Luis Perez and Birmingham Iron impress in shutout victory over Memphis
Luis Perez and Birmingham impress in shutout victory over Memphis
If you thought football season was over, you’d be wrong. The AAF or the Alliance of American Football, kicked off this weekend. One of the new franchises that impressed was the Birmingham Iron.
In their first game of the season, the Birmingham Iron shutout the Memphis Express 26-0. It was a totally and complete domination by the Iron.
The defense lead the way in the first half shutting out the Express offense who couldn’t seem to get anything going all afternoon, but at the half, the Iron were only leading 9-0.
The defense ended up holding the Express to 202 total yards and two turnovers.
But in the second half, it seemed as if the offense caught up with the defense and started to push around Mike Singletary’s defense who seemed tired in the second half.
Led by former Alabama running back Trent Richardson, who had two touchdowns, the Iron offense found life in its running back. Richardson started out slow, but ended up with 58 yards rushing-40 yards coming in the fourth quarter.
“That was fantastic,” Iron head coach Tim Lewis said. “I really enjoyed that and it was fun. Our players played fairly well and I appreciate all our coaches and the efforts our team put forth to get this thing done and we did it in a good way.”
Quarterback Luis Perez also had a nice debut throwing for 252 yards on 19 of 33 passing.
“I’ll tell you what, we’re going to get better from here,” Perez opined. “There’s a lot things I can clean up offensively. All of us can clean up a lot of things. We’re just going to get better and I don’t think I really showed anything. I got to improve with what I did: a few throws I wished I had back and a few decisions like that.”
The crowd in Birmingham seemed to be into the game and the announced attendance was 17,000, but there are several reports that it was closer to 30,000-not bad for the kick-off of a new league and a debut of a new team.
The Iron will return to action at Legion Field on Saturday at 1 p.m. when they host the Salt Lake Stallions.
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