UAB Loses To Tennessee 56-24, Heading Into Bye Week
By Steve Irvine
BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA - September 20, 2025
Grasping onto anything positive from a UAB perspective is difficult when the scoreboard at Neyland Stadium read Tennessee 56, UAB 24 at the end of a non-conference game on a warm Saturday afternoon in Knoxville.
“I felt like there wasn't a give up, there wasn't any quit, there wasn't a feeling sorry for ourself,” said UAB head coach Trent Dilfer. “We did not play very well, obviously you're not down that much, but it wasn't a what was woe-is-me attitude. There was more resolve to come back and play better. Again, please don't take this as like I'm saying, hey, it's all good, but you're asking me what positives came out of it, and I did see that it was very opposite of Tulane, I'll say that.”
Not much went right for UAB in the first 30 minutes on Saturday against a Tennessee team that was smarting after blowing last week’s game against Georgia, largely thanks to a late fourth-quarter touchdown and a missed field goal in the final seconds of regulation. By halftime, the Blazers were in a 42-7 hole and appeared to be headed toward the fourth time in school history that they’ve allowed 70 or more points.
But the Blazers did play better after halftime and they did keep competing.
“Yeah, I mean, personally, I feel like being a second half team is something that we needed to kind of get together,” said wide receiver Kaleb Brown, who had four catches for 79 yards, including a 61-yard touchdown reception. “So I was just proud of the way that we came out (after halftime). Regardless of the score, we know that we're still on film. It's important to finish the game out and obviously we want to finish the game out because it's not over. So it was good to just see the guys keep going and just know the bad things are gonna happen and just the way we respond is most important.”
Now, don’t mistake this as anybody in the UAB program being happy about what happened on Saturday. They clearly were disappointed but the second half did give them a small sliver to build on.
WHAT IT MEANS: In terms of having a successful season, it means very little. What UAB does during conference play the rest of the way, beginning in two weeks against Army, will be the determining factor on what to take from this season.
WHEN THE GAME TURNED: When the ball was kicked off. There wasn’t much drama or suspense once Tennessee sped to two quick touchdowns sandwiched around a UAB three-and-out.
WHY UAB LOST: The easy answer is Tennessee is a better football team. Digging deeper, UAB couldn’t run the football and was whipped at the line of scrimmage on both sides of the football. That’s not necessarily surprising, though, when playing the 15th ranked team in the country.
WHAT ARE THE KEY STATS: This game was decided well before halftime, so let’s begin with first half numbers. Tennessee outgained UAB, 352-151, on the way to a 42-7 halftime lead. Included in that was a first half that Tennessee outgained the Blazers, 206-44, and outscored UAB, 21-0. Look at the overall stats and UAB quarterback Jalen Kitna had a solid day, especially considering UAB couldn’t run the football. Kitna was 38-of-51 for 364 yards with two touchdowns and an interception. It was the third consecutive game that Kitna surpassed 300 yards passing. The UAB wide receivers spread out the production with leading receiver Corri Milliner held out of the game for conduct detrimental to the team. Brandon Hawkins led the team with seven catches for 69 yards with a 30-yard touchdown and Kaleb Brown had a 61-yard touchdown reception.
WHO GETS THE GAME BALLS: Somebody – or a lot of people – wearing orange.
WHAT DID COACH DILFER SAY IN HIS POSTGAME PRESS CONFERENCE: Opening statement: “Yeah, that's a really, really good football team. Very talented, very, very well coached. I think that's the thing that stands out is the quality of their system, their schemes, how disciplined their players are. They do a great job and overwhelmed us early in the game. We were just trying to compete.”
On the ways they overwhelmed UAB: “Just destroying us at the line of scrimmage, just their ability to create a wall at the line. We want to run the football, we want to be creative in the run game. They just blew up our run game (and) they were able to get pressure on the passer, especially in the long-yard situations. And then offensively, their combination of physicality and the tempo of which they play at. Your cleats aren't in the ground. It's one thing to play against a really good athlete, a really good scheme but aren't in the ground it’s hard to turn around and line up. We did everything we possibly could, every tool we know, in practice to prepare for it. But until you play against it, it's very hard to simulate the tempo. And then they had a really cool wrinkle where they put the receivers in the boundary. So it limits the play caller's calls because that's not something the team does all the time. And they led with it and it really creates problems for us.”
