Blazers Win the Moments That Matter Most In Gritty Win Over Navy

By Steve Irvine

September 26 - BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA

BIRMINGHAM, Al. –  It’s not entirely accurate to say that a two-play sequence early in the fourth quarter tells the entire story of UAB’s 24-20 American Conference victory over Navy on Friday night at Protective Stadium. However, take away those plays – one on each side of the football – and we could quite possibly be telling a different story.

The first play came with Navy on the way toward a drive that could have built the Midshipmen’s lead to double digits. Do that and the game could have very well been over. But Marlin Dean had other plans. The 6-foot-5, 240-pound transfer portal addition burst around the edge, hit quarterback Jackson Gutierrez in the chest and knocked the ball free. Teammate Chris Spencer recovered the fumble at the Navy 48-yard line.

On the next play from scrimmage, UAB running back Bam McReynolds got some good blocking on his way around left end and then outraced several Navy defenders into the end zone. Now, UAB still had plenty of game-saving moments over the final 10:36 – a lot of it by Dean – but it was those two plays that truly shaped the American Conference opening victory for the Blazers.

“It was a huge swing in the game,” said UAB head coach Alex Mortensen. “Talk about complementary football, both sides of the ball really helping each other in a situation like that and capitalizing. You know, it drives you crazy when the defense gets a turnover and the offense doesn't do anything with it. So to come back and answer in one play was, was awesome.”

UAB won a conference game on a Friday night where nothing came easy. Navy held on to the football for more than 35 minutes and ran 17 more plays than the UAB offense. The Midshipmen won the total yardage category – 353-290 – and harassed UAB quarterback Ryder Burton most of the night. But stats don’t measure grit and the grittiest team on the field won Friday night’s game.

“In terms of the game, I thought the first thing, the thing I'm most pleased with is the intangibles,” Mortensen said. “One of our core things that we talk about a lot is just the whole idea of what do we want to look like. We want to play really hard and compete, fight, scrap all the way to the end. OK? All the way to the end. I thought that our guys showed that kind of resiliency tonight in all three phases. Not an easy game, so that was awesome.”

WHAT IT MEANS: Not to overstate things, after all it only counts as one win, but it could potentially be a program changing win. Finding a way to win against a good team, when things didn’t always go smoothly, is huge for a program still trying to find ways to win again.

WHEN THE GAME TURNED: It’s hard to pick out just one Marlin Dean moment on a night when the UAB defensive end made one game-altering play after another. But his sack and forced fumble early in the fourth quarter was certainly the turning point of the game. It came with Navy moving down the field for a possible score that could have put the Midshipmen up by 10 points. Dean ended that by beating the rush, hitting quarterback Jackson Gutierrez and knocking the ball loose. Teammate Chris Spencer recovered the football at the Navy 48-yard line. On the next play, Bam McReynolds scored to give UAB a lead they didn’t relinquish.

WHY UAB WON: Grit is one way to describe it. Perhaps more descriptive is the Blazers refused to lose, even though it didn’t come easy. The defense battled all night and the offense made enough timely plays to win the game.

WHAT ARE THE KEY STATS: Navy won total plays (71-54) and time of possession (34:22-25:38) but UAB won turnovers (2-1). UAB had six sacks and nine tackles for loss. Linebacker Muaaz Byard (12 tackles, pass breakup) and Marlin Dean (11 tackles, 2.5 sacks, 2.5 TFL, 3 forced fumbles) had incredible games. Safeties Jeremiah Jordan (8 tackles) and Jo’Tavion Pierce (7 tackles, 2.5 sacks, 2.5 tackles for loss) also came up big. Bam McReynolds had 71 rushing yards on eight carries with two touchdowns.

WHO GETS THE GAME BALLS: There are a bunch of worthy candidates. No one had a better game than Dean and Byard but McReynolds also stepped up and receiver Ty Mims (three catches for 76 yards with a 56-yard touchdown) was really good. But this game ball could very well go to defensive coordinator Todd Grantham, who has turned this UAB defense into one that can win games like they did on Saturday.

WHAT DID COACH MORTENSEN SAY IN HIS POSTGAME PRESS CONFERENCE:

Opening statement: Really good to get a win here tonight at home appreciate everyone that came out to the game. Friday night game, I know that it's high school football and all those things, but really awesome to see our crowd there, and want to keep building on that. But I just really, uh, think their energy was (great). Our players loved it, so very appreciative of that and we want to keep growing that.

