Trent Dilfer Met With The Media On Monday To Recap UAB's 31-28 Win Over Akron And Preview Saturday's Game At Tennessee
By Steve Irvine
BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA - September 15, 2025
UAB football head coach Trent Dilfer met with media members on Monday morning to talk about his team’s 31-28 victory over Akron last weekend and look ahead to this Saturday’s visit to play 15th-ranked Tennessee at Neyland Stadium. Dilfer, whose team is 2-1, was asked how success would be defined against a Tennessee team that is nearly a 40-point favorite.
“I think victory in this game is what you're looking for, but there's other victories too,” Dilfer said. “You want to be emotionally sharp throughout the game in a climate that's gonna be difficult to handle your emotions. You want to be mentally sharp and clear of thought in an environment that's going to be hard to be clear of thought because it's going to be so loud and so intense. And then physically, you want to compete through the whistle against a team that is very physical and very fast, very explosive. It's going to compete as hard as you, if not harder. So I think you look for the victory in the game, while you also look for the victories emotionally, mentally, and physically in individual matchups and units.”
Opening statement: “Good morning, excited that we got a win in front of our home crowd. Found a way, it was ugly at times, but proud of our guys for responding well to adversity. We'll preach it more than anything else, handling adversity in every game. I thought we responded very well, especially defensively in the second half. A lot to get better at, that's been the theme here this for the first four weeks. It's all about getting better every single week. I think it's a great opportunity this week to get better during the week of practice and get better as we play the game in Knoxville.”
On judging his team’s defensive play last Saturday: “I think effort, there was tremendous effort. I thought there was an awareness of situational football, especially deep in the red (zone). You know, we were anchored down a couple times deep in the red. I think adjustments in the secondary, you know, we took away some things. We gave up some things. We took away some things they were really trying to do. I thought our coaches and secondary players did a good job of recognizing where they're trying to attack us. And in the running game, outside the leakiness, it got leaky in the second half inside, for the most part, the inside of the running game was effective with a light box. You know, we didn't have to recruit extra players to handle the inside run game. So there are some positives. We played a ton of people. I think we played six safeties. We played five linebackers. We played the entire defensive line. I think five different corners played significant snaps. I do think we got better. I think Isaiah Crozier and Delvin Gulley both showed up, played significant snaps, played well. Mamba (Tamarion Crumpley) got a little beat up. So it was good for them. Roy (Williams) bounced back after getting beat earlier in the game. I thought the safeties, they all played and they all showed some traits that are positive that we can build off of.”
On the team’s offensive mistakes on Saturday: “Yeah, it was the same old taking the turn making a mistake. We have a lot of plays in the second half where 10 guys are doing it right and one guy, unfortunately, is making a mental mistake. We did have some physical breakdowns, more so than we've had the first two games. But really it was the mental stuff. It was stuff we’ve done a lot of times, things we’ve repped relentlessly and for whatever reason, we don't do the right thing. It was a light game plan, in terms of volume things, the least amount of plays we'd ever carried into a game. So it's not we have too much stuff or we're trying to do too much. It was more of, probably, a lack of focus. Offensively, it's a game where you can't get away with one guy messing up an assignment because it takes 11 guys doing the right thing all the time. So mentally, we got to clean it up.”
On how he defines a successful outcome this week: “I mean, we're always trying to win the game. I've been in a lot of games where you're a big underdog and nobody gives you a chance and as a competitor, you're still trying to find a way to win. But I think we have to get better and that's why I said that at the beginning of the season. I’ve been saying that to this team, this first third of the season is really finding out who we are and making sure we're getting better and making sure that we're correcting mistakes and nothing becomes habitual. That we're identifying people that fit into the systems the best. People that are playing the hardest, people that are the most invested. So without preseason football, you can't really know. It's not like we've had a lot of these players for two, three years and know their DNA. So we're finding out their DNA as competitors as the season goes on. And you're seeing how they fit into the system. I think victory in this game is what you're looking for, but there's other victories too. You want to be emotionally sharp throughout the game in a climate that's gonna be difficult to handle your emotions. You want to be mentally sharp and clear of thought in an environment that's going to be hard to be clear of thought because it's going to be so loud and so intense. And then physically, you want to compete through the whistle against a team that is very physical and very fast, very explosive. It's going to compete as hard as you, if not harder. So I think you look for the victory in the game, which also looks for the victories emotionally, mentally, and physically in individual match-ups and units.
