With new coach, colors, location, Maulers return for 2nd USFL season
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Like the league that brings a spring alternative for football-starved fans, the Pittsburgh Maulers return for a second season this weekend.
The team wouldn’t mind all similarities to 2022 ending there, however.
The Maulers are coming off a season that was the worst in the eight-team USFL, a 1-9 finish in the upstart league’s return to play since the 1980s.
The Maulers switched coaches, team colors and playing locations. Could an improvement on the record be next?
That will be determined over the course of 10 weeks, beginning Sunday when the Maulers play the New Orleans Breakers in Birmingham, Ala. The game begins at 6:30 p.m. and will be televised by FS1.
Defensive back Arnold “Tre” Tarpley, a Central Catholic grad who returns for a second season with the Maulers, likes the approach of new coach Ray Horton.
“Coach gave us one rule,” Tarpley said earlier this week. “If it’s going to help us win, we need to do it.”
Horton, the former Steelers assistant and defensive coordinator for three other NFL teams, was hired in January to replace Kirby Wilson, another former Steelers assistant. Horton retained his son, Jarren, as defensive coordinator, bringing some continuity to the team.
The Maulers ditched the purple uniforms that were used in the franchise’s inaugural 1984 season and retained in 2022 in favor of the city’s traditional black-and-gold pattern. And after all eight franchises played games last season in Birmingham, the USFL branched out into four playing pods. The Maulers and New Jersey Generals will call Canton, Ohio, home for this season.
“We hope to get all of our teams into their home markets at some point,” said Daryl “Moose” Johnston, the former Dallas Cowboys running back who is the USFL’s vice president of operations. “It will always be on a basis of what is right for the league, and we’ll stick with that ‘walk, crawl, run’ mentality we used last year to make sure we’re doing it the right way.”
For his part, Horton would like to instill a sense of pride and competitiveness to the Maulers. He earned a Super Bowl ring as a player with the Dallas Cowboys and two as secondary coach with the Steelers.
“Every week is critical to get a win,” Horton said. “There’s no more importance to week one than there is to week 10, but you’ve got to start stacking them. It’s important because it’s the first opportunity.”
Horton is trying to bring a sense of accountability to the Maulers and said he has referenced the 1-9 record from 2022 just one time.
“I said, ‘Last year, we won one game.’ I said ‘We.’ I didn’t say ‘They,’” Horton told the league’s website. “It’s kind of a new beginning, and all we’re preaching is fundamentals and doing things right. Are we better? We think we are, but we’ll find out.”
Although the roster has experienced some turnover, some of the pieces on offense return. The team’s leading rushers from 2022 return: Madre London and Garrett Groshek. Also back is wide receiver Bailey Gaither, who led the Maulers with four touchdown catches.
At quarterback Horton is deciding whether to start James Morgan, a former fourth-round draft pick of the New York Jets, or Troy Williams, who played in college at Utah and brings limited experience from the Canadian Football League.
The biggest newcomer on defense is former Alabama linebacker Reuben Foster, who was a first-round pick of the San Francisco 49ers in 2018. His NFL career ended after two years because of domestic violence charges that later were dropped.
Horton was willing to give Foster a second chance and told the USFL website that the linebacker “has been a joy to be around.”
Tarpley, a Jefferson Hills native whose last college season was in 2017 at Vanderbilt, is among the experienced players returning on defense.
“I’m looking forward for the opportunity to go out and put my skills on showcase,” he said. “For me and my teammates, it’s a chance to show the world what the Maulers are here to do this season.”
Which is win, something that was elusive for the Maulers in 2022.