Mortensen Introduced as UAB Coach At Press Conference

By Steve Irvine

BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA - December 5, 2025

Alex Mortensen was introduced as UAB’s head football coach on Friday morning. Admittedly, it wasn’t a day that Mortensen envisioned when he was handed the reigns to the program as the interim head coach in the second week of October.

“Truly, it did not cross my mind,” said Mortensen, who turned 40 years old on the Monday before the season-ending win at Tulsa. “You know, I think there was maybe a point early where maybe after the (Memphis) win, you go ‘Wow, we have a little momentum here, maybe there is an opportunity if we have some amount of success.’ But really, I mean, it was like 90 to nothing, you know, and we could barely see past our nose. You know wearing multiple hats in the middle of the season. It was just really trying to accomplish the next task one day at a time. I'll go back to when I first took on that responsibility, the number one objective was going, okay, these seniors have six weeks left or six games left of football. Really, like my mindset, I think the mindset of our staff was, whatever the future holds, let's make sure we give them the best six games possible and let's serve them the best we can. Whatever the future holds, it holds.”

A snapshot of the future formed on Thursday when Mortensen shed the interim tag and officially took over a spot that Trent Dilfer held until he was fired by UAB athletic director Mark Ingram on Oct. 12. Mortensen spent more than 20 minutes during Thursday’s press conference at the UAB Football Operations Center looking back at the past eight weeks and looking ahead to what the future. He talked about the uneasiness of the unknown during his first game as an interim head coach and what it took to put the start of a recruiting class together without knowing for sure whether he would be the program’s head coach. He talked about how his coaching career how been shaped at every stop, beginning in 2013 with a stint as the passing game coordinator and quarterback coach at New Mexico Highlands, and acknowledged he still has some work left to determine what his first staff will look like.

Opening statement: “First of all, I I would like to thank our school president Dr. Watts, our athletic director Mark Ingram, and the rest of the administration for providing this wonderful opportunity. I'm honored and grateful to be in this position. Something I don't take for granted. Further, I'd like to say I appreciate the support from our fan base, not just now, but really in the last seven weeks, as we face some challenges, but we've taken them on. It's our goal to give you a team that you'll be pleased with and one that represents our institution well. It's also our goal to create a program and an atmosphere that our players can succeed as a person, as a student, and as a football player. We want to help them be more successful in life and grow their character. Further, we want to help them have success as a student and give them the support needed to be their best academically. And then finally, we aim to help them develop as a football player, both in an individual manner and as a team. As we serve our players and work to affect them positively, we hope it becomes an example for them to serve others themselves and positively affect the people around them. I know it's typical to talk about bowl appearances, games won, and championships in this setting to get everybody energized. But I think more in terms of let's not boast about tomorrow, get to work, speak softly while carrying a big stick. So in terms of expectations, we have high expectations. But instead of talking about winning championships, we talk more about being a champion. And doing the things every day that it takes to be a champion and have the behavior to create winning habits. You reap what you sow. Work like a champion and let's see where that gets us. We have respect for the success that's been achieved here in the past. But we also recognize a changing landscape and what that will demand for us to be competitive. So I'm asking everyone that supports the program to have a lot of positive energy and help however they are capable.

In terms of football, we want to develop the right intangibles first. The right intangibles. Our dedication to teamwork and competitive spirit need to be in place first and foremost. Things like relentless effort, discipline, toughness, and poise. Also, even in the day and age of the transfer portal and roster turnover, it's our objective to create a team built on unity. All three phases of football are still built on fundamentals like alignment, blocking, tackling, amongst many others. Those will be great points of emphasis. Offensively, we want to be aggressive and have an attack-oriented mindset. We want to be both efficient and explosive. Now, where there's explosive plays, usually explosive players are involved. So it's important for us to feature our best players in what they do well. We want to have a balanced offense regarding both run and pass and have the ability to attack every area of the field and use all of our eligibles.

Defensively, it still starts with the fundamentals of shedding blocks, running to the ball, and tackling. We want to stop the run, affect the quarterback, and have the ability to play tight coverage when we need to do so. Further, we want to have a flexible scheme that can deal with the varying styles of offense that we see weekly. Special teams will be a big point of emphasis. Field position is a critical component of winning football, and we intend to invest in this area in terms of talent and our time.

Finally, I think people are what make an organization. And so it's going to be important to us. We already have a lot of really good people here in our organization to assemble the best staff that can build relationships with these players, teach them, hold them to a high standard, and then also to recruit the right kind of people into our program as well. We're really excited to take this on. Again, I'm really grateful for this opportunity. I'm very appreciative, again, of the administration. And I also want to say I'm appreciative and grateful to our players the way they finished this season and the way they fought. I know that the opportunity I've got right here as an individual would not be capable without all their efforts. And I think in sports, a lot of times, you know, individual awards are indicative of team success. Maybe this isn't an award, but it's created an opportunity for myself as an individual. But it's really indicative of the efforts of a lot of other people, that I was just fortunate to play a role in. I'm also very grateful for that.”