On the rewards of playing a team like Tennessee: “Well, it's a great opportunity for your players. And I’ll be very honest about this with them. Those that have dreams of the NFL, this is the game the scouts will watch. They want to watch the other ones, they’ll watch this one first. If they watch this one and they like what they see, then they'll dig into the other ones. If they don't like what they see in this game, you have no chance. You won't get on a board, you won't be looked at, they won't come to our practices and keep watching you. Like they're just going to write it off because this is the kind of game that's every week in the NFL. Every single week in the NFL, you're playing as somebody that has good, you are better, you know, and how you think, how you act, and how you compete physically will determine whether you can survive and thrive at the highest level.
I think the other one that's a real thing is there's opportunities to make a lot of money in college football through the power of schools and our guys have a great opportunity to increase their value. You know, they can increase their value for us, but they can increase their value out in the open market too. There’s still a portal and that's unrestricted free agency. So they're going to have an unrestricted, 10-day unrestricted free agency period come January and how they play in this game will determine their market value to a large degree. I think it's a good opportunity there.
Then I think as a team, you know, those are the two selfish things, but they're real things. I think as a team, it's a great opportunity to go and kind of show up. You know, show up dressed for success, so to speak. You know, make everything you do, how you act, how you compete, how you think, how you respond, making plays, like show up and let your light shine. Not to be cheesy, but be like somebody that's never watched UAB football watches the game is like, ‘Dang, that offense can really go, man that defense plays hard, man, they're really good on special teams.’ People take notice of what you've worked so hard to build.”
On this type of game being beneficial when he was a player at Fresno State: “Yeah, they were huge. I mean, we beat USC in the Freedom Bowl in (1992) and they're still talking about it in Fresno. I think of David Carr's teams that had the big upsets. Coming from a Group of Five, mid-major, whatever you want to call a program that did beat some power schools, it did a ton for that program. There was a great deal of pride for the players, coaches, and the fan base. I think also it got a lot of us to the NFL. Fresno has a very rich history of putting people in the NFL. And a lot of reason is because we scheduled hard opponents. The NFL takes notice when the underdog goes and competes and plays well and individuals try in those games. We played Colorado in the (1993) Hawaii Bowl, I think they had, I wanna say 12 players drafted off that team, and we threw for 500 yards. So a bunch of us skill guys, our draft stock went up. And it also showed that we could put a lot of yards up against bigger, stronger, faster, more highly recruited people. I do think the gap's a little wider now at times. But it doesn't mean you can't have success.
We have some very talented players that should match up just fine in this game. But then you have to have guys that maybe don't match up as well, play the best they've ever played, compete as hard as they've ever competed.”
On Jamichael Rogers: “He’s getting closer. He had a little setback last week unrelated to what was originally keeping him out. So it was more err on the side of caution last week. We don't ever want to put a player at risk when it's something that can get worse. I have no problem with guys playing with boo-boos. None, zero, no sympathy whatsoever. But if it is something that can get worse because of the physicality of the game and put a young person at risk, I'll never do that. And he has a little bit of a thing. We don't think it's that big of a deal. But something that happened late enough in the week, we didn't have enough information. So we wanted err on the side of caution.”
On J’Quan Mason getting back on the field: “Well, it looks different when he's out there. I think everybody on the team notices that he is just physically built a little bit different than most guys. Now he's got a long way to go when it comes to consistency and technique and all the nuances of playing the position. But from a physical trait standpoint, he's a unique player for our program. He needs to continue to grow, he needs to continue to get better, but if and when he does, because I do believe he will rapidly, he'll be a difference maker for us.”
On pass protection: “Yeah, I think the first two (game) very good, poor last week. It's amazing how many times Jalen (Kitna) was able to beat rush with the throw. You know, we had, I think it was officially six pressures but it was more like 16. There were more than 10 others if we go back and look at that if we hold onto the ball one tick longer, Jalen's gonna get hit or sacked or not be able to make a throw. We’ve got to shore that up significantly. And they did some things different. I think as coaches, we take a little bit of the burden. They rushed five a lot more than they had shown on tape. They were a lot more aggressive with their stunts and games. So we have to do a better job getting them prepared as well. But this will be a tremendous challenge this week to pass protect.
