With Birmingham and Michigan tied 18-18 in the third quarter of a United Football League playoff game on Saturday, Stallions coach Skip Holtz replaced starting quarterback Adrian Martinez with Matt Corral.

Corral threw two touchdown passes in the fourth quarter as Birmingham beat the Panthers 31-18.

“It’s certainly nice to know you have two quarterbacks that are not only good enough to win with, but two quarterbacks you can win because of,” Holtz said on Tuesday.

The quarterback change in the semifinals did not portend one for the UFL Championship Game, which will match the Stallions and the San Antonio Brahmas at 4 p.m. CDT Sunday at the Dome at America’s Center in St. Louis. FOX will televise the game.

After being named the UFL Most Valuable Player for the 2024 season on Monday, Martinez will remain in the Birmingham lineup.

“Have not given it a lot of thought,” Holtz said when asked about the quarterback decision for Saturday. “Have not given it a lot of thought to say, ‘Oh, I’m going to make a change.’ I don’t feel like what we did Saturday was an earth-shattering move. I don’t think it was as earth-shattering as everybody else does because I’ve watched those guys every single day in practice and know what they’re both capable of, and they’re both capable of helping us win a football game.”

Corral started the first two games of the season, but the quarterbacks rotated in two-possession shifts (although in the Stallions’ 27-14 victory over the Arlington Renegades on March 30, Martinez sustained a leg injury that put Corral on the field the rest of the way).

In the third game of the season, Martinez got his chance to start and went the distance under center in a 33-14 victory over the Memphis Showboats. The next week, Corral got his opportunity to handle a full game, and Birmingham beat the D.C. Defenders 20-18 on April 20.

A week later, Martinez went all the way in a 32-9 victory over the Houston Roughnecks. After Martinez threw for three touchdowns and ran for two against Houston, he started the rest of the way and ran with the opportunity. Not only did Martinez pass for 1,759 yards and 15 touchdowns, he also led the UFL in rushing with 528 yards and three touchdowns on 54 carries during the regular season.

Before Saturday, Corral had not played since his Week 4 start against the Defenders.

“I’m not trying to make this a huge quarterback controversy,” Holtz said. “I made this comment earlier: I think we have depth at every position, and right now coming in I’m not looking, ‘Well, now I’m going to make the switch. Now, I’m going with Matt.’ Right now, we’ve gotten here with Adrian as our starting quarterback, and, right now, Adrian will be the quarterback. I don’t know what’s going to happen in the third, fourth series, but right now Adrian will be our quarterback.

“But I don’t hesitate to play two, just like I didn’t at the beginning of the season. And now that we are in these games that mean everything, I will not hesitate to play two with where we are now. I think having depth at quarterback, I’m willing to play both. And I think they both bring something special to our team, and if we need them both to win this game, I am certainly excited to play them both.”

This is the second straight season that a Birmingham quarterback has been the league MVP after not starting the season-opening game. Last year, Alex McGough won the USFL MVP Award after entering the lineup in the second quarter of the first game when starter J’Mar Smith sustained a dislocated finger.

In 2022, Smith threw about three times as many passes as McGough and had five more rushing attempts during the regular season. But in the Stallions’ 33-30 victory over the Philadelphia Stars in the USFL Championship Game on July 3, 2022, McGough threw a go-ahead touchdown pass with 3:09 to play after Smith left with a leg injury.

“A two-quarterback system worked with Alex and J’Mar, and we played them both quite a bit,” Holtz said. “And I played both of these guys quite a bit early in the season to get them both experience, and I said I’ve never been in a season where you didn’t need both quarterbacks.”

Holtz said the Stallions weren’t going to change their routine with one game to play.

“Adrian has been the starter, but both quarterbacks have rolled reps,” Holtz said. “Adrian has not gotten any more reps than Matt has during the week of practice. We do our team periods in six-play racks, and each guy gets three, so when we go through and do this, they get three for us and three for the other, so we have rolled them all year.

“These quarterbacks are here to be developed. Yeah, you want to play in the games, but I also think a lot of developing goes on in the daily reps you get at practice.”

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