This Podcast Is... Uncalled For - Unofficial Fan Lounge - UFL 2026 Week 2

Episode Date: April 1, 2026

Week 2 of the UFL season is upon us!  We look at the teams' new unis, go over some of the new rules for 2026 (No Tush Push allowed!), review Week 1 and preview Week 2 Week 1: Birmingham 15, Louisville 13 St. Louis 16, DC 10 Dallas 36, Houston 17 Orlando 23, Columbus 16 Week 2: Friday, April 3 - DC at Columbus Saturday, April 4 - Louisville at Orlando Sunday, April 5 - Birmingham at Houston TUESDAY, April 7 - St. Louis at Dallas

And welcome back to the unofficial fan lounge, the UFO fan podcast within the feed of this podcast. I'm called for my name is Mike Chernivsky, and I'm pleased to be back with you for week two of the 26 UFL season. And I come to a couple of things before we get to the scores for this week. And one of them is the new uniforms and my rankings for the uniforms. So we'll go on and starts with that. So number one, and this is coming from a St. Louis fan. Number one is Louisville. I think they're forest green.

and the forest green and all that works really well and along with the lime green for the numbers and that just looks like a solid uniform and they get my number one number two of course

I have to have St. Louis high not a whole lot of change to the uniform I like the addition of the Gateway Arch on the sleeves with the sword and wings logo on the sleeves. I do like the wings. Now, I'm not a fan of the

wings the last couple of seasons, but I am definitely a fan of these wings. Ideally, we'd like to see something closer to the 2020 XFL battle hog wings on the uni, but on a silver helmet, please. I do like the silver helmet.

with us so that's number two number three is DC true they got rid of the desert camo the urban camo rather on the helmets I'm fine with that just a solid white going along with their solid red looks pretty good I think so number three is going to be DC number four is going to be Houston I personally was a fan of their Texas theme as the roughnecks with the Texas flag motif on the helmet. But this new gambler look, first of all, thumbs up on the new logo for the gamblers. And I like the combination of black, red, and gold. I think it works here, so it'll be cool to see on the field.

number five is going to be Birmingham and with them they just swapped the helmet and jersey colors so now we have a red helmets which really does make that horse logo

pop I kind of like that but then they have gold unis instead of red but it's gold with the red lettering and everything

I'm fine with it, but if it ain't broke, and this is an example of, I probably want to have messed with it, but they did. So at least for one year, we'll have gold stallions. So, maybe it'll grow on me.

And everyone else. Number six is going to be Orlando. And they have the black unionies with orange and purple trim and

I don't know about that I don't know about that to be honest to be completely honest with you maybe it works, maybe it doesn't so so Orlando is going to be six seven is Columbus sky blue

helmet I'm sorry but I'm not a fan of sky blue I think it's god awful on a uni thankfully they went when navy Unis with sky blue lettering and

trimming some red in there but the helmets are sky blue and that is god awful and all that so unfortunately Columbus number seven number eight of course is Dallas

I was just talking about sky blue is a bad helmets color sky blue is just as bad on a jersey. Now to the credit, they're going with black helmets for 26.

So credit there, but can we there needs to be a ban on sky blue being a primary uni color. I was never a fan of the old Houston

Oiler Unis and despite being a baseball fan, I do not like Power Blues on baseball teams. And I'm talking to you, Kansas City Royals. So, yeah, Aides, Dallas. Now we can talk about some rule changes that are happening this year.

By the time you're hearing this, you've always seen one week of this, and we'll hopefully have our opinions about that. But here are some rules for 2026. starting with field goals. So normally, field goals three points. If the kicker hits a field goal

of 60 yards or more, then it's going to be worth four points. So that's pretty cool. Start a difference. Feet in bounds, when you catch the football, they are adopting the college rule, which is you only need one foot in bounds in the NFL you need two feet

in bounds for the catch to be legal. And red zone penalties, I'll go and read this verbatim from the UFO website, theufl.com. The UFL will re-institute the rule half the distance of the goal

for penalties committed in the red zone. So, the last 20 yards of the field for those unfamiliar with things. football and now we'll refer back to current's NFL rules the tush push is now banned in the uh ufell for those unfamiliar the tush push is uh a quarterback sink with a little more uh force to it's the quarterback and he takes the ball on normally with a quarterback scene the quarterback takes

the ball and runs with it's just head on everything with a tush push it's the same thing But he's got guys behind him pushing it. It's push. This particular variety of the quarterback scene was popularized by recent Philadelphia Eagles teams, nobly with Jason Kelsey as their center. And he claims that when Philly ran it, it worked 92% of the time. That's why fans in the new Heights podcast are called 92 percenters. So that is now banned in the UFL, so you will not be seeing that play this year.