On how he handled the unknown of this past week: “I felt like we had to prepare as if you just assume you're here. And then also, we pretty openly talked about the possibility if someone else is here, we still have a job to do. You know, it's the right thing to do to try to finish a class, recruit well and if someone else is in here and they're coaching them, so be it. But we have an obligation and responsibility. But we tried to prepare as if we're going to be here and recruit in that manner as much as possible. I think we were able to get a good start on this class.”

On the hope for the recruiting class: “I think when you talk about the goal of the class, football has obviously changed as it pertains to roster management. I remember when I got into coaching, you'd have a board and it would say, hey, here's quarterback, tackle, guard, center, receiver, so on and so forth. You had all the positions lined up and then you knew how many were probably exiting your team at the end of the year due to graduation. Then you'd have a little number over there, one above quarterback, maybe two against running backs, four above maybe the offensive line in totality. Now that number is very variable because you don't know how many of your guys are going to enter the portal and so on and so forth. So I think the number is flexible as it pertains to what this class will look like, even the high school class. But obviously we want to bring the right kind of people into the organization, both with their intangible qualities and their character and also the talent and ability to help us, guys that we feel like we can develop into the future.

What we talk about, which is something I spoke on earlier, is we want to help them develop in three big areas. It really is important to help them develop as a person, that they're going to be able to go have a successful life beyond athletics or when they get done at UAB. Then also as a student, which is something we talk to our players about today, and there are a lot of people that are able to afford a successful life without a college degree. Hey, my parents, my dad didn't go to a big four-year institution and he worked really hard and was able to create a positive life for himself and his family. But I think when you're in a position and given an opportunity to have an education, I think you need to respect the fact there are a lot of people that would like to trade places with you. And it's important to us to make sure our players understand that. We need to take advantage of the academic opportunity in front of them. And so that's the second thing is we're going to do everything we can to help support them academically because a lot of them, hey, look, it's our goal. We know we're in the business of winning and we need to try to win football games. But it's still our goal to help them beyond their time here. And then finally, hey, we're going to develop as football players. We've got a really good plan to do that. We're very specific as how we're going to do that. It's going to be a 12-month plan every year and that's going to be detailed. We feel like we've got a good track record of doing that in the past. We feel like the university is committed. We've got people here that are really committed to helping them do that. We've got a phenomenal facility. We've got a great stadium. So we're really excited about what the ceiling could be here. When you've got a great institution, a great academic opportunity like UAB coupled with what we can do as a football program and the vision and commitment that lies in front of us, I think there's a lot to sell from that standpoint.”

On confidence created by wins over Memphis and Tulsa as an interim head coach: “I think those wins helped a lot. I mean, I think our guys fought really hard. You asked about confidence. I mean, maybe I'll be more transparent than I should be for a second. I mean, when everything happened the Memphis week, I'll admit, I put on the best front I could. I'd get in front of the cameras and doing a press conference and was disappointed to be frank with you. Fought fear, anxiety, all those things. I'll be totally transparent with you on that. But the one thing I will tell you is when we got to game day and the centers and quarterbacks ran out for warmup, and I jogged out of the tunnel, and as soon as my feet hit the field, it was all gone. It just reminded me how much fun this is to compete and play. I think that moment really helped me a lot. And I think the second thing is we have some people here that I'm close to that remind you you're not doing this yourself either. There are a lot of people that are committed, that want to help and work to make this place better. So you're not taking it on alone. Certainly those games help from a confidence standpoint, but a lot of it is having confidence in the people around you. I’ve been doing this a long time and prepared for a long time. So I feel very equipped to take on the task.”

On what he learned on how to do the job during the interim period: “I think that experience is really helpful to have had to deal with some of those things and have some trial and error. I think any time you take on a new job or new tasks, you're going to get a little better as you go. But I also think understanding the time management challenges and how to stay organized and manage your day is probably the biggest thing that probably got me a jumpstart on.”

On plans for staff structure: “It's a little bit early for us to talk about the staff stuff. Obviously, there'll be things over the course of the coming days where there'll be some conversations about staff and considerations will be made, and we're going to put as much thought into making sure we have the best people here as possible.”

