Auburn football fans celebrate Birmingham Stallions USFL championship win

The Birmingham Stallions winning the USFL Championship Sunday night following a 33-30 win over the Philadelphia Stars was a win for the entire state of Alabama — Auburn football fans included. As one of the most passionate fanbases for their own teams, Tiger fans have been known to allow that passion to enter the sports realm when a local franchise goes all the way.

With the conclusion of the newest iteration of a spring league to take advantage of the football-less void that the spring and summer are, Birmingham has successfully hosted a launch season for the league–the city hosted all eight teams at Protective Stadium during the 10-game regular season–that was good enough to keep around. The USFL will be back in 2023 on NBC, Fox, USA Network, and Peacock for the Stallions to run it back.

Skip Holtz, who most recently coached Louisiana Tech for eight years, was the winning coach. It was his first time coaching at the pro level. J’Mar Smith, his QB in Ruston, led the team to a first-half lead before being replaced by Alex McGough following a foot injury. Christian McFarland clinched the win with an interception in the final minute, but Scooby Wright’s pick-six, that put the Stallions up 33-23, turned out to be the game-winning score.

Auburn football fans reveled in the championship glory of the first Birmingham Stallions USFL championship in history:

Fly War Eagle suggests celebrating–preferably without fireworks for all the dogs on the Plains’ sake–but avoiding rolling the trees at Toomer’s Corner to avoid any bad karma that doing so for the Atlanta Braves’ 2021 World Series win might have caused.