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Former NFL quarterback Trent Dilfer went just 9-21 in 2.5 seasons coaching the UAB Blazers football program before being unceremoniously fired mid-way through the 2025 season.
But Dilfer says that was the school’s lack of emphasis on winning football games, not his, that led to his disappointing results and, ultimately, his getting fired.
That’s despite the fact that the school Dilfer had just two years of experience coaching at Lipscomb Academy, a small, private high school in Nashville, before becoming the head coach of the Division I FBS program.
Trent Dilfer Ducks Blame For UAB Disaster
Dilfer recently sat down with Jonathan Hutton of OutKick the Coverage to discuss his return to the head coaching job at Lipscomb Academy in Nashville.
The pair also discussed Dilfer’s time in Birmingham and what went wrong. At that point, Dilfer seemingly pointed the finger at the school’s administration, not himself, for his lowly .300 winning percentage.
“College football broke me.” – @DilfersDimes
Trent Dilfer returns to high school football after coaching just 30 games as UAB’s HC. He coached and won two championships in four seasons at Lipscomb Academy, a school he says is more invested in building a winner compared to his… pic.twitter.com/FELH1W8Sc2
— Jonathan Hutton (@HuttonOutkick) January 8, 2026
“College football broke me. Just the losing, developing players. Like we had 14 players that we recruited, I recruited, we developed … you play them, and then they go to Ole Miss and Arkansas and Alabama and everywhere else,” Dilfer said.
That part was fair. Dilfer did lose key players Delano Townsend, Kam Shanks, and Jalen Key to the aforementioned SEC programs.
But then Dilfer pivoted.
“Working with people that didn’t see winning like I did,” Dilfer said of UAB. “The won think that’s great about Lipscomb is that they care about winning as much as I do. They are invested.”
Who knows? Maybe Dilfer is onto something. UAB did drop its program not all that long ago. But after returning in 2017, the Blazers went .500 or better in every season until Dilfer was hired in 2023. So, unless something else changed dramatically, it would appear Dilfer was simply bad at his job.