Mortensen Previews Blazers' Game At UConn

By Steve Irvine

BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA - October 28, 2025

The UAB football team returns to the road this week as the Blazers venture to UConn on Saturday for a non-conference game. It will be Alex Mortensen’s first road game as the UAB interim head coach. Obviously, the road hasn’t been friendly to UAB over the past four seasons.

Mortensen met with the media on Monday morning to put the huge win over Memphis to bed, talk about what happened during the bye week and look ahead to Saturday’s matchup against UConn.

Opening statement: “Obviously, we are coming off a bye week here. This was a good week for us to get out and recruit. We feel like there is a lot of really good high school talent in the state of Alabama and also in the greater Birmingham area, so we have really sincere interest in trying to invest in that more going forward, so it was a good opportunity for us to get out locally. Also, this has been a pretty unique situation with what has happened with our staff, so we tried to take the week to get more organized as a staff as to how we are doing things. And finally, we are working with our players. We still have a lot of young players that are developing fundamentally, developing in our schemes, and then some guys that needed to get healthy. It was also an opportunity as a staff to go back and re-evaluate things we have done from a self-scout perspective and really try to address some of the areas that we need to improve. I think it has also been a good reminder, I think there was a lot of excitement and energy around our last win which was outstanding. Outstanding to see the fanbase respond the way they did, which we really appreciate, but also a good reminder to our players that there is no magic wand. We have a price to pay, we have to get to work, and with them coming back after giving them a little time on the weekend, we are expecting to see everyone take that mentality going forward. Obviously, we are playing a really good team in UConn. Jim Mora is a veteran head coach. I have a ton of respect for him and their program. They are 5-3 right now. Coach Mora, I mentioned him being a veteran, obviously, going back to being a head coach in the National Football League in places like the Atlanta Falcons, was the head coach at UCLA for some time, and has done a great job at UConn, so we know we certainly have a challenge ahead of us.”

On carrying the momentum from the Memphis win through the bye week: “I think we could have handled the turnaround [if we needed to], but the bye week does help. Like I mentioned, for our staff to get organized on how we are delegating things and what our weekly flow is going to look like, and maybe dive in a little bit more about what game day is going to look like, what could we have done better last game in the game with staff organization, so it does help having the bye [week] in such a unique circumstance.”

On making changes on the road: “You know, I heard someone say a long time ago, ‘A program does not work a group of people, people work a program.’ So, I think the first thing is just getting everyone to take what we do and go do it better. Let’s practice better, let’s meet better, let’s work our processes better, so that is number one, and I think that is a burden everyone in the building shares. I think the second thing is there are things from a process standpoint that we want to constantly evaluate and see if we can improve, so there will be some things we will tweak that will hopefully help us, but I think that does not pertain to playing on the road, or at home, or any of those things. I think it is just the process of getting ready to go play a game.”

 On what he saw from the fans after the win against Memphis: “One, I thought the stadium really came to life, which was really cool, really good energy from start to finish, but really picked up late. I think we really appreciated that. In the following week, we have received a lot of support from different people in various ways and even felt it when we went out on the road when we were recruiting. Again, this really means a lot. I know there are a lot of loyal supporters and people who are really behind the program, and we are very grateful for it. At the same time, too, we know that we have to get to work on the next one, so that is going to be really important, and hopefully give them more to cheer about.”

 On the success of the run game against Memphis: “I think the offensive line did a good job. We talked about trying to control the line of scrimmage in both the run and the pass game, and I thought they did that. Memphis, going into the game, had created a lot of negative plays in the running game and we wanted to try to prevent that as much as possible. I think the offensive line and the [running] backs did a good job. On the flip side, there is another side of it, too, where, yes, there was some good production on offense, but we also had opportunities to put the game away on offense. Part of the challenge is, alright, ‘hey, next time we get in that position where you have a two-score lead, I think it was 31-17 at a certain point, put them away.’ Put them away. You have an opportunity to end the game on offense. It was great to see the way our defense closed the game out, and it was really exciting, but we really could have finished that game with the ball. I think that is part of the challenge, too, is let’s take the next step. Some of that, to your question, does involve the run game and being able to close the game out running the ball if we need to.”

On UConn quarterback Joe Fagnano: “He’s really an impressive player. He's been incredibly efficient (with his) touchdown to interception ratio (18-to-0), which is really, really impressive. He's been both productive and he's been aggressive and yet efficient. He hasn't put his team in a bad position and helped them play good team football in all three phases. He definitely warrants the recognition he's received so far.”

On turning the page after Memphis: “One, I do think it does help the confidence and belief for the players. You go back, that was a  tough week. The team was a little shook and rattled. I think maybe you even wonder did if affect their confidence early in the week and how they felt about the week. I think that turned pretty quick. The challenge is this, are you going to taste at little bit of success, if you want to call it that, and feel satisfied or are you going to be hungry for more. So that's really been the challenge. Okay, we’ve tasted it, let’s fan the flames, let’s get hungrier to go get more. So that’s really been our emphasis, after that game. And I think the guys in the bye week did respond well in practice as well. But I think we've got to continue to push the envelope on what we see as a good practice. I think our standards can keep going up.”

