Trent Dilfer And The Blazers Look To Build Off Of Early Season Momentum As UAB Heads Into Conference Play

By Steve Irvine

BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA - September 2, 2025

Trent Dilfer said after his UAB football team won its opener that he liked the way his offensive line played in the win over Alabama State. However, he also held off on final judgement about the play up front until he studied the film.

What he saw on film was an offensive line that gave up no quarterback pressures and helped pave the way for a rushing attack that gained 273 yards and averaged 7.8 yards per rush. Alabama State had two tackles for loss and did not come close to sacking UAB quarterback Jalen Kitna. A year ago, Alabama State was second nationally in FCS in sacks and seventh in tackles for loss.

On Monday, during his weekly Coffee with Coach meeting with media members, Dilfer offered his final assessment of the offensive line.

“Overall,they played very well,” Dilfer said. “The five starters received game balls. I don't do that all the time but big picture they played very well. But there were some simple things that we didn't ID correctly, we didn't fit correctly, that wiith how we do things are paramount to our consistency. And I think they have a great challenge ahead of them this week with everything that Navy does, to play at the same temperament but become more consistent in doing so.”

The five starters getting game balls were center Adam Lepkowski, guards JonDarius Morgan and Calib Perez and tackles Logan Moore and Brandon Sneh. The challenge this week is a Navy defense that had five sacks, which was third most in FBS during the first full week of the season. The Midshipmen totaled seven tackles for loss.

After one week, the UAB offense is 16th in the country in total offense at 520 yards per game and rushing offense (273 ypg), 14th in team passing efficiency and tied for 11th in scoring offense (52 ppg). UAB is also one of 54 FBS teams that did not turn the ball over in their season opener.

The offensive line played a big role in all of that but the success went much deeper.

“I thought that, you know, the biggest thing I was proud of with our offense was they were decisive,” Dilfer said. “We made mistakes. There's a lot of things that could have got us in trouble that didn't, but at least they were full speed. There's great effort on the offense for the most part. And when you do that, good things happen.”

However, the second step for the UAB offense will be much more difficult.

“I think everything's different week to week,” Dilfer said. “Navy creates a whole other set of challenges.”