On assurances from the university to have more financial backing: “Well, I think that really before any of those conversations started, they initiated their willingness to make a commitment to try to help. They've already made a commitment, but (the willingness) to make a further commitment. And so that was really encouraging. And I think, again, when you think about this place, certainly there are challenges. I spoke to that earlier. We can't be naïve, though maybe we've had some stretches of success in the past, we're an entirely new landscape now, whether it's the transfer portal (and) NIL. We have to adapt to be competitive. I think there's an understanding of that. And I think beyond that, if we can adapt in those areas, I think we do have a lot of inherent advantages. You talk about recruiting, we have a great five-hour radius in recruiting. You could even say we've got a great three-hour radius in recruiting. You think about the greater Birmingham area on out, a lot of good football here, the good coaching, great football culture, good players. I think we can use that. I mentioned earlier, we have a great facility. We have an awesome stadium. So I think there are a lot of inherent advantages to begin with, and we feel like we're going to work to adapt in the other areas. Those are things that gave us confidence to take this thing on.”

On his coaching journey: “Every experience along the way, I go back to being in middle school and running a wishbone offense, you know, and the things I learned running the wishbone in seventh grade. Running the Wing T in ninth grade. I had great coaches and mentors. I almost wish I could name all of them, there's so many. Every step along the way has had an impression on me and it’s more about the people.

You talk about a place like New Mexico Highlands where I was fortunate to work for Eric Young and work with a great friend there named Stephen Parker who I learned a lot from. But one of the things I felt like I gained from that experience is no color printer at that time. I'm sure they have one now, but no excuses. We found that group banded together and we found a way to win eight games. You just find a way to get things done and go to work and not have self-fulfilling prophecies where you say, well, we don't have this, therefore we can't. But no, let's find a way. Let's find a way.

Every one of those steps along this journey have helped me. And I would say, too, to be more specific, the one thing about coaching there at that time is a lot of our team was assembled quickly. And so obviously, being fortunate to be around Coach Saban and his program, I learned a lot, a tremendous amount. It's just hard to quantify how much I learned. But then in this current era where your team may be assembled quickly, you have a lot of roster turnover, there are some lessons I learned at a place, coaching at a smaller school where a lot of our guys showed up after the 4th of July. So you had to have a great eight-week plan before you could go put the ball down, kick it off, and be ready to play. I worked with people that had experience at that and had, and I think we had a really good plan doing that. I think those things practically really do help.”

On following the search while you’re a candidate: “I don't know if I should answer that question. I hear all the same names as everyone else hears. But we're pretty knee-deep in work, too, trying to recruit. So distractions were kept to a minimum. We tell our players to stay off their phone. So sometimes I got to take some coaching too and stay off the phone as well.”

On retaining players: “Yeah, we feel like we have really good relationships with our players here and it's something we want to develop and grow more. Becoming an interim coach in the middle of the year is unique, and that's another thing I share with the players today is that if you have a runway of a whole offseason, as an offensive coach, I'd probably know the defensive players better. I'd known them individually. We would have met more. We would have spent more time together one-on-one. But I do feel like collectively we do have really good relationships and it's hard to be predictive as to how far that goes as they're weighing whatever their individual options are as we get closer to the portal. But we're hopeful that we can keep a lot of the guys here that we feel like we can build around. That's going to be important to us. It's our first priority right now.”

On what he will look for in an offensive coordinator: “I mean, it's a bit early, but look, I think the one thing that I learned being around the best coordinators I've been around is I do think that individually they're very bright. They have good leadership qualities. They're able to generate ideas on their own. But they all, most of them I've been around, have a spirit of listening. There's a spirit of humility. And again, that word coordinate means coordinate the efforts of everyone in the building, not just coordinating the players. So the best coordinators I've been around do a really good job of taking ideas, having a spirit of discernment, knowing what ideas to use, what ideas not to use. So I think those are some things that are really important for any coordinator.”

On why he wanted the job: “Some of these things, I'm probably going to be redundant, but I do feel like I have some roots here growing up in Georgia and then coaching in the state for over a decade now. My mom is from the state of Alabama. So I just have a lot of roots here to start with. And then I think secondly, having been here, really just feel like we can build a successful program. We feel like all the things, there are a lot of great things in place, like I mentioned. Again, I apologize for the redundancy, but location, recruiting radius, facility, stadium, you know, all those things are excellent. People really are obviously the most important thing. And then finally, I think, as I mentioned, I think a willingness to adapt to the new competitive landscape and what that looks like. Those are all reasons that I was excited to try to take this thing on.”

On whether he will call offensive plays: “I think that's something that I'm not prepared to answer just yet. I think that there have been, without stating a lot of specific examples, there are examples of that going really well and there's examples of that not going well. Something I'm going to talk to people about and I already have to a degree, but we'll continue to come up with whatever we feel like is the best strategy there.”