Alabama News Center 2023 football preview: University of North Alabama
Brent Dearmon returned to his native Alabama to take the head coaching job at North Alabama, where he is working to bring the Lions back from a 1-10 season in 2022. (University of North Alabama Athletics)
Brent Dearmon has returned to his home state, albeit on the other end of the state.
“It’s nice getting back to the state of Alabama, getting back to your roots, getting back to being close to grandparents and back in the state retirement system,” the University of North Alabama (UNA) football coach said. “Those are all good things.”
The 37-year-old Saraland native came to UNA in Florence in December 2022 after serving as offensive coordinator at Florida Atlantic. He replaces Chris Willis, who was fired after a 1-7 start to a 2022 season that ended 1-10.
“I believe the one win they got last year was against a D-II opponent,” Dearmon said. “Actually, with a 1-10 season, you had no Division I-AA or FCS wins in the win column.
“We’ve got a big, big task ahead of us,” he said. “We were able to probably flip the roster with some transfers and some incoming freshmen. We’ve brought in 40 new guys. On a roster of 85 with 40 new guys, it’s a brand-new team pretty much. We’ve got a different mindset. Players and coaches both have a new hunger.”
College football season is approaching, and Alabama News Center is previewing the 2023 season. Next up is North Alabama.
Alabama News Center: What are the prospects for this season?
Brent Dearmon: Everybody’s going to come in undefeated. Everybody wants to win their conference. Everybody wants to go to the playoffs. Those are going to be our goals. But our biggest thing every day is preaching growth. From day to day, we want to see growth. I want to see guys that elevate. I want to see guys improving. I want to see coaches that are pushing guys to improve. Our measurables right now are right in front of our face with just daily growth. We know if everybody on the team is growing, we’ll get better as a football team and the wins are going to come.
ANC: What is the strength of this year’s team?
Dearmon: We return most of our offensive line from last season that averaged over 200 yards rushing a game. I think our offensive line can be a big strength for our football team. We’re returning a quarterback that started 10 games for this place last year as a freshman. Your freshman year starting as a quarterback, you’re going to make some bad decisions. We want to see him take care of the ball. We want to see him lead our football team a little bit better this upcoming year. Defensively, we believe we brought in some key transfers on the back end – at the safety position – that can lead our football team as well. Edwin White (Schultz) is a Mobile, Alabama, guy, went to Kansas out of high school; we were able to bring him back to the state. Our other safety, Greg Reddick, was an all-conference player at the FCS level at another school. So having those two guys lead us in the secondary, we think that will be a strength for our team.
ANC: Who are your team’s standouts?
Dearmon: Everybody knows that if the quarterback position plays well, you’ve got an opportunity to win games. We’ve got two guys that are really battling it out right now with Noah Walters, who started last year. We brought in a transfer from FAU with us named T.J. Smith. He’s a little bit more of a dual-threat guy. To see who wins that battle is going to be a big dynamic of how we play football. Up front, we had two all-conference offensive linemen last year with Big Fau (Tai’Vai), our Australian Samoan. Stevie Young is an offensive lineman who was all-conference last year. At the wideout position, Takairee Kenebrew has been a playmaker around this place with big-play ability. On the defensive side of the ball, I mentioned the two safeties already. We’ve got a 6-1 corner that’s transferred in here a year ago, played last season, K.J. Trujillo. Up front, Kam’ron Green is a Central Florida transfer. I think he was maybe third or fourth in the league last year in sacks. Those are the guys that need to stand out for us. Another transfer, Amauri Floyd, is our weak side linebacker. He was a transfer here from Robert Morris. He was an all-conference player at Robert Morris, and we were able to get him in January.
ANC: What game(s) do your fans have circled on your schedule?
Dearmon: Game one. Right out the gate, you play the Week Zero game. First game in the college football season on ESPN. For an FCS program to have the national spotlight on ESPN, it’s huge for us. It’s huge for our program, huge for the school and the Shoals community. Then you play a team in Mercer who’s probably going to come out ranked somewhere, I’ve seen, from 10 to 20. You’re gonna play a ranked opponent on the national spotlight right off the bat at a neutral site in Montgomery, Alabama, in the historic Cramton Bowl. That’s the biggest one we have circled right now. (Longtime rival) Jacksonville State is no longer on the schedule with them moving up to Conference USA. You’re going to play a lot of teams for the first time, so there’s not as many rivalry games on the schedule. I’d say that first game coming out the gate against Mercer is going to be huge for our program.
ANC: What is your lingering question?
Dearmon: You always want to try to figure out ways in fall camp or summer training to see how your team’s going to respond the first time adversity hits, because it’s going to. It usually defines you that first time adversity hits. We can manufacture it. We can do it in the weight room. We can do it in our offseason training. But there’s nothing compared to when it really happens in a game. I want to see how our team responds the first time adversity hits us in the mouth.
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 and Jacksonville State University, and look for a new football preview each weekday until the 2023 season begins.
