Alabama News Center 2023 football preview: UAB
Jacob Zeno, a redshirt junior transfer from Baylor, takes the reins of the UAB offense this season under new head coach Trent Dilfer. (Jimmie Mitchell / UAB)
Trent Dilfer projected a “don’t care” attitude during the 2023 American Athletic Conference Media Day. Call it selective apathy.
Asked about projections that his UAB Blazers would finish eighth in the 14-team league and that he ranks 14th among the head coaches in the league, he said he didn’t care.
“I don’t care what you think, what he thinks, what (Florida Atlantic coach) Tom Herman thinks, what (Alabama coach) Nick Saban thinks. I don’t care,” he said. “I care what (UAB quarterback) Jacob Zeno thinks, what (running back) Jackson Bratton thinks. I go to bed at night thinking about what they think about.”
The former Super Bowl champion quarterback and ESPN analyst acknowledged caring about the concerns of his tribe — his coaching staff, his athletic director, his marketing director and sponsors of his program.
“But I honestly do not care at all what is written about me, what’s said about me,” he told the assembled press. “I didn’t (work as a collegiate offensive or defensive coordinator), so how … can I be a college head coach? I don’t know. Somehow, I’m here. My journey’s been different from theirs and I frankly don’t care if they dislike that I’m here.”
Dilfer clarified his “don’t care” stance following a practice leading to UAB’s season opener on Thursday, Aug. 31, at Protective Stadium against North Carolina A&T. He admits that he uses the negative projections as motivation.
“I’ve always been better with a chip on my shoulder, and I have a very big one right now,” he said. “My program has a big chip on their shoulder, and we embrace the critics and what they’re saying.”
If Dilfer were still an ESPN analyst, his assessment of his 2023 Blazer program might match the assessment of others.
“Honestly, most of it’s fair,” he said. “If I was a critic, I’d be like, ‘high school coach (with) two coordinators who have never called plays in a Division I game.’ I think it’s four or five returning starters, depending on how you look at it. The age of our roster is very young. If you just do the basic math, I don’t disagree with their predictions – on paper.
“But what they can’t predict is what’s in a person’s heart and soul,” Dilfer continued. “That’s what we’re trying to build here, one big giant soul.”
Trent Dilfer has been a Super Bowl-winning quarterback and ESPN analyst, and he coached Lipscomb Academy in Tennessee to back-to-back state championships, but this season as UAB’s head coach is his first college coaching job. (UAB)
Since the rebirth of UAB football in 2018, the Blazers have been a defense-first, run-oriented team. Dilfer, a first-year head coach at UAB who last year led Lipscomb Academy to the second of back-to-back D2-AA Tennessee state championships, said little will change in the UAB game plan this season.
“Just dressed up differently,” Dilfer said. “We want to play great defense; we want to play great special teams; we want to run the ball; we want to make explosive plays.
“There are formulas to football,” he said. “People can try to sprinkle fairy dust on their version of it. At the end of the day, you’ve got to stop the run, you’ve got to get stops, you’ve got to play well in critical moments defensively. Get the ball back and then, offensively, you have to be able to control the line of scrimmage.”
That control typically comes by having a strong running game. “We want to do the same thing,” Dilfer said. “It just may look different.”
Zeno, the redshirt junior transfer from Baylor, takes the reins of the Blazer offense after having stepped in for Dylan Hopkins, who followed the interim head coach and offensive coordinator to New Mexico. Dilfer said his signal-caller is beyond where he thought he’d be at this point.
“But none of that matters unless he keeps getting better,” the coach said. “I think he knows that. He has really good command of our offense. He’s way more natural; the robotic-ness of his game up to this point has kind of been released, unshackled. There are a lot of good signs.
“I think he would be the first to tell you there are really high highs and the lows aren’t extremely low — but they’re probably lower than they need to be.”
The same might be said of the overall squad, from whom the coach wants to see consistent improvement.
“My experience in football has been that results take care of themselves if you get better every week,” Dilfer said. “What happens to most teams is they plateau, and you don’t want to plateau. You want to be pushing every single week for individual improvement, coach improvement, collective improvement. Getting better. If that happens, we’ll have a successful season.
“I don’t get into the win-loss thing,” Dilfer added. “I’ve been around this game too long to know that if you just stay focused on the task at hand, the wins and losses take care of themselves.”
Alabama News Center is posting season previews for all 16 college football programs in Alabama. Read previews for Birmingham-Southern College, the University of West Alabama, Jacksonville State University, the University of North Alabama, the University of South Alabama and Tuskegee University, and look for a new football preview each weekday until the 2023 season begins.