In terms of the game, I thought the first thing is just probably, the thing I'm most pleased with is the intangibles. One of our core things that we talk about a lot is just the whole idea of what do we want to look like. We want to play really hard and, you know, compete, fight, scrap all the way to the end. OK? All the way to the end. I thought that our guys showed that kind of resiliency tonight in all three phases. Not an easy game, so that was awesome. Then specifically, defensively, man, those guys that flew around, played incredibly hard, played very physical. It's not easy to do that when you, when you had a game last week that was a late night Saturday game, then come back and play a unique offense on a Friday on a short (week). So I give Coach Grantham a ton of credit. Our defensive players for understanding the plan and ultimately too, you know, is like just playing with their hair on fire. Getting off blocks, shedding blocks, getting guys on the ground. Navy's a good program, and they're, they have a really good team, so that was cool.

Offensively, I think we had some good hard runs. I thought Ryder Burton was gritty. I don't know if you can totally appreciate it from the stands or from the television, but we need to protect him better. Some of those (that) he made, he converted some really big third downs early in the game and some long yardage situations in a scenario where it's not always easy. It's like run, run, throw, run, run, throw. I thought he did that really well. Again, we had some good, tough, hard yards in the run game, but we need to get to the point where we finish that game on offense and the ball never gets back to the defense. That's where we got to get our team and our program. I think the other thing too is that we've got to protect our quarterback. This is not an indictment on just the offensive line. I've talked about this before, protection is an all-encompassing thing. I can talk about tight ends, running backs. We can talk about a lot of different people, but we got to protect better because we could've had a lot more production on offense. That's one of the unique things now via the iPad, you can see what's going on during the game a little easier in between series. That'll be an area we need to improve. But, you know, those are all technical corrections. Those are football corrections and we've got a lot of guys that have not played a lot of football yet. I expect and anticipate that we'll get better and will develop as the year goes on. But beyond the technical part, man, the toughness and the (competitiveness) was there and, and rallying for each other. So just really pleased with that and pleased with our staff.

I thought staff did a good job adjusting some in the game on both sides of the ball. That run that Bam (McReynolds) had was well blocked, well executed. Bam had great patience and burst and ran away from everybody. It was also a halftime adjustment, something that wasn't in our plan. So I thought good job by the staff. Again, can't say enough about our staff. Coach Grantham, the defense, everyone involved. Getting the ball out a bunch tonight. I have a ton of respect for (Navy coach Brian Newberry). I think he does an awesome job at Navy. They're not easy to get ready for. I mean, their kids play incredibly hard too and there's a reason they've had the success they've had and won as many games as they have over the last several years. Hats off to them for the challenge they present and it was good to see us pull it out.

I want to single out a couple guys, like Muaaz Byard. Look, I kind of feel bad singling guys out because there are a bunch of guys that probably deserve it. But (Byard), I thought once again, really productive night. Marlo Dean, you know, very good. Uh, Maybe one of his best performances. His energy and leadership has been really cool too. So really neat to see that. I'm sure I'll come back, and there'll be more guys to talk about next week when I get a chance to watch more of the film.”

On Marlin Dean: “First of all, it is part of the reason we brought him in. Really very high on Marlo. Liked him when we were recruiting him. But Marlo also, to this point, we felt like a really talented guy and we really like a lot of his personality and character traits, but (he) hadn't had this kind of production yet. We felt like we could see it in him. I think that's one of the things that I've talked about this before. We are not giving up on development and seeing what a guy, not for just what he is, but what he can be, and we felt like Marlo has an incredibly high ceiling. You know, incredibly high. Something that Coach Grantham and I had talked about a lot like, ‘Hey, if we can get everything out of him and help him grow, he can really help his future and also bring a lot of value to our team.’ I think Marlo in a short time period has really developed in a lot of areas. Now, at the same time, I want to say the same thing I told the team, it is one game and it's one conference game. We gotta get back up and fight every week.”

On having a couple of explosive plays on touchdowns: “I think having the explosive plays helped. We were not as efficient as I would've liked. We got behind the sticks a little too much. There were a couple times we had too many negative plays where we were trying to be a little more aggressive. Maybe some times we can throw the ball away, too. But nevertheless, when you're playing like that and you're not as efficient as you want to be, having some explosive chunk plays helps tremendously. You look at a couple of them. I mean, the one before the half, you know, Ryder had great patience and really waited to the right window. Then Ty (Mims) had great explosiveness when he got the ball in his hand, ran a great route. Then talk about Bam's later in the game. But yeah, we need to continue to work to be more explosive. I think there's kind of two things to that. It's like, you know, for us to be explosive you want some ordinary plays to become explosive. But the other thing, too, is we want to be able to call the game a little more aggressively. Then through our decision-making, if we don't have thing that's going to be explosive, be willing to check it down or turn it back into an efficient play. So hopefully we can continue to grow in that area.”

