Pittsburgh Maulers season preview for 2022 USFL reboot
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After waiting almost four decades, Pittsburgh on Sunday will have a professional football team to cheer on in the spring.
The Maulers open play in a new incarnation of the USFL at 8 p.m. against the Tampa Bay Bandits on FS1. Like all USFL regular-season games in 2022, the game will be played in Birmingham, Ala.
In 1984, a team called the Maulers played at Three Rivers Stadium for a league known as the USFL that lasted three seasons. This reboot features similar logos, but the Maulers are hoping for better results. Those ’84 Maulers went 3-15.
These Maulers play a 10-game schedule, and their opener features a pair of head coaches who were colleagues on the Pittsburgh Steelers staff: the Maulers’ Kirby Wilson and the Bandits’ Todd Haley.
A conversation with Wilson this week revealed who he projects as some of the Maulers’ top players.
Quarterback
Kyle Lauletta was the first draft pick of these Maulers, but he and Josh Love remained locked in a competition for the starting job deep into the final week of preseason camp.
“We view both as starters,” Wilson said.
The career passing leader at FCS Richmond, the 6-foot-3, 222-pound Lauletta was a fourth-round pick of the New York Giants in 2018 and was property of six teams over the past four seasons, most recently the Cleveland Browns. Love (6-2, 205), the 2019 Mountain West Offensive Player of the Year at San Jose State, spent time with three NFL teams.
Wilson indicated both quarterbacks would play in the opener.
Running backs/tight ends
The offensive captain, running back Garrett Groshek, had more than 1,200 career rushing yards and 600 receiving yards at Wisconsin.
“The greatest compliment you can ever give a player as a coach is, ‘I trust you,’ ” Wilson said. “And we trust Garrett.”
The Maulers have more than 500 pounds of tight ends in Hunter Thedford (6-6, 260) and Matt Seybert (6-4, 250).
“They love to run block, they’re massive guys and we’re really happy with their leadership and their attitudes,” Wilson said.
Wide receivers
The Maulers’ biggest playmaker could end up being Jeff Thomas, a speedy 5-9 slot receiver and kick/punt returner who played at the University of Miami.
Former all-Mountain West receiver Bailey Gaither (93 catches, 1,537 yards his final 19 college games) was in the Greeen Bay Packers’ camp as an undrafted free agent last summer before an abrupt retirement. He’ll be joined in the outside receiver role by Delvon Hardaway.
Offensive line
Wilson predicts the Maulers will have the biggest offensive line in the USFL, perhaps not surprising in that he set out to build a team that thrives on physicality. Wilson refers to his guard duo of Vadal Alexander and John Dietzen as “studs.”
Alexander (6-5, 336) was a first-team SEC tackle as a senior at LSU and made nine starts for the Oakland Raiders in 2016-17. Dietzen (6-4, 312) was a four-year starter at Wisconsin despite sitting out the 2019 season because of injury.
Defensive line
The Maulers are big on the other side of the line, too, with another Wisconsin product — 341-pound Olive Sagapolu — manning the middle. (As a bonus: Wilson revealed Sagapolu is part of the goal-line offense as a fullback).
Wilson calls starting tackle Darrius Moragne, “a powerful and explosive inside guy that will be a force.”
But the player who is among the most elder of the Maulers’ elder statesman is 31-year-old Ethan Westbrooks, a veteran of 68 NFL games over the past eight years. Westbrooks was a regular part of the St.Louis/Los Angeles Rams’ rotation from 2015-18, including playing 24 snaps in the Super Bowl LIII loss to the New England Patriots.
Linebackers
A couple of players who were highly productive in college, E.J. Ejiya and Kyahva Tezino, are starters at inside linebacker. Tezino was honorable mention All-America for his 2019 season at San Diego State, and Ejiya was first-team Conference USA for North Texas in 2018.
“They’re vocal leaders who are smart,” Wilson said.
The nephew of former Indianapolis Colts head coach Chuck Pagano and a former standout at Michigan, Carlo Kemp, also is part of the mix on the second level of the Maulers’ defense from the edge.
Secondary
A local product who won a WPIAL championship with Central Catholic as a senior, Tre Tarpley, was elected as the Maulers’ defensive captain.
“A vote by his peers,” Wilson said of the native of Jefferson Hills, “that’s a sign of the respect they have for him.”
Tarpley and Bryce Torneden form a starting safety duo Wilson calls “the quarterbacks of the defense.”
Ajene Harris and Terrell Bonds are the Maulers’ top cornerbacks. Bonds appeared in four games for the Baltimore Ravens during the 2020 season, including one against the Steelers.