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UAB’s Decision To Hire Trent Dilfer Looks Even Worse As The Coach It Turned Down Makes History Elsewhere

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Bryant Vincent UAB Trent Dilfer
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UAB passed on Bryant Vincent to hire Trent Dilfer. That is quickly proving to be a massive mistake while the former makes college football history and the latter continues to get blown out in front of nonexistent crowd.

The Blazers have buyer’s remorse, even if they might not admit it.

Vincent was named as the interim head coach of UAB prior to the 2022 season after Bill Clark suddenly resigned for health reasons. He previously served as the offensive coordinator in Birmingham.

Despite all of the uncertainty surrounding the program, Vincent kept his team together. The Blazers won six games during the regular season and capped a successful year with a win in the Bahamas Bowl. Players rallied around their interim head coach. They lobbied hard for him to get the full-time job and even penned a letter to administration asking them to remove the interim title.

UAB did not listen.

Instead of elevating Vincent, it decided to hire Dilfer. The former top-10 NFL Draft pick and Super Bowl champion had never coached football above the high school level.

Dilfer was the head coach at Lipscomb Academy in Nashville at the time. He won back-to-back state championships with the Mustangs, but there was a caveat to his success. Lipscomb is a private school, so it can recruit players. Most other teams in its division did not have that advantage and the division itself was already inferior to begin with.

Just to put that in perspective, the Mustangs hired a Pro Football Hall of Famer to replace Dilfer. They were banned from the playoffs for two years due to recruiting violations during Kevin Mawae’s lone year as head coach. Lipscomb also moved up to a harder division and has just one win this season.

All of this goes to say that most people knew Dilfer would not be a very good college football coach— except for the people that hired him.

Trent Dilfer is on the hot seat!

UAB went 4-8 last season. The Blazers dropped to 1-4 in 2024 with a 51-point (!!) loss over the weekend and they actually made the score look a lot closer than it was with a pair of fourth-quarter touchdowns against the backups. 71-20 was really more like 71-6. Ouch.

Fans refused to support Dilfer after he insulted the university during a bizarre interaction last week. Absolutely nobody showed up to the game on Saturday. It is increasingly unlikely that he will return to his role as head coach next season. UAB needs to fire him sooner than later.

Meanwhile, Bryant Vincent is on a tear.

He was hired as the head coach of Louisiana-Monroe in December. The Warhawks are off to a 4-1 start for the first time since 1993. They most recently took down a previously undefeated James Madison team that beat North Carolina by 20 points a week prior.

To make it even sweeter, one of ULM’s four wins was against UAB. Vincent and the Warhawks scored 32 points. Dilfer and the Blazer mustered only a pair of first-half field goals.

Maybe it was a bad idea to pass over Bryant Vincent for Trent Dilfer?