Punting. There's no punting within the 50-yard line, so once the team crosses midfield, no punting allowed. All right. So now if the ball is on the 50, they can punt. But once the ball is made ready for playing inside the 50, they can't punt. Even if a subsequent penalty or loss of yards moves the ball back. So let's say it crosses midfield. And there's a false start on the next play and gets pushed back at that point.

They cannot punt. And they change overtime rules. So overtime, you know, teams will alternate attempts from the five. If after three attempts for each team, the tie has not been broken, teams will alternate attempts until there's a winner. Home team will have the choice to go on offense or defense first, and a coin flip will be implemented in lieu of, home team choice.

So three attempts to try to break the score. PATs, so the first two seasons of the league, they went with a after round play, either from the two for one points, from the five for two points, or from the ten for three points. So that's your structure still exists, but they've changed it up.

teams will have three scrimmage play options to elect their point after touchdown attempt plus a new one-point kick option see see yeah before this year you couldn't kick for extra points so now you can so one points kick a kick it from 33 yards two points ball place at the two so what used to be a one point play is now two point play and then the three point conversion is now placed at the 8-yard line. Coin toss, standard coin toss before started playing overtime. Okay.

Then new kickoff rules, so they'll kickoff from the 30. The kickoff team, everyone except the kicker lines up at their opponent's 45. Previously had been the 40.

and and the receiving team will line up at that 40 so it just been moved so the lines lines have been moved up field

a bit so landing zone will be the receivers 20 to the goal line the ball must reach the landing zone or will be spotted at the 40 out of bounds

while the ball travels out of bounds they will be spotted automatically at the 40 and the touchback spots there will be two touchback spots the 40 yard line for balls kicked into the end zone and the 20

for balls that hits the landing zone and then enter the end zone so so yeah that's all pretty cool everything. So we'll take a little break and then when we come back we will review week one of the 2026 UFL season and make our picks for week two.

And welcome back so week one of the UFL season is now in the books. So let's take a look. So we start with Birmingham at Louisville. Gallions 15, Kings 13. Let's see. For Birmingham, Mep Corral, 208 yards, one touchdown passing. Snoop Carter, Connor, rather. 16 rushes for 56 yards on touchdown.

And Jaden Mickens, nine catches, 103 yards. For Louisville, Jason Bean, led the team in both passing and rushing, so 226 yards, one touchdown, two interceptions, and need to work on that. And then five rushing attempts for 27 yards.

And then Lucky Jackson, six catches for 73 yards and a touchdown. And I'm going to take moments with each of these games because there

there are halftime performances of notes with each of the early each of the home openers and for for Louisville they opened with Russell Dickerson a country pop guy to perform their half time

14,000 34 showed up for this inaugural game for the Kings which is amazing is it's is practically sell out for that venue so good job at Louisville so we're going to have Louisville in the league but there is a incident that happened at halftime I guess the way this same set up they have the lounge next to the players tunnel and a few fans decided to boo and throw beverages on Birmingham players and one specific player took exception to that. A dude not cool.

Remember what happened Samson Nakua last year when he slapped a Balhawk fan. So not cool. So total yard at Birmingham 319 and Louisville 266. which is a stand, which is pretty good. So good job of the stallions and good job of AJ McCarran, first career coaching win for our old Q.P. Next up is the DC Bowhawks game, which I saw the first half of,

and it looks like DC was going to run with railway with it. But we came back. So, Battlehawks, 16, defenders, 10. Our stat leaders, we'll start with the Bathocks. Brandon Silvers is now our QB. 198 yards passing with one touch end. Jarvie and Howard's. Leading Russia, 11 attempts for 45 yards.

I remember this guy did Emeraldi Bill Spelling Jacob Saylars Who is now in the NFL For those wondered where he went And Gary James Jr. One catch for 64 yards

That was one of the key takeaways It took away from what I saw Was our guys weren't catching the ball And yet we finished with 198 passing yards At 236 for the 236 total yards for the game

DC had 153 total yards in the game so for DC Jordan Tayamu 123 yards, two picks and got sacked two and a half times by Pita Tomona Pena

Dionne Jackson led the defenders with 17 rushing attempts for 57 yards and touchdown and Seth Williams had three catches for 51 yards for DC. Our halftime entertainment was Nelly. It's getting hot in here. I don't think I need to go much further than that.

