This Podcast Is... Uncalled For - Unofficial Fan Lounge - UFL 2025 Season Week 6

Episode Date: May 1, 2025

We are at the halfway point of the season.  In addition to looking forward to Week 5, we look at power rankings, attendance, and how good (or bad) Mike's picks have been. Week 5 Results: Memphis 24, Birmingham 20 St. Louis 32, Michigan 27 DC 37, Arlington 33 Houston 27, San Antonio 3 Week 6 Friday, May 2 - Arlington at St. Louis Saturday, May 3 - Memphis at Houston Sunday, May 4 - DC at Michigan Sunday, May 4 - San Antonio at Birmingham

Now welcome to the unofficial fan lounge, the unofficial fan lounge. Special fan podcasts of the United Football League right here on the feed of this podcast. It's not called for. I am Mike Chenevsky. I will be your host for today. And we will start going over the scores from week five of the United Football League in the 2025 season. We're halfway there.

So we'll start with the Friday night game. Huge upsets. Memphis 24 Birmingham 20 in Birmingham in front of

9,1217 fans this game actually went overtime which I think is the first time that has happened in

UFL history so a good job out of the showboats that's their first win So Memphis improves to 1 and 4 Birmingham 3 and 2 So already this year's Birmingham Seam is worse than last year's 9-1 Then on to the Saturday day game Michigan at St. Louis

And you better believe we're hoping for some revenge And we got it Battle Hawks 32 Panthers 27. Attendance at the dome, 30,406. So, excellent nights for attendance. The Panthers are now 3 and 2, and the battlehawks are 3 and 2. And while I'm on the subject of this game, what is it with Detroit's Teams, specifically, and getting at it with fans. After the game, there was video of Samson Nakua with the Panthers, slapping a Balhawk fan in the face. Dude, not cool.

Hopefully he gets suspended for that, because under no circumstances, your player, be touching a fan especially in that manner and yes I know people say well Indiana started the mouse at the palace but that happened in Detroit

involved a Detroit sports team so yeah next up we have DC at Arlington played in front of

9,544 attendees. Final score, Defenders, 37. Ray Gade's 33. D.C. improves to 4 and 1, Arlington, 3 and 2. And then the last game, two bad teams this year. Houston at San Antonio, so home opener for the Brahmus. Good job. There, in front of 14,427 fans in San Antonio.

It did not go San Antonio's way, unfortunately. Roughnecks 27, Brahma's 3. So Houston improves to 2 and 3. Better than last year's record. San Antonio drops to 1 and 4. and we have reached the halfway mark of this season so let's go over some numbers

so we'll start with the current standings in the league starting with the XFL conference number one DC defenders at 4 and 1 number 2 Arlington Rangades 3 and 2 because one of those wins was over St. Louis

the battle hawks are third also at 3 and 2 and San Antonio Obama's last at 1 and 4 USFL Conference Birmingham Stalians have a win over Michigan

at NRA 3 and 2 so they are the number 1 there at Michigan also 3 and 2 are the number 2 position Houston with their win

this weekend improved two and three and our third in the conference and Memphis showboats at 1 or 4 are in 4th power rankings wise I always do my power rankings

is based on record first of foremost and then if there are a bunch of teams cluster together like there are here who be who if they hadn't played each other yet and there's an example of that later on

in our power rankings it's just gut feeling how have these teams performed so with that in minds number one of the power rankings is the DC Defenders at 4 and 1 best record in the league right now

2 through 5 these are your 4 teams at 3 and 2 so you have 5 teams in this league with winning records right now So it's based on who beat who. In this case, Birmingham beat both Arlington and Michigan. Arlington beat St. Louis, and St. Louis just beat Michigan.

So therefore, and the number two spots is the Birmingham Stallions. Number three, Arlington Renegades. Number four, St. Louis Battlehawks and number five, Michigan Panthers. number six Houston Roughnecks all on their own at two and three and then seven and eight both these are one of four teams

they have not played each other yet so we have to go subjectively and subjectively I'm going Memphis showboats seven San Antonio Brahma eight and I think because of the quality of the

losses Memphis has played a lot more close games this year than have the Brahma's I feel and also went through a couple of coaching both these teams went through a couple of coaching changes

in the games of Memphis they had Wisenhattan before the season started he takes the leave of absence Turner takes over Wisand comes back then besides for personal reasons he can't

he don't feel like coaching anymore so Turner is back. So that's got to be a bit of a whiplash effect for the show boat. So I will give them credits for you know

whether or not or playing some pretty close games in that time period. San Antonio Wade Phillips stepped down for health reasons. Party is the new coach. They're young guy

to that they just haven't to put it together and this clearly is the most disappointing team in the league right now because remember this was a team that made the championship game last year so

there are our power rankings now of course I've been doing picks through the third of the season and let's grade home doing my picks and these are only direct picks I directly say

X team is going to be beat Y team this week so how are we doing there well Arlington 1 and 0

Birmingham 2 and 2 so I obviously pick Birmingham to win more often than I've been picking Arlington and the one time I picked Arlington to win they have

one. So, D.C. 2 and 1. Houston, have not picked yet. I have not picked yet. Memphis, O. and 1. Michigan, 3 in 1, St. Louis. I picked every single week. And naturally, 3 and 2. And San Antonio, O. And 2. So, yeah, four of these last five weeks, I've gone two and two. Week two was the exception when I went three and one. So I got 11 of these picks, correct. So that's pretty good. And we'll see I do with that progress towards the end of the season, too.

