The Birmingham Stallions won the USFL championships for the 2022 and 2023 seasons with John Chavis as the defensive coordinator. And they’ve played most of their first campaign in the United Football League with him calling the defensive signals.

But Birmingham has played its past two games without Chavis on the sidelines and is preparing for its regular-season finale and the UFL playoffs without his involvement.

“Nobody wants to change coordinators seven games into a season,” Stallions coach Skip Holtz said. “That’s like changing your coordinator three-fourths of the way down the hill on the roller coaster. It’s a difficult process when it’s moving. It’s been difficult on our players. It’s been difficult on our coaches. And you look at it and say, ‘You know what? What we’ve got to do, we’ve got to find a way.’ This is what we got. This is the hand we’re dealt. We’ve got to find a way to make it work. I have total confidence in Corey Chamblin and what he’s doing.”

The secondary coach, Chamblin has moved into the defensive-coordinator role for the Stallions. Birmingham beat the Houston Roughnecks 35-28 on May 18, yielding its most points of the season in the Stallions’ first game with Chavis. Birmingham suffered its first loss of the season to the San Antonio Brahmas 18-9 on Saturday.

“Nobody likes what we’re going through,” Holtz said. “Two weeks ago when John was going through a medical issue and he missed a game, we tried to put Band-aids on it to get through. We were fortunate in the Houston game that we were able to score enough points to win. But you’re also coaching a coach down. You only have three coaches on defense and the role that coach Chamblin was playing when coach Chavis was calling the defense of echoing the calls to the secondary, getting the personnel groups in, getting different packages in on defense, there’s nobody there to take that role. This isn’t like college where some of these staffs have 80 guys on staff. We got four coaches. There are no GAs. There are no volunteer assistants. You have four coaches, and when you’re down one, it was significant. I think we all were just putting our fingers in the holes in the dam to try to keep it together.

“And then we came back and John was back with us on that Tuesday and Wednesday after he was released, doing better, and then just felt like he needed to be at home, so we went into our second game with three coaches. I applaud (defensive-line coach) Bill Johnson, (former secondary assistant and now linebackers coach) Daric Riley, Corey Chamblin for the job that they’ve done in trying to keep it together.”

Birmingham has added a coach to the defensive staff this week, and like Chamblin, Anthony Blevins has roots in the area.

Chamblin is a former Ensley High School standout whose coaching career has included guiding the Saskatchewan Roughriders to the Grey Cup in 2013.

Blevins played at Pleasant Grove High School and UAB as well as for the Mobile Admirals of the Regional Football League, Birmingham Steeldogs of af2 and Birmingham Thunderbolts of the original XFL. His coaching stops include a season at UAB and 10 seasons in the NFL.

“He just fit the bill,” Holtz said about Blevins on Tuesday. “He lives here in Dallas. I talked to him last week when coach Chavis missed the game in the hospital. I talked to him at that time because I didn’t know what was going to happen, and then John came back and we thought it was all going to work. We didn’t pull the trigger then, and so we brought him in here yesterday. And so he has just joined us. I think he’s a man of character, a man of knowledge, a man of experience. I think he’s a great coach. I think he’s going to add an awful lot to what we’re trying to do.

“But I think the biggest challenge there is him being able to learn the terminology in such a short time period. He’s got like five days, and then it’s go. It’s game day. But what he can do is certainly help with a lot of the logistical things that go on on game day. And so excited to add him to this team, this staff.”

The Stallions close their regular season against the Michigan Panthers at 1 p.m. CDT Saturday at Protective Stadium in Birmingham. ESPN will televise the game.

The Stallions and Panthers will square off again at 2 p.m. June 8 at Protective Stadium in the championship game for the USFL Conference. The winner will advance to the United Football League Championship Game at 4 p.m. June 16 at the Dome at America’s Center in St. Louis.

“I think everybody’s on much more solid foundation at the beginning of the week,” Holtz said. “There aren’t as many unknowns. It’s been a distraction for me trying to find out what’s going to happen on defense. It’s been a distraction trying to find a replacement. It’s been a distraction in a lot of ways. But you know what? You got to pick up and you got to keep going. I say all the time we’re going to have adversity. When adversity hits, we could throw our arms up and say, ‘You know what? That’s too much. We can’t do it.’ But we’re going to find a way to do it. This is hand we’re dealt.”

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