Steve Irvine's Q&A With Alex Mortensen

By Steve Irvine

BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA - February 20, 2026

The question brought a small laugh from UAB football head coach Alex Mortensen.

When will move you into your new office?

“I mean, soon,” Mortensen said. “I was about to say I’ve sort of moved in, but that’s really not true.”

Truth is making the fulltime move from the offensive coordinator’s office, which is just one door away, into the head coach’s office has not been a priority since Mortensen shed the interim head coach label on Dec. 5. Earlier this week, Mortensen took some time to talk with The Banner about what is taking up his working hours and what is ahead.

On building the roster through the transfer portal: We had a lot of spots to fill in the portal and I think, unless there's some great change, that'll probably be pretty commonplace for most programs every year. Further, there was a very short time period to fill those spots. We definitely felt like we had to make some decisions pretty fast. I think the result of that, we feel pretty good about. Obviously, we had needs at almost every position. Not quite all of them, but almost all of them, and we had to sign quite a few players. I think we like the guys we signed. We tried to do the hardest work we could on getting the right kind of person, character, intangibles, and also the physical talent with each one of them. That's harder when you do less homework, but to this point, just with the guys being on campus and starting to work out and all those things, I think we feel pretty good about the guys we got.

I’m one of these people that I really believe like the evaluation process continues, you know, once they're on campus. I think one of the mistakes people can make sometimes is they get so stuck on their first evaluation or a desire to kind of prove themselves right. I think it's important and fair to the players too that we keep evaluating them while they're here. So I think we'll know a lot more, obviously, after spring practice about the guys we took. But I will say this, in conclusion, I am excited. I think we like the guys we have. They're working hard. I think it was important to us to try to get guys that were committed, hardworking, team-oriented, and then, of course, talented too. Hopefully we were able to do those things at a lot of these spots.”

On how they quickly evaluated how many numbers they needed at each position: “We have a depth chart that helps us manage the roster. Every position has got a number that you want at that position, plus or minus. I think every program in the country has that. You might want, you know, four quarterbacks plus or minus one, right? It's kind of the same for all your positions. You have these target numbers. So we had a target number, but that depth chart was a very dynamic document through the course of the portal because we have people that are either getting in the portal from our team or some of them are coming out of the portal and want to come back onto the team or we're signing players. We knew what those numbers were, but it's something we literally looked at every day to say, okay, what changed at this spot? What do we need to go do? And how does that affect our steps going forward?”

On whether there are particular positions that they did not fill with enough numbers: “I think there were some positions where there were a couple spots where you're unsure of exactly how you did. I know that's not really the thing to say if you're trying to sell. You know, we're excited. We're very enthusiastic. But at the same time, yeah, there were still a couple spots where you were going, man, we think we made good decisions there, we think we got the right guy. But again, you don't really know until you go compete and play. Sometimes it works the other way, too. Sometimes the guys you think you took that were maybe a little bit underwhelming, sometimes those guys surprise you too. Evaluation to me in recruiting, I think one of the mistakes you can make is you think it's an exercise in certainties. It's an exercise in probabilities. So there's a probability that based on all the information you have, a player is going to be really good. But that's all it is, is it's a probability.”

On getting to know about 50 new players as a head coach: “There's a lot of them. One, I got to know a lot of them quickly in the recruiting process. That was good. That was a starting point where we got to know each other some, even though it was a fast process. Then once we got them here, we actually had to go out and recruit high schools too. So I touched base with some of them on the phone here and there during that period. But that was also a little bit of lost time where you're not around them face to face. Right now we're trying to do, I'm doing a lot of things to make sure that our coaching staff is interacting with them and our doors are open. They can come see us anytime they want to. And then also, I'm going to make concerted effort as a head coach to make sure I'm meeting with guys one-on-one, both sides of the ball.

We're also going to do some things to make sure they get to know each other too, beyond just working out, lifting weights, and running. So we have a plan for our offense, we have a plan for our defense, we have a plan for our special teams, we have a plan for our strength and conditioning, we have a nutrition plan, but we also have a team building plan too. There's a real strategy as to how we're going to go about that.”

On the importance of the core group of players that stayed at UAB: “I think retention is great. We’d like to be able to retain our players. I hope as time goes on that our rates of retention increase. I think when you lose players, they can fall into really a few categories, but sometimes they're guys that you want to bring back, sometimes a guy gets in the portal maybe you're really not that anxious to bring him back and then some are somewhere in between. But ultimately, we want to be able to retain more guys. We want to be able to run a program and build a program where we can develop players. It's part of the reason I got into coaching because I enjoy development. I think a lot of our staff would say the same thing. So we hope to be able to have guys here for a longer period of time. I am really excited about the guys that came back, you know, and have an opportunity to continue to work with them.”

On retention of players: “I think retention is definitely harder than it's ever been. It will be interesting as there gets to be more history with the portal, because I do think there have been some pretty negative things that have happened for a lot of kids that have gotten in and haven't found homes. I do wonder a little bit if they'll be a little bit slower to get in as players start to gain information. That will be interesting to see. I think one of the challenges, and I'm not entirely anti-agent or anything like that. I think there's good agents out there. I understand that they're going to be a part of the process. But I do think some agents are incentivized to move a player because if they can get a player to step out or off their team into the portal and then sign somewhere else, they're now going to get a percentage of that next contract. Whereas if they weren't representing the player or working with the player previously, they weren't getting anything from them. For the third parties, you could argue there are incentives for them to create movement and that makes the retention part more difficult.”

