UAB’s Dilfer Meets With Media Ahead of Army Game

By Steve Irvine

BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA - September 29, 2025

Game week returns for UAB. The Blazers had their first bye last week after dropping to 2-2 with a loss at Tennessee.

UAB head coach Trent Dilfer met with the media on Monday morning to look back and also look forward to Saturday’s American Conference game against Army. UAB got a head start of facing Army’s option attack last week during the bye but still have a difficult assignment this weekend.

Opening statement: “I am excited for the next battle. A conference game that is highly important since we are 0-1 in the conference. It is a neat week because of “My Shoe, My Cause,” the thing I do. I am excited about that one because it is for Bundles of Hope this week. It is a wonderful organization that our players are heavily involved in. It seems like it is a home away from home. They have a million-diaper drive goal, they are now at 900,000, and our players are heavily invested in that, so it will be fun to honor them. We had a good bye week, we got some really good work done in the three practices and then gave them some time to get away from football which I think is important and rest their bodies a little bit, too.”

On possibility of getting out of rhythm during a bye week: “Yeah, I think that's a concern. You know, it's a delicate balance. The old part of me wanted to practice every single day because I thought we were doing some good things, especially offensively. I think that's a big opportunity to make, obviously, some corrections. But you got to be cognizant of their bodies, their minds. I think, you know, when we go for a long stretch, if you take the beginning of the camp until the first bye week, that's a long stretch. Now that they're here, so often in the summers, they really don't get a big break. I think you're also balancing that you don't want them burned out. You want them excited to be in the building. So it's a combination of both and you try to find the balance that you feel is best for this team.”

On whether his team is healthier after the week off: “Yeah, we came out of Tennessee a little more banged up than I thought. Some things popped up a couple days after, so we were able to rest some guys. Some guys didn't practice. We should be pretty darn healthy this week. There are guys still (banged up). You've played four games, one of them against an SEC opponent, you’re going to have some stuff. So we got some stuff. I think the guys can battle through it this week and be ready for them.”

On preparing for the Army option attack: “On paper, it's great. You still got to shed blocks and tackle and do all the things that they make it very difficult to do. You got to match their intensity. I think that that's the biggest thing when you play the (Academy teams), especially Army and Navy, the two we're really familiar with. They just play so hard. I was really impressed with the East Carolina game defensively. You know, they started poorly, East Carolina made some big plays against them. They're playing harder down 28-6, than they were in the beginning. They're relentless with how they play football. The scoreboard doesn't matter. They have a standard of effort, a standard of execution, a standard of physicality that does not waver. So you have to match that. I think that's the thing that people don't talk about enough. The scheme is very difficult to play against, but they just play so hard on both sides of the ball and special teams. So I think that's the biggest challenge more than the triple option and you know, all the other things. It's just matching their intensity.”

On replacing Sirad Bryant: “I think they're all important. Everybody on defense, I think feels like they need to play better. It's gonna take everybody. If you look back one game, our best defensive performance so far in that second half. We played everybody. We played six safeties,  five corners, played all the defensive linemen, I think five linebackers played. So I think we played 30-something guys on defense. I think it was amazing, so it's gonna take all of our assets, playing at a high level, but that's the way to improve on our performance so far.

Again, it’s gonna take all of them. AJ Brown, Jalen Cheek, Pierre (Royster), all of them are going to have to step up and play at  higher level. They know that. They don’t need the head coach to say that publicly. They know they have to play at a higher level for us to be successful. It's going to take everybody highly invested in fixing the issues we've had to this point.”

On Sirad Bryant’s response last week: “He practiced really well. He showed up, helped us on the service team, knowing he wasn't gonna play. Had a great attitude, worked hard, communicated, had good energy. Late in the week was tough, I think it became harder on him late in the week. But it's understandable, and we met on Friday, and he was excited about this week of preparation and getting better. I feel like he'll handle it well.”

On Army’s slow start vs. East Carolina: “East Carolina made some plays. It's not like they schemed them up or beat them up everywhere. They were able to run the ball efficiently. They didn't gash them. They didn't gash Army in the running game, but they ran the ball efficiently. And then they just made some really good plays. Receivers making some outstanding plays, quarterback making some outstanding throws, some contested catches, the backs ran really hard. A lot of times, the East Carolina backs were tackled for two and got five, tackled for three and got six. So they stayed ahead of the chains. But if you just look at if from a schematic standpoint, Army was in place to make plays and East Carolina just made them. And then as the game wore on, Army started making a lot of plays. Defensively, they got the big two turnovers, one high red zone turnover and a low red zone turnover on East Carolina. Their coverage got stickier, their run game got better. They got closer to the line of scrimmage. Army was more aggressive in their calls. It's not like East Carolina had their way. After about midway through the second quarter, that game was pretty balanced.”

