UAB’s Recruiting Radius Expands Under Mortensen
By Steve Irvine
BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA - June 30, 2026
Building and strengthening relationships with high school coaches in Alabama and surrounding states has been an emphasis for Alex Mortensen and his UAB football staff.
That’s included a boots on the ground approach where Mortensen and the staff have visited more than 400 high schools since the first of the year. Like every other year it’s also included a series of summer camps but this year there appeared to be a busier month filled with official visits in June. At this point, the Blazers have public commitments from six high school players and a junior college defensive tackle. Four of the high school commitments are from Georgia and junior college defensive tackle Jshawn Jinks, who will play at Georgia Military College this season, also prepped in the Georgia.
Mortensen recently answered a few questions about his team’s recruiting efforts thus far.
On his thoughts about recruiting thus far: “I do like where we're going in recruiting. We are making an effort to recruit high school players more and we really want to recruit the five-hour radius around Greater Birmingham heavily, that's in the state and that's out of the state. Let me start with saying I think there are a lot of really good high school football players in (Alabama). I think there's good coaching, so there's a lot of positive things right here in the state of Alabama. Having grown up in Georgia, just south of Atlanta, sometimes we forget that West Georgia is closer to Birmingham than Mobile and Atlanta is really two hours away. I think recruiting our bordering states is really important too, so that that's the intent. I like where we're headed there, I like the relationships we're creating with high school coaches, some of which we already had. I think just kind of getting those rekindled and then I think we're recruiting some really good players.
At the same time too, we don't want to settle. We want to make sure we're taking guys that meet the standards of what we're looking for and then I think that you end up taking larger high school classes going forward. At the same time too, we've had good experiences, I can say personally I've had some really good experiences. with guys that have come out of the portal. Sometimes you end up recruiting guys out of the portal that also originate from this area or this radius and so we're not averse to the portal. But we do like where we're headed with the high school part of it.”
On mapping out what schools to visit as a coaching staff: “Some of it is we want to recruit the area that surrounds us. Then some of it can be very specific, we're getting a coach to a school for certain players. But we really want to do both. I think there's a lot of reasons for doing both. One, I think maintaining relationships with people is important even if they don't have players that year, it might be players down the line. Sometimes with these relationships coaches will talk to you about guys at other schools and then also I think it's just important to be thorough. When I was at Alabama, I was kind of involved with getting on Brock Purdy. That was happened really late, that was like December of his senior year. Once we started recruiting him, you know, his recruiting really took off.
Another one, Fernando Mendoza, I’ve told this story before, but Mendoza shows up at our camp. We didn't invite him, he just shows up. I'm watching him throw at our camp and I'm going man this guy's really good. I keep watching him waiting to see if he's gonna fall apart. He just got stronger and stronger and stronger throughout the day as just a camper. I went and talked to him and I said ‘Man like what do you got going on in recruiting?’ He goes, ‘Well at that time FIU is talking to me and I'm getting some Ivy League action that were interested in good grades.’ He goes ‘That’s it’. I ended up putting him in touch with one of my old quarterback coaches (David Lee) who's since retired and lives down in the Fort Lauderdale area. David ended up knowing the coach at Cal, Bill Musgrave. Anyway, I mean it looks silly now but we have Ty Simpson committed, so I was recruiting Fernando Mendoza as a preferred walk-on with us because we already had a quarterback in that class. Well I'm telling you, we had a chance. We had a shot on it all the way through December and then late Musgrave saw him work out because Coach Lee put them together and Cal offered him. I guess my point in that story is I think it's really important to be thorough. When you think about like guys like Tony Romo going to Eastern Illinois (and) when I coached in the New Mexico Highlands I was kind of shocked at some of the talent we had there. I guess what I'm saying is, I'm probably giving you more than your looking for that question, but I think it's like when you talk about what's the strategy when we go on the road, it’s like yeah there are specific guys we're targeting (and) there are relationships we're trying to maintain. But there's also a component of ‘Man, let's go turn over every rock we can and make sure that that a diamond in the rough isn't under our nose and we're unaware of it.’”
On whether there’s a snowball effect when you get kids from certain areas or schools: “Yeah, I think that does happen. You know, I think sometimes you can, people talk about creating a pipeline. I do think sometimes if you can recruit an area, especially if you sign someone from a certain area and they have a great experience with your program. I think there's some really good word of mouth that happens that maybe allows for future recruitment to be successful there.”
Current UAB commitments
Jordan Shambley, QB, 6-3, 185, Hillcrest HS, Tuscaloosa, Ala.
Kaiden McKenzie, OL, 6-4, 330, Brookwood (Ga.) HS
Bryce Daniels, OL, 6-4, 321, Bucholz HS, Gainesville, Fla.
Dai’jon Hayes, WR, 6-0, 175, Tift County HS, Tifton, Ga.
Jshawn Jinks, DT, 6-4, 330, Georgia Military College
Israel Prince-Oyakhire, DB, 6-2, 170, Shiloh HS, Snellville, Ga.
Messiah Mack, OL, 6-5, 295, Coffee HS, Douglas, Ga.