The St. Louis Battlehawks are set to make their 2026 UFL season debut on March 28, when they host the DC Defenders at The Dome at America’s Center.
The UFL will notice a conspicuous absence as the team looks to win its first-ever spring football championship.
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For the first time since the 2020 XFL season, Anthony Becht will not be coaching the Battlehawks. Instead, Ricky Proehl – a 17-year NFL veteran who spent the 2023 season as a wide receivers coach in St. Louis – will be leading the team in his first stint as a head coach.
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But Becht won’t be out of the UFL entirely. He has simply traded in his blue-and-silver apparel for purple-and-orange as he takes over one of the spring football league’s three relocated squads, the Orlando Storm.
Becht is looking forward to the challenge the change will provide ahead of his fourth UFL season.
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“We had a great run in St. Louis, but I’m fired up for this opportunity,” Becht told USA TODAY Sports in a recent interview.
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Why Anthony Becht joined Orlando Storm for 2026 UFL season
Becht explained his path to Orlando started with a joke Mike Repole – who joined the UFL as an investor ahead of its 2026 season and helped guide the league’s strategic vision – made at the news conference announcing the Storm as one of the UFL’s newest members.
“I went to the press conference in Orlando. I just showed up because I was local there, and [Repole] was mentioning, ‘Well, we don’t have a coach yet, but I’m probably going to fire Anthony and make him the head coach,'” Becht detailed. “It was kind of a funny moment, but then when we started to talk about it, it was kind of getting a little bit more of a serious talk.”
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Becht acknowledged two major factors influenced his decision to join the Storm. The first was his deep-rooted geographic ties to the region.
“I’ve lived in Florida for 21 years now,” Becht said. “It’s an hour from my doorstep – the stadium that we play in.”
The second had everything to do with the roster changes Repole instituted during his first year with the league.
The UFL completely reshuffled its rosters through a multi-stage draft ahead of its 2026 season. The process involved a specific quarterback draft, a regional college allocation – where teams could select up to three players from colleges in their markets to achieve the league’s goal of “building local ties” – and a final snake draft.
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That left Becht knowing he would be staring down a full-scale rebuild regardless of whether he remained in St. Louis or took on the Orlando job.
“They were blowing up all the rosters, so none of my guys were going to be back as far as building something,” Becht said. “So for me, I took it as a great challenge.”
So, Becht was announced as the Storm’s first-ever coach on Dec. 23, 2025, and he acknowledged that the UFL entrusting him to lead the Storm provided him with a nice boost to his confidence.
“They think highly enough of me to be the guy to do that,” Becht said. “I was like, ‘Heck yeah, man.’ I’ll build something from scratch and build another winner.”
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Becht is confident he can do just that. He opined he has one of the UFL’s strongest quarterback rooms – noting he has “two starting quarterbacks” between Jack Plummer and Dorian Thompson-Robinson – and is looking forward to seeing what the rest of his team can accomplish when it plays its first-ever game on March 29 against the Columbus Aviators.
“We have a great team. We’ve got a very talented roster, maybe my best roster on paper that I’ve had,” Becht said. “So, really excited about setting the standard here and starting a new franchise in Orlando.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: What happened to Anthony Becht? UFL coach with Orlando Storm for 2026
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