On Jalen Kitna and the quarterback work in practice this week: “I think Jalen has really progressed well physically and is doing better. I thought he got better through the course of the bye week daily, so that was really good to see. Jalen, obviously leading up to this game, leading up to the Memphis game, had a very pretty darn good year. I think at one point was leading the conference in passing, was second in the country in completions per game and was pretty high in completion percentage. So, he’s done a lot of really good things, made some pretty big throws and showed a lot of toughness at different points. Of course, Ryder played very well too and has had a good season in practice and in the certain moments we've asked him to play. Then Nate Rogers as well. Nate obviously played a role in the game has played a role in some other games. Our feeling is we've got multiple talented quarterbacks and we want to find ways to use all their talents. Without being any more specific than that, we're going to try to find a way to do that.”

On Nate Rogers overcoming a big lost fumble in the Memphis game: “You know, Nate was really hard on himself after that play. He was hard on himself in the game even. One, we talked about going in the game, you have to have great poise, you got to have great bounce back. Sometimes poise is responding to things that are out of your control and then sometimes poise is responding to things that maybe you created. I think Nate maybe really felt a little bit down on himself for what happened on that play. But, you know, he may be called upon again later in the game, so he's got to find a way to bounce back. I actually called him that night. We talked about it and he understood that. One, learn from it, but two, I wanted to encourage him that, hey, man, the sun's going to come up tomorrow, we did win, but let's also try to help avoid it in the future and here's how we can avoid it. It was a good learning experience for Nate and hopefully he can eliminate in the future too.”

On how Nate Rogers running ability opens up the running game: “Look, I think Nate has played a really good role for us. One, I think Nate is a good passer too. Nate can really throw the ball. But in terms of his ability to run it has helped us to this point. I think Nate has been able to generate explosive plays in the running game himself. One of his touchdowns this year was actually called pass in which he scrambled. That's another way that his athleticism can come to light. Then, I think he can help the guys around him too because he has the ability to throw and run. Now, they've not only got to defend him, they've got to defend all the eligibles and every blade of grass too, so maybe it helps your other runners. I think Nate can really add a good dimension to our running game. We have pretty extensive packages for him every week. It's just a matter of how much we decide to use it for the game and as we get in the flow of the game.”

On how he wants to represent this program as the interim head coach: “Look, we love it here. We love UAB, we love the program, love the school, the institution, the city of Birmingham. We want to steward this responsibility well for the remainder of the season. I think it's our job and our obligation really to try to represent the university and try to help the future of the program as much as we can. I think there is a lot to sell here. we've talked about that before. The place is well located, we've got a great education here. But I think all the things are in place to have a really healthy football program too and a lot of that I do think involves the local prospects and the local talent. That was just something that was really important for us to get out last week and continue that process, especially with a lot of the guys in state.”

On defensive growth coming off the Memphis game: “I think all three phases can grow from the game/ I do think the defense can too. At the same time,  I'm gonna go back to what I said earlier, I don't think there are any magic wands. You've got to create the right habits during the week to show up on game day and then go play with effort, toughness and intensity when it's time. I hope that they can build on that and bridge that into practice in the right way. That's certainly encouraging to see what we saw but again I just think that there's still progress to be made. I think they can do that but hopefully that gives them some confidence that they can.

On Tariq Watson’s effort late in the game: “I think the whole team can learn a lot (from that). It’s actually one of the first plays we showed them when they got back. We showed them that play and it's just really a great example of effort. But, really when you go back last week, one of the first meetings we had is we talked about, hey, look, skill levels is important, talent is important in the game of football. Those things matter. Understanding the scheme matters. But the first thing before you get any of those things, you've got to have your competitive spirit right. And we talked about never giving up and fighting to the end. And that's exactly what those guys did there, is they never gave up and they fought to the end. We really did talk about taking a no scoreboard mentality a little bit and just scrap, fight, compete, no matter what's going on in the game. I thought they did a really great job of that down the stretch. We want to build on that again, we really do and hopefully we'll be able to, no matter what the circumstances are.”

On Tariq Watson as a player: “He definitely creates a lot of challenges for an offensive coach. I think he's really growing and coming into his own a little bit. Really, I think, the end of the game there showed that. I think we have a variety of guys that have yet to play their best football. We have five regular season games left and I think they should all take that approach that their best is in front of them and he's no different, which I think is exciting. I think there are still a lot of areas we can improve. I think that's one thing to bye week showed us. It’s like hey, if you really go examine yourself and examine our team, we have a lot of opportunities to improve. And then hey, what could that create if we do that?”

On RPOs and the running game: “With our running game, we kind of have it all to a degree. We have call and run it runs, we have runs that can be checked and adjusted, we have runs that have RPOs on them. We really use all categories and each game we may live in one of those categories more than another. And then some we can check from run to pass and pass the run. We really have it all and it’s a system that's kind of developed through the years. I think, in the last game, you saw the RPO game come to light for us in certain instances. Some weeks we’ll call more of them than others, depending on what we're seeing and what we feel it gives us the best chance.”

On the explosive play ability of Solomon Beebe: “I think the game is far more about players than plays. I do think there's kind of two things here. I do think there are ways to force guys the ball, try to do things you can do everything you can to get them a touch and make it hard for the defense to take them away by having a multitude of ways to get that guy touches. I think that's important. And I think it's important that we game plan and call the game in that manner to try to feature our players. And then on the other hand, there's that old saying as a quarterback, you need to take what the defense gives you. If you take what the defense gives you, eventually they give you the game, don't try to force things. Sometimes you have to live in both of those worlds where we maybe have some intent, but at the same time if something's taken away, then maybe the ball has to go somewhere else and someone else comes to life on that play or through the course of a game.”