Ryder Burton Attacking Fall CAmp As Though He Is UAB’s Starter
By Steve Irvine
BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA - August 5, 2025
Ryder Burton leaves little question about the approach he’s taking during his first UAB football fall camp.
“I’m going to attack it like I’m the guy, I’m the starter,” said the 6-foot-2, 200-pound redshirt sophomore quarterback, who played his high school football in Springville, Utah.
Does that mean the first shots fired in a quarterback controversy? Nope. Truth is it’s the farthest thing from that. Barring injury, Jalen Kitna will take the first UAB snap on Aug. 28 against Alabama A&M at Protective. And Kitna, a 6-foot-5, 225-pound redshirt senior will remain the team’s starter at quarterback throughout the season. But that doesn’t change the way Burton attacks fall camp.
“I mean, I think everyone knows J Kit's the starter and he's earned that role,” Burton said. “But I think J Kit would tell you himself he wants me to approach it like I'm playing every single Saturday. He would expect nothing less. And I'm going to compete my tail off, even with no competition (for the starting role) because I'm going to force him to play at his best. I know if he was the backup, he'd do the same thing for me and I know that's what Coach Dilfer wants.”
Burton said he uses the relationship between Dilfer and Matt Hasselback, who were quarterback teammates with the Seattle Seahawks as an example.
“Coach Dilfer constantly talks about him and (Matt) Hasselback's relationship when they were in Seattle together and all the battles they had. they ended up, they're still the best of friends. I can't tell you how many times he shoots Hasselback's texts like ‘Hey, do you have the cut up of this play?’ Like all the time. So, I'm trying to create a similar situation with Jalen. When we go talk to the linemen, we go together. When we take the receivers out to lunch, we go together because if, God forbid, something does happen to Jalen, then it's an effortless change.”
Burton threw for 4,273 yards and 48 touchdowns in his final two seasons at Springville High. He led his team to the state championship game as a junior in 2021. He signed with BYU in December of 2022 and enrolled for the spring semester.
“I was a baby,” said Burton, who is the oldest of five siblings. “My senior year, our first game, I was 16 years old. So I'm really young for my grade. Like the quarterbacks in the year below me here at UAB are actually older than me. So it's just it's a little bit of a unique situation. So, yeah, (at BYU) I’m walking into a locker room, especially with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and everyone's serving missions. I'm walking into a locker room with guys that are 23, 24 years old and looking them dead in the eyes and going to work against them every day. It forced me to grow up fast.”
He didn’t play in a game during the 2023 season and also didn’t play last season at West Virginia. But he soaked in knowledge at both stops and looked for a new home after last season.
“What happened was we had a young quarterback committed,” Dilfer said. “We were really excited about him and he flipped on us in the last second. He actually had a good reason for it at the time. We know the family, we know the kid really well, it wasn't a big deal. We really battled whether we wanted another quarterback or not. We (eventually) felt that we needed one more (quarterback) that had years. So what we started with was guys we knew, guys we watched that had years left. After that, we looked and Ryder was the kind of the guy that we're like, that's pretty interesting. Then once we got to know him, you're really falling for the kid. He's the ultimate teammate, he's got a really high ceiling. He's already played a lot of snaps in practice.”
He stepped into his third college stop with confidence, which is something that comes natural to him.
“I feel like I was raised by a mother that taught confidence from a very young age,” Burton said. “It was not something that was optional. When I was a kid, I told everybody, I'm going to play in the NBA, MLB, and NFL. She never broke me down. She gave me all the confidence in the world, and it's helped a lot in football. It was something that was built, and it caused me to be, at times, a little arrogant for sure, but it matured me very fast.”
He used that confidence, along with his football experiences, to make a good impression on the UAB coaches in the spring and now into the second week of fall camp. By the end of spring, he appeared to have a firm grasp on the backup role behind Kitna.
“I wouldn't say necessarily make an impression quick,” Burton said of his spring practice approach. “I think Coach (Alex Mortensen) and Coach Dilfer do a fantastic job recruiting guys and I don't think they would bring me here without the thought of I could play some day. It was more of just how can I be the best teammate I can be, how can I be a leader, how can I help this team get on the course on winning some games and truly just becoming a becoming an expert at the offense. And becoming somebody that guys can rely on in off the field situations and on the field situations. That’s really my main focus.”