On getting Barry Walker and Baron Franks II in the mix at offensive guard at Tennessee: “I think there'll be positional battles that will continue throughout the year. And we're not good enough for anybody to get comfortable. So I think the edge of uncomfortable is where you find your greatness. And we want to make it very uncomfortable with the position battles. If somebody's playing at a higher level than a player that started games, then we're going to give that player the opportunity to play.  Barry and Barry both have practiced at a high level. And we want to get them in that game and see how they competed. And both have graded out pretty well. We have a couple other offensive linemen that are new to our team that took some time to get integrated and they're practicing a high level too. I wouldn't be surprised to see changes like that throughout the entire roster. Some guys are taking advantage of the developmental process and getting better each week and we'll give them a shot to play in games.

On UAB wide receivers: “Yeah, I think Xavier Daisy will only get better with more reps, had a really good bye week coming off of three or four outstanding weeks of practice and played well against Tennessee. I think Evan McCray showed up over the bye week and played at a high level. Strap (Iverson Hooks) had a great week of practice. BJ Hawkins continues to be consistent. AJ Johnson really hasn't contributed at a high level for us but is practicing better. And then, we call him Tank, Jalen Elder is somebody else that I think has a chance to earn some playing time with his play in practice. We're going to continue to go with all of them. We just believe in that philosophy and the ones that are practicing best and most consistent will get the most targets.”

On asking defensive guys to do some different things against an option attack: “Now, the advantage is the offseason. We're able to work Navy and Army a lot this offseason. It started really before spring ball. So the scheme adjustments, is what I would call them, aren't new. They're not foreign. That's one of the mistakes we made with the old staff was we would introduce these things too close to the game. These adjustments were introduced in February (or) March. They understand that some roles, some job descriptions can be different against triple option teams. You also sometimes use different personnel. You have players that don't play a lot in normal down-and-distance games against traditional opponents that all of a sudden are playing 30, 40, 50 snaps against triple options. We recruited specifically some body types to play against these teams. It did not hold up against Navy. We hope to have a better result against Army.”

On the early kickoff: “Well, we should be good in early kicks. We are an early morning practice team. Our players are in the building at six every day. This should not be hard for us. We get to be home, which is great. You know, I think starting fast is a product of focus, so we just need to be locked in focused. I mean, we'll be starting this game when we're in the fourth quarter of our practices typically. So, their body clock should be fine. It's just a matter of their minds being right.”

On the struggles of the running game: “We have to run the ball. I have always believed in balance. I want to be a balanced offense. It's just hard to call runs when you're not running it well and you're not getting movement. But yeah, I do think we have to be a little more stubborn with the run and that's really me. I need to call more runs and make sure that our week of practice, we’re giving our players the best chance to be successful in the run game. Running the football will be a big point of emphasis this week.”

On big picture look at where his team is coming off the bye: “I said this a lot early on, I said I didn't know who we were, it would take a few games, four games, to figure it out. I still am learning this team, but I have a much better pulse of who we are. I think we have to be better in critical situations. This needs to be a critical situation football team, meaning have to win the third down battles on both sides of the ball. We have to continue to play special teams at a high level. We got to play better red zone defense and hold teams to field goals when they do drive the ball against us. Offensively, we need to kick less field goals and score more touchdowns. It has to be a mature football team, has to be a smart football team. I think we definitely have the potential to do that. We have a lot of veteran players. We have a lot of players, now on offense, that didn’t have a lot of starts that are starting to feel like veterans. We have to play a professional style of football where we win those critical down battles.”

On who steps up in the defensive interior against Army’s option attack: “Well, again, I keep hearing these questions. They're good questions, who's gonna step up? The answer is everybody. Like statistically, we're not very good defense. So everybody has to step up. I think in the middle of the defense, you need your better players to play better. You need your veterans to play better. Guys have done some really good things. The narrative around here a lot of times is man 10 guys did their job, one guy didn't and that cost us. Or nine guys did their job, two guys didn’t. Well, my response is, well, we need all of them to do it or if one guy's not going to do it, we need somebody to do something extra special. We just need to play better. Everybody needs to step up. We need to get the ball back. So that will be the point of emphasis. We have a lot of players we like. They're working really hard. I would not criticize their work ethic, but now it needs to show up with production in the game.”