Now, of course, we've got to talk about attendance. this league still has a long way to go but in certain areas they have definitely improved or at the very least leveled off but there are a couple places that could definitely see some improvements so for this one we'll go

8 to 1 so number 8 is Memphis they're averaging 4,000 563 fans a game over the course of two games. So I have three games coming up at home. So I've got to work on that. And my understanding is the league has made a concentrated effort to get attendance boosted in Memphis. It doesn't help that the team has been bad.

All right. Sam is true of number seven. Number seven is Houston. I think moving from Rice back to the University of Houston, probably a good thing. The Roughnecks have played two games at home so far, and they're averaging 6,869 in attendance. So they have three games to go at home. number six is Birmingham

they've played two games at Birmingham so two opportunities to see Jason Kelsey impersonators with their shirts off and they're averaging 9,627 so and they have

they have crossed the 10K threshold once but they've only played two games so Birmingham the defending champs do better and I have a family they will so we'll see there number five is Arlington four games so far played in the Pent Entry and they are averaging 9,714 I think they broke 10k once this year so they could use a little bit of improvements

and it definitely helps that they're playing good football too so one more game in the Penn Tentery for this season and of course three in Birmingham number four of this is

Michigan Michigan last year didn't do very well didn't do so hot with the tenants but this year massive turnaround they are now averaging 10,246 a game over the course of three games

so that's that's huge and that's good I have a feeling with Michigan because they shared their staying with the Detroit Lions and Detroit

signed their old kicker Jake Bates that at Mason of the Bates effect is trickling down back to the Panthers and that translates in they have a intense boost and it helps that the team's good.

So keep it up. They have two more dates in Detroit this year. Number three is D.C. They have played three games at Audi Field and they are averaging 12,624

over the coast of those three games. So two more times for the Bear Snake. this year and again coolest fan tradition in the entire league is DC's Beersnake

Number two even though they've only played one game at home so far number two is San Antonio with their single game attendance of 14,000427

they still have three more games remember San Antonio is only playing four games at home this year because of scheduling conflicts and St. Louis got the extra game. So San Antonio and San Luis, both those games are in St. Louis this year. And San Luis, no question, without question, is number one.

Three games so far, three more to go. And they are averaging 30,845. a game. All right. So, San Luis does more than double the next team down San Antonio.

Again, not entirely unexpected, but again, this is what happens NFL when you anger an entire fan base saying that they're bad football fans, they don't deserve a team. So,

F you, Stan Cronky. All right. All right, all that out of the way. Let's pick games for week six of the 22.5 UFL season. We will start with the Friday night's game on May 2. It'll be Arlington at St. Louis. Time for some revenge for a couple of weeks. go both teams

coming in the three and two I view this as a must win for St. Louis if we have any shot at getting to the championship game this is the game

to make that statement I'm really impressed with what Max Dugan did his first game as a starter in week five picking out, but probably improving on what Manny Wilkins had been doing all season. And of course, shout out to Hakeem Butler coming back from three weeks of injury.

He was completely ineffective week one. He's been on the injured reserve until just this week with a hamstring injury. And then coming back from that injury. he killed it this past week so with Dugan performing well and of course Jacob Sailor is one of the best players in the league

continue to go at it at Reimback I think I think we get revenge this week so Battle Hawks is my pick in this game I am going expect a much closer game this time around two so

so yeah let's go Balhawks Kaka's along the Saturday game showboats at Roughnecks I think this is going to be a close game but

I will pick Houston to just barely squeak out a win here I can easily be wrong on this because Memphis won both their games last year against Houston

as Clint and I've been the case this year and we'll see but just to be safe I'm picking the rough necks and then Quattro de Mayo got two games going on so the early game is DC at

Michigan Defenders coming in 4-1 and the Panthers are 3 and 2 and no bear snake allowed at this game

I would think but I will go and pick the defenders clearly the bear team right now with the two so so DC

Michigan and then the later game San Antonio at Birmingham the championship game rematch San Antonio clearly diminished from last year Birmingham not they're leading their conference but as good just not as good last year's team and it's going to be played in front of the Jason Kelsey impersonators in Birmingham so I'll go stallions over the Bronas and that's going to do it for this is going to do it for this the week six edition of our podcast we have a we had a bonus episode of Uncalled for last week. Check that out

on autism in the RFK Jr. We got a new one coming this week. It's recycled sunflower brew talking about barbecue and you don't want to miss that one. That will come out

on Friday. So until then we will talk soon. You know,