UAB has not yet fired Trent Dilfer. The Blazers are giving the second-year college football coach (at least) a few more weeks to figure things out before what feels like an inevitable ouster.
It would be shocking if the former Super Bowl champion is allowed to return to his post in 2025.
The only way for Dilfer to save his job at this point is to win. As simple as that might sound, there seems to be a disconnect among the staff that continues to be the primary catalyst for what has been a very disappointing season thus far. They, especially the head coach, cannot figure out why UAB keeps losing.
Dilfer revealed on Monday afternoon that he went back to the drawing board after his players quit on him during another ugly blowout on Saturday. Practices are going well, he things. Games not so much.
Well, I don’t know, again, if there’s a whole lot to say. Another incredibly disappointing game. A game that did not reflect our week of preparation against a very good opponent, but that doesn’t matter. We did not play good football in any of the three phases. I’m disappointed, I feel like I’ve let down a lot of people. It’s my job to get us playing better football and I have not done that to my expectation and my mindset is to change some ways I do things to hopefully get a better response from our building.
— Trent Dilfer
Everybody in the building in Birmingham is scratching their heads after a 1-5 start. Dilfer is desperately searching for answers for how to turn this thing around in a hurry.
As I said last week, I have been part of bad teams, and you know you’re bad, and you practice bad, then you go play bad. I’ve seen that, been a part of it. I’ve been part of teams where you just know you’re better and you practice at a really high level and you go out and you play just like how you practiced. This is the first place I’ve been around where we practice at a very high level and then don’t come close to playing anywhere near that.
— Trent Dilfer
He sounds completely lost.
So I am asking myself, “are we practicing the right way?” It’s things like that. Are our drills transferable? Are our practice sessions transferable? Is the messaging transferable? Obviously, no, right, because we are not getting the results that we want and we are not putting our players in a position to where they can do what they can do in practice on the field on Saturdays.
— Trent Dilfer
Considering that Dilfer had never coached college football prior to his hire, this should not come as a huge surprise. The 14-year NFL quarterback has a lot of experience working with high school quarterbacks through Elite 11 and won two-straight state championships at a private high school in Tennessee while playing against lesser talent as a program that can recruit. These first 18 games with the Blazers is his first experience on the collegiate level. UAB is 5-13 during that stretch.
It seems unlikely that Trent Dilfer will be able to make enough of a change in the next six weeks to save his job at the end of the season. He inherited an ascending program and cratered it in less than two years. Should the university decide to cut him loose after Dec. 1, it would owe him a buyout of $4.1 million. Start raising the money!