But we continue our domination in attendance. So 31,191. intendants at the dome on a so much cool Saturday and also with the Cardinals and Blues also playing that day so good job out of the bowhawks good job Ricky Prawl first head to coach win there so good deal now we go to Houston at Dallas Renegades

36 Gamblers 17 and this one was not even close as all Dallas the whole game through

and this is without Luis Perez starting so your leaders in this game Austin Reed

filling in that's quarterback for Dallas 376 yards three touchdowns. Lorenzo Lingard is early in Russia with Dallas, eight attempts for 36 yards, and Tyler Vons led the Ray Gates in the catches with seven catches, 144 yards, and a TD.

On the Houston side of things, they clearly got dominated this game, we'll get in the sec, but Hunter Deccan Decker's wound up filling in for Nolan Henderson at QB, because Henderson was playing like garbage. Decker's got 227 yards passing and also led the team in rushing with three rushes for 28 yards in CD. And John Trey Kirkland, he was with San Antonio last year. four catches for 60 yards total total yards this tells the whole story here

427 for Dallas 284 for the gamblers attendance was 8,870 which

which is not good which is not great the venue holds 20,000 but I have learned that they've got significant construction going on

which limits the capacity to 11,000 so in that context that this is fine and on a par with how the Ranguades did attendance wise the last couple of years.

Although, and their halftime performer was Ty Myers. I guess he classified as Southern Seoul, which is another word

for country. And then Sunday night was the other two new teams, Columbus and Orlando. That's it. I said the attendance all right for this 8,870.

So, doesn't sound good, but taking into context of all the construction I heard about, makes sense and still pretty decent. But the last game, of course, is Columbus at Orlando, so Storm 23, Aviators, 16. And not even close. So for Orlando, Jack Plummer, 240 yards, one TD passing. Deshawn Corbin is really in Russia. 15 attempts for 66 yards and two TDs.

And Elijah Badger, four catches for 127 yards for Orlando. For Columbus, you had Jayon McClendon, with a 12 passing yards Sequandre White is early in Russia with three three attempts for

48 yards on the touch end and Tay Martin leads the team seven catches for 86 yards yards wise is pretty similar

Orlando 356 Columbus 315 attendance at this game was 11,000 127, which is still pretty good. It's about the 10K average I would like to see with everyone that's not St. Louis.

And their halftime show was DJ Khaled. So there are two country guys and two rap guys, given halftime performances at these games. And of course, good job to Coach Beck. on his first one with Orlando. And I guess we'll find out soon what the viewership brains are like, but I like the trend of the attendance,

especially as opposed to last year when we had Memphis stinking up the joints. All right, for week two of the UFO season, happy Easter. by the way for those who celebrates we start with the

Friday nighter DC at Columbus someone has to win this game because they made it impossible for ties to happen in the UFL so both teams come in 0 and 1

someone's got to win DC that even though we beat them they are still the Defane champs so we edge towards the Defane champs and I will predict a DC win. Then we got Lovo playing Orlando.

This is on Saturday. And if, and Lovu played a close game against a really good Birmingham team. Can they do it two weeks in a row? We shall see. but I will get a slight edge to Orlando based on that week one result. Birmingham at Houston.

This is a Sunday night game. So happy Easter Sunday. They're going to start late and they will be on the NFL network, which recently got acquired by ESPN. So it is an ESPN property. is a um Birmingham a close win over

a Louisville and uh Houston of course got dominated by Dallas so um unless things change drastically this week I will go with the stallions to win this one and then and then here's something that you will never see in high school college or the NFL we have a Tuesday night game

to finish the weekend and that is St. Louis at Dallas and I'm inclined to say push here. Someone's got to win. Someone's got to lose and it's my team in there so I will actually play Homer and say the battle hucks walk out of there with their second win of the season

that said Dallas has beaten us before and and I am I would tread lightly just

just focus on getting stuff done and and just just don't turn the ball over and for the love of God receivers catch the ball all right

and we've got two home openers this coming week at Columbus and Houston and we already know who the performers are going to be for the halftime so for Columbus it's going to be Devin McGraw who is

another sole country guy and for Houston even though he's not seen as a Houstonian again I'm sensing the local Thai thing here but Houston

has a ludicris playing at a time so shout out to bellow Riley I'm gonna throw your curve you mad because I'm a thief got away with words I'm gonna saw my own beverage oh calling you in there's Pepsi is a new generation blowing out your ass I love I love a little Chris especially when he goes after Bill O'Reilly like that you got my head and something remind me I know a little man it was Bill O'Reilly but do it All right. So that will wrap it up for week two of the unofficial fan lounge for

2026. And we will be back for week three. Recap a little bit of week two and we will preview week three as it's as it so happens.

So thank y'all for listening. We'll talk again very soon.