On building the staff: “We’re close on the staff but we’re not totally finished. I think there will be kind of multiple phases to it. Like right now, you know, we'll get through this phase and then we'll kind of evaluate the overall organization. Some of that's coaching, some of that's other departments and say ‘OK, how do we best set up our staff going forward?’ How it's gone so far, I feel really good about it. We retained a number of coaches that I'm really glad we've retained and I think they are good coaches. I think we've been able to add talent to the staff too. Most notably, I think we hired Todd Grantham (as defensive coordinator). I think I'm excited about having Todd here. And there have been a few others defensively we've added as well that I think will help us. And I like the guys that we retained on defense too and at other spots on the coaching staff. I think we're putting a good group together right now.”

On the process of building a staff for the first time as a head coach: “(It’s) a combination of (using others for advice and making decisions on my own). Some of it was I tried to think back to the bosses I've had in the past, head coaches I've worked for, and maybe how they put their staffs together. That certainly was a factor. And then I talked to some people, too, about their take on what's important in putting a staff together as well. And what are some of the key qualities to look for. It can be a little bit like putting a team together because you may not have a team of offensive linemen or a team only of quarterbacks. Your staff members may vary in strengths and weaknesses a little bit, but you want to make sure that overall the staff is strong. You know, I kind of always joke about the line in Rocky when he's on a date with Adrian at the skating rink. And, you know, he says something to the effect like he can fight, she can sing and dance, but neither can do the other thing. He says you got gaps, I got gaps, together, we got no gaps, right? So you hope that when you're putting the staff together, you don't have a lot of gaps. Maybe you have some people that are stronger on recruiting and they're stronger on being a really strong position coach, but maybe they're not quite as developed on scheme contributions. Hopefully you're getting those from somewhere else. You want every staff member to be as well-rounded, and strong as they can, but that's not always the case. We're all unique. I think we've hopefully been able to do that here.”

On spring practice and will there be starters heading into the spring: “We currently plan to start spring practice on March 18th.  I think in terms of starters, right now the depth chart is really just for organizational purposes when we go into spring. We'll play a lot of different combinations of players and probably play them at different spots. I think you want to be able to evaluate your team as fast as you can and evaluate every guy and get them right where you want them to play. But I think one of the key objectives of spring is to evaluate your current team, moreso now that there's so much turnover. So the depth chart is going to be very fluid. We want the players to understand there's no finality in any of this in terms of where we start or where it is on day two or day three or even on day 14 or 15. Really we're trying to teach. We want the players to learn. We want to help them develop. Then we're also going to be evaluating guys relative to how they compete at their position, but also are they at the right position too because this is the first time you're seeing a lot of these guys on the field,”

On whether it will be more physical than some other spring practices: “I think what we're probably going to, I don't want to say take the path of moderation, but I don't think that we'll be any more or less physical than we've been in the past in spring ball. I know there's some conversations with people talking about really trimming it back. Some people are saying you've got to maybe be more physical so you can evaluate. We've always taken had a certain amount of days we like to tackle, a certain amount of days we want to have pads on. I think it's been a pretty good formula. I think we'll probably kind of stay with that.”

On whether there will be a spring game: “We will do something. We'll have a spring showcase. We will do something like that. You know, it'll probably be more of a scrimmage format than a true game where we split teams up, but we're planning on doing something.”

On the format before spring practice starts: “We get a certain amount of time where we can meet with them and we're allowed to do a little bit of football with them right now, but it's kind of a slow build. Right now, the emphasis is more on the general training of strength and conditioning. They're working with Lyle Henley and Coach (Bryant) Novick. And we just hired Santonio Jones in the weight room. They're doing more work there, trying to set a foundation and set a base. A lot of them, they took visits in January and all that. So we need to kind of set their physical base right now. Then there's things we can start to do with them mentally, but we'll have a lot of time in spring to get them caught up.”

On getting into the community and trying to raise NIL money: “I think right now, if you're a head coach in college football, fundraising is part of the job description. So yeah, that's definitely part of our schedule and my plan. Some of that is for fundraising. But really, I don't want to look at it like it's just fundraising. I think there's community relationships that we want to strengthen. We want people, even if they're not giving to the program, we want them to be involved and get people to games. Obviously, we know winning is the first step or one of the primary steps to increase that kind of involvement. We do want to create connections and relationships in the area regardless. And then, yes, there is a fundraising component to that. I'm definitely spending time on that.

The other part too, beyond the community, we're really grateful, the institution, Dr. Watts and his office, they've done things to help us too. That's right here on campus and we’re really appreciative of that and it's really encouraging.”

On how life changes as a head coach: “I just have more areas of responsibility and definitely more people I’ve interacted with and do interact with on a regular basis. I think as it's definitely all manageable. I think each day we're getting a little more organized and finding a little more of a rhythm and routine to what we're doing. We’re closer to having our calendar kind of really set in stone. I think the differences really will actually diminish a little bit over time and it will be a little bit more about coaching football here pretty soon.”