It's the one thing that, when you watch Tennessee consistently over the last couple of years, this coordinator does a great job of mixing his calls with the one consistency is they're gonna get off the football and they're gonna try to disrupt your offensive line.”
On the similarities between Tennessee and South Florida offensively with former UT coordinator Alex Golesh as the USF head coach: “Yeah, it's never comfortable. You know I got to know Alex Golesh really well when I was at Lipscomb. He recruited our school relentlessly and Alex and I talked a lot of football. We were together a lot and Alex has done everything that (UAB offensive coordinator Alex Mortensen) and I have done offensively. Then over time he morphed into this system that he and (Josh Heupel) built at UCF and now Tennessee. It's kind of the ultimate conflict offense, if it's going. If you get a defense playing on their heels and reacting to what you're doing, you're in a lot of trouble. What we've tried to do against USF is not react, but instead try to say, ‘OK this is how we're going to play you and you need to adjust to us.’ It's been successful times and it's been wildly unsuccessful at times.
So I think we're trying to find one more layer to defend this, where you're not playing catch, so to speak. What I mean by that is you're not like constantly going, okay, what are they doing, what are they doing? But the one difference too is Tennessee has the kid from Tulane (Chris Brazzell II) last year that gave us problems. That's a really, really good player. He's tall, I think he's like 6-5, can run like the wind, really good ball skills. They're super physical up front. You can't just say that we're gonna bend, but don't break. Well, you're going to break in the run game if you do that, because they're just going to pipe off big, giant runs on you. The quarterback (Joey Aguilar) is playing, I think, better than the quarterback last year. Significantly better. He makes quicker decisions, sees the field a lot better. He's played a lot more football. He's tremendously accurate, he's comfortable. They kind of force you to give the quarterbacks a lot of what I call training camp looks. You know, where because they spread you so thin, because they play so fast, you kind of just line up and play training camp defense. Quarterbacks with experience, when they see training camp defense can get after you a little bit because there's no post-snap disguise. What they see before the ball snaps is what they get after the ball is snapped.
On UAB receiver Corri Milliner’s success in intermediate routes: “Corri has gotten a lot better. He is an explosive player. He's a really smart football player, understands our offense, understands what defenses are trying to do. He's still like the rest of us on offense, I’m not singling him out, we’re just wildly inconsistent. We can do some things that are pretty spectacular as shown by our production when we're rolling. And then he, like everybody else on offense, shows the ability to do the opposite of those things at times. So I think the message tonight, the message this week is we got to really push for consistency. If you can show that you can do it consistently in practice, if you've shown you can do it in games then there's no reason you can't do it through the entire game. I think Corri and the rest of us on offense need to take that approach. We feel like we can be pretty good offensively. But until we find consistency, it's gonna be this rollercoaster that we’ve had for the last six quarters.”
On UAB receiver Brandon Hawkins: “Well, he was really finding a role last year going into Arkansas and had the big reverse in Arkansas, did some good things in Arkansas game. Ball didn't find him, but did some really good things. He had a great week of practice and then got hurt. It was a pretty bad injury, and he couldn't play the rest of the year. He thought about going to the portal, going to a level where he could be more productive. He started realizing the spring that we fought for him and how much we do cared about him. He wanted to graduate and there were some other external factors too that made sense for him to get back out of the portal and come back here. But we made a commitment to him and he made a commitment to us that even though we brought in new guys, even though we were redoing the room, he would get an opportunity to re-earn the role that he was carving out. That's what he did, he just went and earned it. He's the leader of that room. He's the hardest worker in that room. He shows up every day with his lunch pail. He'll do the dirty work, like he'll go run nine routes in practice to save a guy's legs and run full speed. He'll go block secondary players. He'll volunteer on special teams. He'll do whatever it takes to help us win, trusting that the ball will find him over time. He's starting to find it more. In this offense, you kind of grow from finding a role to having an impactful role to then having plays called for you. I'd say right now he's in that impactful role, borderline getting the opportunity to have plays called for him. He's a player we talk about all the time in the staff room about how can him the football, get him in space and get him down to the football field. And I thought the play on the corner route, one that was an incredible throw by Jalen, but also a really good route and a really good finish by him. That was a real big play in this game.”
