If the Birmingham Stallions win the United Football League championship this year, will it be a three-peat?

The Stallions won the USFL titles in 2022 and 2023. But the USFL has merged with the XFL to form the UFL, taking four franchises from each spring-football league for the 2024 season.

Whatever its pursuit of a third straight championship is called, Birmingham will need to be a stronger team to win the United Football League crown because, Stallions coach Skip Holtz said, the merger is “going to make the product even better than it has been.”

“I think this is a step in the right direction in solidifying spring football where it’s here to stay,” Holtz said at Protective Stadium on Tuesday. “When we started this two years ago, there was not a spring league since the ‘80s that had gone past six games, and we all celebrated making it through our first season. Then we went through a second season and had it work through two seasons.

“Now I think with 16 teams going to eight, the product’s going to get better, it’s going to get stronger. I think there’s going to be even more interest with FOX, with ABC, with ESPN, with everybody involved, where before everybody was pulling the rope in a different direction. Now you’ve got all the television networks, everybody involved with it, have all come together and said, ‘Let’s pull this rope in the same direction and stop fighting each other,’ and I think you’re going to see it really take off from where it is today.”

But the merger process might have initially weakened what Birmingham had been building for 2024. Each surviving team was allowed to protect 42 players on its roster before two dispersal drafts. On Friday, each UFL team was allowed to choose up to 20 players from the rosters of the teams in its old league that were not moving to the UFL. On Monday, another draft will allow the eight teams to select from all available players not on a roster after that process.

“Right now, it’s kind of a moving target,” Holtz said when asked to access where the Stallions stand. “It’s really hard to say where we are. Some of the steps that have been required to put this together to go through the dispersal of four teams — we had a roster of 67 we had to cut down to 42, so we had to unprotect 25 players and put them out there, which was hard to do because they’re some really good players and people that have been part of two championships, and I felt like we were strengthened. The job (general manager) Zach Potter did in free agency in the offseason, we were really improving our roster and getting better. But then we had to cut to 42.”

Birmingham also lost players to the NFL after last season, including quarterback Alex McGough, the league MVP, and kicker Brandon Aubrey, who’s going to the Pro Bowl Games after his season with the Dallas Cowboys.

The Stallions still have two of their 2023 All-USFL selections – tight end Jace Sternberger and punter Colby Wadman.

In addition to Sternberger, Birmingham has 12 other position players on its roster who started the Stallions’ 28-12 victory over the Pittsburgh Maulers in the 2023 USFL Championship Game. That includes the offensive line – Darius Harper, O’Shea Dugas, Cohl Cabral, Derwin Gray and Matt Kaskey – along with running back CJ Marable and wide receiver Deon Cain. On defense, Birmingham has linemen Jordan Thompson, Willie Yarbary and Dondrea Tillman, linebacker Scooby Wright III and safety Kenny Robinson returning.

J’Mar Smith, the starting quarterback at the beginning of each of the past two seasons, is back from injury, as is former McGill-Toolen standout Marlon Williams, who was a key contributor in the 2022 championship campaign at wide receiver.

Birmingham made 11 picks during the first dispersal draft. Seven came on defense, including All-USFL linebacker Chris Orr from the New Jersey Generals. The Stallions also picked up All-USFL guard Calvin Ashley, who began his college career at Auburn.

The team the Stallions eventually assemble will take on the Arlington Renegades on March 30 in the UFL’s first game. Arlington won the XFL championship in 2023.

“There’s only two that get to open it — two champions,” Holtz said. “The USFL champion, the XFL champion get to open the season. I was hoping it was going to be here in Birmingham, sell this place out, see a fanny in every seat. But we are going to play that game in Arlington.

“But I think it’s going to be exciting. Not only is it going to be the kickoff of the merger, the UFL, but there’s also been a lot of debate and argument: What was the better league? ‘Well, I think the USFL was better.’ ‘I think the XFL was better. ‘We’re going to have an opportunity to go head-to-head to start this thing out and kick it off, and I’m really excited about it.”

The United Football League has adopted the XFL model of playing true home-and-away games. In the USFL, the Stallions played 10 games in Birmingham in 2022, when the league played is entire regular-season schedule in the Magic City. Last season, the Stallions played six games at Protective Stadium, as did the New Orleans Breakers.

“I think the thing that excites me the most is that they’re going to be eight cities around the country that are going to have the opportunity to host and support spring football, and Birmingham is one of them,” Holtz said. “That is encouraging for me. I know it was disappointing for eight teams – four out of each league – that we were not able to bring all 16 teams together. And I know for those eight that they’re probably disappointed. But, hopefully, if we can make this work, we can watch it continue to grow, and all eight of those will be back together again and we’ll continue to see this thing grow.”

The United Football League has the USFL franchises representing Birmingham, Houston, Memphis and Detroit and the XFL franchises representing Arlington, San Antonio, St. Louis and Washington.

The franchises that didn’t survive the merger were the Breakers, Generals, Pittsburgh Maulers and Philadelphia Stars in the USFL and the Houston Roughnecks (although the USFL Houston Gamblers have adopted the Roughnecks nickname in the UFL), Orlando Guardians, Seattle Sea Dragons and Vegas Vipers in the XFL.

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