On what a fourth quarter win does for confidence: “I think it does help our team's confidence. That’s two games now where we've come back in a game and had a really good fourth quarter. I think that can instill belief in a team. You never feel like you're out of it. At the same time, I hope that we create the kind of character in our players and our team that just regardless of whatever's going on, they're going to fight. Whether they're confident, unconfident, like, it just doesn't matter. I do believe that can really help a team.”

On how a lead or deficit changes how you coach: “We need to start faster. The positive is we talked about this whole thing of fighting, competing to the end, and also being a great fourth quarter team. We've talked about conditioning. I mean, this goes back to winter and summer and the way we practice hard. I think a lot of those things help us do that. So I don't want to diminish what the positives of playing better in the second half. I don't want to diminish those positives. But at the same time, we do need to try to beat them to the punch and start faster. We're looking at everything in terms of how we can start faster. But at the same time, it's kind of weird. You look at even our Illinois game, our offense had a great drive on the first drive of the game and got down to the red zone until we got a holding call on a 3rd-and-6. We actually pop explosive down to the, to the low red or the mid-red (zone). It's something we're going to look at hard. I can assure you we're already looking at it, to get our guys going and is there anything strategically or scheme-wise that we need to alter as well.”

On what the win means to the program: “Look, again, I don't want to diminish (the win). Winning is incredibly hard and this is a really good conference and Navy's a really good team. Coach Newberry I think is a great coach. So I don't want to diminish the significance of getting one, and they're precious. But at the same time, it's one game. I don't want to overstate the magnitude or say it's monumental. But certainly something we want to build on and go get more of them. But, it's one game.”

On this week’s preparation: “The scout team offense has done a good job through the year, but I can tell you they had a great week. They did a great job over there. And, I couldn't be more happy and pleased with them, especially trying to mimic an offense that is different than what we do is not easy. The coaches over there did an outstanding job. I thought they were great. Our defensive line played hard and played well and I think were disruptive enough.”

On what the win means to him’ personally: “It feels good. It feels better than losing does, I can assure you that. Look, believe me, I, I love it. I love winning. I'm very excited and it's really more excited for our players because they have worked so hard. I'm gonna tell you, I really like this team. I really like these guys and I want it for them, man. So, it's just cool for them to have some success. Now, at the same time, I see the warts, you know? So I'm going, like, ‘Gotta protect better. We got to press the hole better. We got to get a hat on a hat in a run game. We gotta stay on blocks.’ That's also what I'm thinking about to be honest with you. But really excited for them. And, you know, again, I just want to talk about Coach Grantham. I'm really glad he's here. I'm glad we got him here. I think he's done an outstanding job. And we know there's there's more work to be done. But I thought he did a great job leading on that side of the ball tonight.”

HOW IT HAPPENED

Second Quarter

• 14:56 - UAB | Bam McReynolds scored on a 10-yard run around right end. The scoring drive lasted eight plays and covered 40 yards. Jonah Delange added the extra point.  (7-0, UAB).

• 11:06 – NAVY | Jackson Gutierrez scampered into end zone on a 4-yard scoring run. The scoring drive last seven plays and covered 75 yards. Gutierrez’s 42-yard run was the key play on the drive. Nolan Bartley added the extra point. (7-7).

• 6:25 – UAB | Jonah Delange hit a 44-yard field goal. Scoring drive lasted 11 plays and covered 49 yards. (10-7, UAB)

• 2:00 – NAVY | Nolan Bartley made a 34-yard field goal. The scoring drive lasted nine plays and covered 58 yards. (10-10)

• 1:11 – UAB | Ty Mims grabbed a 56-yard touchdown pass from Ryder Burton. The scoring drive lasted three plays and covered 78 yards. Jonah Delange made the extra points. (17-10, UAB)

• 0:04 – NAVY | Nolan Bartley made a 31-yard field goal. The scoring drive lasted nine plays and covered 61 yards. (17-13, UAB)

Third quarter

• 4:24 - NAVY | Vic Listorti rushed seven yards for a touchdown. The scoring drive lasted nine plays and covered 47 yards. Nolan Bartley added the extra point.  (20-17, Navy).

Fourth quarter

• 10:36 – UAB | Bam McReynolds raced 48 yards for a score. The scoring drive lasted one play and covered 48 yards. Jonah Delange added the extra point. The score was set up when Marlin Dean forced a fumble while sacking Jackson Gutierrez and Chris Spencer recovered. (24-20, UAB).

WHERE IS UAB’S NEXT ASSIGNMENT: UAB and Samford get together on the football field for the first time since 1992. The Blazers close the non-conference portion of the schedule in a game that kicks off at 2:30 p.m. at Protective Stadium.