On the UAB tight ends: “Well, again, I think consistency is the word. I do really hope to get (Antonio Ferguson) back soon. Ferg had earned the starting job, was playing at an extremely high level in camp, got injured and had a setback. I think we'll be better when Ferg comes back. JC and Elijah are doing some good things but again, it's about consistency. There's a good thing here and then they're not what they need to be in the run game. We drop the third down pass. Elijah, who has really good hands, we drop the third down pass on perfect throw, perfect read, perfect play call. And we don't execute because of the dropped ball. So again, I don't want single him out, you're asking about players I'm talking about the whole offense, it's been the story of our offense. It's just been two steps forward, one step back. We gotta keep taking steps forward and look for more consistency in every position and tight ends are a big part of it.”
On playing at Neyland Stadium: “We'll crank up the sound. We'll make it obnoxious. We'll do all the things that everybody does. You saw Kirby (Smart), I happened to be in here going over my call sheet when (Tennessee-Georgia) started, I would happen to be in here going on my call sheet when that game started and Kirby was interviewed before the game. He was like, ‘Listen, you can't prepare for this. We play in these stadiums all the time and you do your best.’ But ultimately, it comes down to the players having the poise to handle that. I think the one thing crowd noise does, and I lived this as a player, and had to learn the hard way, is it clutters your mind. It's so, so relentless that it takes a skill set to tune it out, to have a clear mind and think properly. When you don't, everything gets fast. And all of a sudden, you find yourself making mistakes that you otherwise wouldn't have made. Now you can try to condition yourself to that in the week of practice the best you can. But inevitably, you're going to have some players that won't handle the cluttered mind due to the relentless crowd noise, as well as they should.
Now, I have seen a lot of players and we experienced this in Georgia, we didn't handle it very good early. But then guys kind of got used to it and they settled down. Arkansas, there were moments that it was pretty loud. But again, our guys got used to it. So I think you also have to trust that you're going to have some clunkiness early on. You've got to protect them from some things. And then hopefully they settle in and uncomfortable becomes comfortable.”
On his experience with crowd noise as a player: “The first time we played in Minnesota, I couldn’t hear myself think. It was just relentless. The funny one of me trying to fight (defensive end) Johnny Randall. I think that was an overflow of my frustration by not being able to self-regulate my emotions and a lot of that was due to just the chaos in that building. Green Bay in the (Brett) Favre, Reggie White days was again, me and John Lynch would be trying to talk on the sideline line from me to you and couldn't hear word that we were saying. You just had to learn to non-verbally communicate and again you had to learn how to get comfortable from being uncomfortable. And then on third down in Detroit, Green Bay, Minnesota, Arrowhead, there's literally just no chance to verbally communicate anything. Everything has to become nonverbal. Just over time you get used to handling those things.
I do think practicing it (helps). Back when I was playing, I’m so old now, in the early 90s you didn't have the giant speaker systems that would pump music into practice fields, believe it or not. Now, like everybody has it, high schools have it now. We didn’t have it. I think it was like 96-97 when we started. We practiced right near an airport, so, one, Tony (Dungy) would use the planes (for noise). Now, you couldn't predict when that was gonna be but he would try to capitalize on it for extreme noise when planes were taking off or landing. And we started pumping some noise into practice, really just to be able to learn how to non-verbally communicate and feel you know each other. Synchronize our movements instead of having to verbally do it. It's hard for tackles, like you have to look in at the ball, so you're not looking at the guy you're blocking. There's tools that you can use to make the quarterback-center exchange better. I think the clap thing is something that came into existence I don't know 10 years ago or so. For some reason the clap, no matter how loud it is, you can hear it. I can't explain the acoustics of that, but our players seem to be just fine with that. So there's tools that people have added to the process over time that help but at the end of the day, it's just it's a very difficult environment to play in.”