Two weeks into training camp, the Birmingham Stallions have a checklist of goals to complete in the two weeks before they open the second United Football League season.

The Stallions play the DC Defenders at 2 p.m. CDT March 30 at Audi Field in Washington to kick off the campaign.

Birmingham needs to get four things done by then, Stallions coach Skip Holtz said during his most recent press conference.

“I wanted to bring this team along as quick as I could as far as knowledge of offense, defense and special teams so we could start playing fast,” Holtz said. “One key about this league: You don’t want to be too complicated because you don’t want to go into Game 1 where your players aren’t 100 percent confident with what you’re doing. These 30 days, one has been a huge teach-point to try to bring them along.

“Two, we got to find out who are going to be our special-teams players. We got to find out who are going to be that dirty dozen group that are going to be our core special-teams guys. Right now, you’ve got, as I said, a very mature team, a team that they’re all asking to get on to special teams. But who are the guys that are paying attention to detail, doing the little things the right way that are going to play the major impact on your special teams?

“We want to develop a depth chart. We want to start to formulate who’s going to be one, two and three. But we can only do that once we teach them what to do so we can get a good evaluation on our football team.

“And the fourth thing that we wanted to be able to do was develop who are going to be the leaders, identify who are going to be the leaders of this football team. I think any really good football team that I’ve been on, you’ve got to have strong leadership and find out who are going to be those guys. Who are going to be the guys that are going to be vocal? Who are going to be the guys that this team respects? Who are the guys that are most committed, the most dialed-in, that are doing all the little things the right way that the team is going to listen to? Because you got a lot of guys that try and be leaders, but if the team doesn’t respect them, they can’t lead. And so I think it all starts with the guys that come in, they’re serious, they’re dialed-in, they’re asking questions, they’re focused, they’re paying attention in meetings. They’re the guys that are being vocal out on the practice field, encouraging. Not necessarily telling people, ‘Pick it up’ and yelling at people, but they’re being the encouraging voice. Those are the guys that people want to listen to. We got to identify not only the people trying to be leaders, but we got to identify who the team respects enough to be able to listen to.

“Those are the major four goals we had coming into camp, and I think those goals are still there and they will be and that’s how we’re going to push this thing along until a week from today when we’ve got to make some final cuts, and all four of those are going to go into it. Who has the knowledge of the offense and defense? We got to keep that guy; he’s too valuable. Or the special-teams players. We got to keep that guy from a depth-chart standpoint because he can play three different positions in the offense. You know, he can play center, guard or tackle. Who are the guys that can play multiple positions? We call them diamonds because they’re so valuable to your football team with the limited roster. Who are the guys that are going to be the leaders? And then we will make those final decisions, and that’s when we’ll find out if we met our goals. But before then, I want to give every player on this roster an equal opportunity to make this team and identify what he’s capable of doing.”

Birmingham lists 71 players on its training-camp roster. It will have to reduce that number to the regular-season limit of 50 this week.

The Stallions scrimmaged with the Arlington Renegades on Wednesday. But rather than producing roster clarity, the workout showed Holtz how hard the roster choices will be.

“What is really starting to show up is these are going to be some very difficult decisions for us,” Holtz said. “I think we have some really good football players that are really bought in, that are really handling themselves well. We’re going to have to make some hard decisions about which players are going to give us the best opportunity to try and go out and be successful in the field on Saturday. …

“You’ve got a lot of guys that are doing some really good things across the board. I thought the offensive-line room, I thought the scrimmage didn’t go to cleaning anything up. It just made it harder. Some of those guys are really good football players and really played well. I think the same thing when I look at the receivers and the tight ends. We’ve got a great nucleus of guys that have been here, but we also have a lot of new faces. I think the linebackers are going to make it hard.”

The training-camp players have a range of experience – from first-time pros to NFL veterans.

“The one thing we’re not able to do is we can’t go off everybody’s resume,” Holtz said about trimming the roster. “We can’t make our decisions just on who’s been in the most camps, who’s been in the NFL the longest. We got to look at through a 12-game season of staying healthy, who are the guys that give us the best chance to win? And really that’s ultimately what these decisions are going to come down to.

“But they’re going to be very difficult because, really, I think outside of every position other than secondary, I don’t know that we’ve really had anybody missing anything. Maybe one offensive lineman, but outside of that, I think everybody’s staying healthy and everybody’s getting better.”

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