The Birmingham Stallions (3-1, 2-0) won their third straight game in a 23-16 victory on the road over the Houston Roughnecks (1-3, 1-1) on Saturday in a USFL Conference matchup. 

Birmingham got on the scoreboard first with a 48-yard field goal with 8:46 left in the opening period to put the Stallions up 3-0 and then Matt Corral added a 26-yard touchdown pass to Davion Davis with 14:52 left in the second quarter. Corral converted a two-point try to extend Birmingham’s lead to 11-0.

Houston broke the scoring drought with a 4-yard touchdown run with 9:41 left in the first half to cut the lead to 11-7 and then converted a 44-yard field goal to cut the lead to 11-10 with 1:24 remaining in the first half. The Stallions answered right back, however, as Corral heaved a 50-yard scoring pass to Deon Cain with just 1:09 left in the second quarter to extend the lead to 17-10 at halftime. 

With 3:10 left in the third quarter, Houston scored on an 11-yard run but failed on the PAT to cut Birmingham’s lead to 17-16. The fourth quarter was all Stallions, however. Harrison Mevis converted a 35-yard field goal and a 50-yard field goal to seal the 23-16 win. 

“It’s always great to win,” Stallions head coach Skip Holtz said. “We know that they are all going to be a dogfight, and we talk week in and week out about playing a 60-minute game. You can’t overlook your opponent, can’t look at just their record. Anybody can beat anybody in this league and Houston played extremely well tonight. They fought, and their quarterback did an excellent job coming in when their starter went down. Offensively, I felt that the first half went well. We were moving the ball a bit and making the routine plays, and that’s the main thing we have not done well this year. 

“Once the second half got here, it got a little hairy between reads, throws, turnovers, missed blocks and execution. We need to eliminate the bad plays and make the routine ones. Today, we showed flashes of what we could be, and I thought our team competed for all 60 minutes, and we found a way to win a football game on the road. We want to win one game a week and keep getting better.”

Birmingham’s Matt Corral had a big day, completing 14-of-25 passes for 195 yards, two touchdowns and one interception to go along with 52 yards on the ground. That day, though, came to a premature end in the fourth quarter when Corral went out with an injury. It’s unclear how serious Corral’s injury is but he is the second Stallion signal-caller to go down for Birmingham after starter Alex McGough went down with an injury on the first play of the season. Case Cookus replaced Corral and completed 1-of-2 passes for 36 yards. 

CJ Marable added 47 yards on 11 carries for Birmingham and Cain caught three passes for 69 yards and a touchdown, while Davion Davis caught two passes for 62 yards and a touchdown. 

Birmingham tallied 357 yards of offense and Houston managed 328 yards. The Birmingham defense also forced two turnovers and totaled eight tackles-for-loss. 

Kyahva Tezino led the Birmingham defense with 10 tackles and one tackle-for-loss, while Tae Crowder added nine tackles and AJ Thomas tallied seven tackles and one tackle-for-loss. JoJo Tillery recorded an interception and Carlos Davis also earned an interception. 

Birmingham returns home on Friday, April 25, to face the Memphis Showboats in another USFL Conference game at 7 p.m. on FOX.