 32 receptions for 474 yards and four touchdowns in the regular season, then had 11 receptions for 129 yards and one touchdown in the playoffs for the Stallions.

“I thought the way that he has looked here the first day in shorts, I couldn’t be more pleased with the progress he’s made,” Holtz said about Williams. “The way he’s coming right out of the gate, he never looks like he was injured. …

“Marlon, at this point, hasn’t even shown it. It’s going to be a test here over the next 10 days with how durable he can be over the long haul in holding up with it. But right now, Day 1, I thought he looked great.”

Scarbrough prepped at Northridge in Tuscaloosa before spending his final high school season at IMG Academy in Florida. After playing at Alabama, Scarbrough joined the Dallas Cowboys as a seventh-round selection in the 2018 NFL Draft. He also spent time on the rosters of the Jacksonville Jaguars, Seattle Seahawks, Detroit Lions and Las Vegas Raiders. In seven regular-season NFL games, Scarbrough ran for 408 yards and one touchdown on 95 carries.

Scarbrough joined the Stallions in the fifth game of the 2022 season and ran for 352 yards and one touchdown on 84 carries to finish 10th in the league in rushing despite playing in only six regular-season games. In Birmingham’s two postseason games, Scarbrough ran for 174 yards and one touchdown on 24 carries.

“Bo is still trying to recover a little bit from the knee,” Holtz said. “Bo has had a couple of surgeries on that knee. He ran around; he looked good yesterday. But right now, it’s probably going to be a process where I just don’t know how much he can go day in and day out.”

Even without Williams and Scarbrough, Birmingham went on to repeat as the USFL champion in 2023.

The Stallions held their first on-the-field workout on Tuesday in preparation for their 2024 season, which will be played in the United Football League. Since last season, four USFL teams and four XFL teams joined to form a new spring-football league – the UFL.

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Birmingham will play in the United Football League’s inaugural game when the Stallions take on the Arlington Renegades at noon CDT March 30 at Choctaw Stadium in Arlington, Texas. FOX will televise the game.

Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter at @AMarkG1.