On Army’s ability to control game by controlling the football: “Well, you can't let them, number one. They will ruin you if they can go on these 9-to 14-play drives. If they do, you have to force them to kick the field goals when they're done at the end of the drive. But if they take the ball for long periods of time and score touchdowns, it makes it incredibly difficult to win the game. Offensively, you can't let it bother you. You can't let it. You can only control what you can control. So I think one of the mistakes we made last year against Army, we had 40 plays in the first half, which is an enormous amount of plays versus an Army team. Part of it was they scored pretty quick when they got the ball. But we moved it. But then we dropped two huge passes in the first half. We have an interception that went off a receiver's hands in the red zone. We throw another interception because the receiver is not in the right spot and the defender is not supposed to be there. We have a second down play that's going to go for 40 yards and the center doesn't block back, which is his job to do. We just imploded. When we did execute, when everybody did their job, we moved the ball rather easily against them, run and pass. But we just kept stubbing our toes and weren't scoring points, weren’t finishing drives with points. If they are doing that, then you need to answer, like the Navy game where we did for three drives. They scored, we answered. They scored, offense answered, they scored, offense answered. It's not ideal, but that's the expectation of this.”

On improving the low floor defensively: “I think we gotta get the ball back. We gotta force some disruptive plays, we gotta create more turnovers. The one thing that surprised me defensively is in spring ball and camp, they were very disruptive. They created a lot of negative plays for the offense. They gave up yards, it's very hard to stop yards in college football. But if you're allowing some yards, you can make up for it by making teams kick field goals and then creating some disruptive plays by getting the offenses behind the down-to-distance. Our defense did a really good job with that. That has not been the case so far this year. They need to become more disruptive, so create more negative plays, create more long down-and-distances for the opposing offenses. I believe they will. I believe that's who they are. I just don't think it has happened for four weeks. You're like, okay, when's it coming? But I do think that's in their nature. That's the type of players who are recruited, so I do believe that that is going to happen.”

On the bye week creating a momentum change: “I think everybody hopes for it. You know, I think anybody that's lost the game before the bye week hopes for that, but you know, hope is cheap, right? I think you got to go do it. Hope is empty sometimes. You've got to go make it happen. And I think this is a really critical week of practice to be honest with you. The bye week was good. I do really believe in my heart of hearts that we got better at some things. But they've got to show up today, ready, fired up about being here. They've got to show up today with the chip on their shoulder. They get to do this. This is a privilege. And it needs to be represented that way.

I'll be keeping a close eye on the ones that are desperate to turn this thing around. The ones that are going through the motions, I just don't think you'll see play very much on Saturday. And those might be names that you've seen play for four weeks. Don't be surprised if the guys don't come in today tingly and ready to get better and practice at a high level that they're not playing on Saturday.”

On Jamichael Rogers: “He should be (ready). He's getting there. The setback was a little more, I don’t want to say severe because it sounds so bad. It just took longer than we expected. But he did practice a lot last week and looked really good. So yeah, he's a very disruptive player, as you know. He is a guy that needs to make plays for us. We need defenders like him to make plays beyond the X's and O's and he's one that can do that.

On the message he is sending to his team: “It really is the same message, I've been sending since the offseason that there's a standard. We don’t expect you to play perfect. That's not the standard. These are college guys. NFL guys don't play perfect. I actually watched quite a bit of NFL the last couple weeks, oddly enough. You see mistakes everywhere. Guys make all kinds of mistakes. So it's not playing perfect, but the standard of preparation, the standard of buy-in, the standard of selflessness and energy. The standard of appreciation that they get to do this. It’s matter of fact. There are players that don't do it. (We) still love them, still want to coach them, still want them in the building, but they need to understand they're not going to play. All you've seen is working with players for a while and then just drawing a line in the sand and saying, hey, if you're not going to meet the standard, then you're not going to play. It doesn't mean you're a bad person, but now you got to reprove yourself that you can meet the standard every day. We'll work with you. We'll give you time off on a bye week. You know, we'll help you rest up a boo-boo if you got a boo-boo. We have good resources to help you get better academically, athletically, socially, mentally. But if you're not going to do your part, then how can we trust you? So we talk a lot about being a trustable player. And a trustable player is somebody who prepares like a pro and then goes out and plays the best of their abilities. That's all we're asking, just go play the best of your abilities. And when guys don't meet the standard, I think you're really putting a lot of people at risk if you're going to trust somebody in a game that has proved to be untrustable during the week.”