UAB Fall Camp SNAPSHOT: Day SIX
By Steve Irvine
BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA - August 6, 2025
UAB Fall Camp Snapshot
Physical play has been a big part of the plan during the early part of the UAB football fall camp. UAB head coach Trent Dilfer decided to incorporate more tackling into preseason preparation than he did during his first two seasons at UAB. Dilfer stopped after practice earlier this week to talk about his team’s play thus far.
On camp progress: “As I told you, I wanted to figure out who we are to have an opinion on what we need to see. I need it to be revealed. I think that process is happening. I would not tell you that I know yet. I’ve seen encouraging signs, I’ve seen things that were slower than I would like. But it’s definitely a better feel on how we’re getting there. That’s a little esoteric but it just feels right on the process of getting there. This maniacal approach of just demanding professional habits is starting to show up between the lines. That’s the things I’m most encouraged by. There’s been some bad football, there’s been some good football. But, for the most part, it’s been a professional approach between the lines and in the program.”
On shorter practices: “I liked the way we used to practice, it’s the way I’m accustomed to practice. I practiced that way in my professional career, I practiced that way at Lipscomb. There was a formula to the way coaches do it. It was kind of West Coast model, the Bill Walshs and the Denny Greens. That will tell you the tree I learned from. But what I learned with this group, it was a lot of mental floss. I think it we broke it up to where we still get things done but we broke it up in separate buckets that would get more out of each bucket. That’s what we’ve seen. The (walkthroughs) now, a lot of the teaching is done not in pads, before we get on the field. It’s kind of separated. When we get on the field it’s kick the ball off and let’s go. We’re starting from jump. Hopefully it cures some of the issues we had starting slow. I’ve enjoyed it. There are times you feel like you’re not getting enough but I think there’s opportunities to sprinkle those things in as we continue through camp. We go four periods of 11 on 11. There’s about 24 plays, so about 15-16 minute periods.”
On physical play in camp: “I made a huge mistake the past two years of treating veteran college players like veteran NFL players. That’s one of the biggest mistakes I made. I respect these bodies and what they’ve gone through in college, but they still need to play tackle football. There’s guys in the league that are in their third, fourth, fifth year that need to play a little tackle football. We’re playing more tackle football. And we have situations always, everything is some type of situation, so there is a mental component to it.
I told the media, I told compliance, I told the team that I read the rule book on tackling and I’m going the max on tackling. I will break a rule but I will us to the rule, to the threshold. We’re going to play tackle football. There is going to be some boo-boos in the midst of that but that’s what we do on Saturdays because that’s what we’re going to do during the week.”
On how the approach helps quarterbacks, even though they are not getting hit: “Very little 7-on-7. (Offensive coordinator Alex Mortensen) and I are trying to find the right balance of 7-on-7. I think you need some of it. But you want your quarterbacks to play as much live football as they can. We also tell them to don’t whisper at the quarterbacks. We want bull rushes, we want them to get close. Not too close but we want the quarterback to feel that congestion. And the defensive line needs to know when it’s a sack or not because there are a lot of fake sacks. There are a lot of guys who do a blow by and think they got a sack. We need to know, is that going to be a sack or not be a sack? We’ll stop it on the film and say ‘No, that’s a blow by. You did not finish that. You would not have finished that. Calib Perez got his hands on you and pushed you by.’ Just because you put out an arm and tagged the quarterback, that (quarterback) is 6-foot-5 1/2, 225-pounds. He ain’t going down because your little hand hit him in the hip. We want to create as many of those real vibes as possible. I think it’s good for the quarterbacks not to be able to see everything. We don’t want to make this game easy in practice, so creating as much difficulty in practice as we can.”