On UAB’s offensive wrinkles: “We felt like we needed every tool until once. Never once did I think we could line up and just play our normal offense against them. We felt like we needed to score 35 points or more. Now, if this was a game that was gonna be in the teens or low 20s, maybe you don't use those tools. But we felt like if we scored a lot of points, we needed to use all the tools necessary. Those are things that we practiced. We had a thing called Funky Fridays, all spring and summer. And Funky Fridays are just our way of kind of introducing new tools to the tool belt of offense and they were pretty successful today.”
On Corri Milliner not playing: “Just didn't feel like this was a game that he would help us win.”
On takeaway from the game: “The biggest thing I said to them in the locker room was it's very easy to get negative in those situations. You're getting your tail kicked, get down that early, get down that much early. It's a real opening for negativity, complaining, blaming, all the things that hurt teams and I didn't hear any of it. They weren't wide eyed. It wasn't like, oh my gosh, you know, go hide in a hole. They're like, okay, we're not playing our best, let's go back and play one play at a time. Keep fighting, keep competing. So the audio of the team, I thought was the best it's been. You know, that's not a moral victory, but it's something you're looking for, I think you can build off that. Offensively, we know we can throw the football. We don't want to throw it that much, but we know we can go to throw it for whatever, 300-something yards, against that defense. We only turn it over one time, the quarterback only turned it over one time and I would argue it's not his fault. You know, says a lot about our ability if we need to pass.”
On the receivers: “You have to spread it out against teams that have a physical advantage over you because you can't you can't just create one-on-one matchups and say we're gonna go win those. You know, you have to work through progressions, you gotta use motions and shifts to create leverage for your players and then they have to they have to make plays in tight coverage. I thought we did that. There's a couple we probably could have had that we didn't make but for the most part I thought the receiver player was pretty darn good.”
On using his cell phone on the sideline just before kickoff: “My phone is on the sideline every game. I have a daughter who's getting ready to give birth and I wanted to show her the environment. I always FaceTime or send a video to my grandson.”
On Sirad Bryant’s personal foul against the Tennessee kicker: “So I've seen an Instagram video of it. I'm not happy with it. I want to get the full video of it and he will be disciplined because of it.”
On what UAB needs to get out of Saturday: “We have to be a better football team. We have Sunday, Monday off, we’ve got to show up Tuesday morning for practice to be a better team. I think part of that is how you how you respond to getting your tail kicked. I think that part of it is how you compete at the end. Did you finish, did you fight? Did you scream and claw and do all those things? And then I think as coaches we have to identify things that we need to change to help our players out, you know put them in better situations be successful. I believe we'll be a better football team on Tuesday. We won't know that until we play Army.”
On defensive struggles, particularly in first half: “I think it's both. I think we have some things on defense we need to fix. I mean that's four games in a row where we've not played at a high level on defense for 60 minutes. We're showing signs of it. But again, I kept saying this and I didn't know who we'd be until four games in. No, we're 2-2. We're four games in. I have a much better idea who we are. And we have a bye week to kind of tweak some things. I think we'll tweak some things that will make us better.”
On Kaleb Brown, Brandon Hawkins and the receivers: “I think we really came with a mindset of try to play every snap as if it's in a silo. That's the only thing that matters, is that play. And that's hard for receivers to do, just in general. It's hard for emotional players to do. I thought our receiving crew did a great job of that. We don't go three out very often. This is not an offense that goes three out very often. And usually when we do, it's a temper tantrum on the sideline. And there weren't any temper tantrums. They're like, okay, we gotta get better. Let's look at the pictures. What’s coming next? I think I can win on that. Hey, this is what they're doing. There was a conversation of moving forward to the next play, instead of bitching about what had happened in the past. I'm really proud of them for that. And they competed hard, they embraced a week of work. Our receivers worked really hard this week. They knew it was a big challenge. It's a talented secondary, and it's a really good scheme. It's one thing to have talented players. I told Coach Martinez after the game. I said, I don't know if I'm more impressed with how talented your players are or how good your scheme is. It's just, they don't take the bait. It's very hard for the defense not to take the bait. They don't take the bait. They just sit back, trust their scheme, trust their players, trust in their assignments and they make it incredibly hard to get explosive plays against them.”
WHERE IS UAB’S NEXT ASSIGNMENT: UAB has the week off. The Blazers don’t play again until Army comes to Protective Stadium on Oct. 4.