UAB’s Pass Rush Starting to Show Its Teeth
By Steve Irvine
BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA - August 20, 2026
The proof came complete with impressive numbers. Sure, those numbers came in a fall camp scrimmage and won’t count when the UAB football team opens the season with a difficult test at Illinois.
But there was some confidence built after UAB’s pass rushers produced a reported eight sacks in Saturday’s scrimmage at Protective Stadium. They also carried that confidence back to campus.
“I think any time you go out and have success is good,” said John Jones, who coaches the edge rushers along while also serving as the rogram’s special teams coordinator. “Especially if you're a guy that's teetering on the line of whether you're gonna be one of the dudes. At some point, you know, you gotta start getting guys ready that are gonna play. I think for the group to go out and do that, it’s a testament to the (whole) group. I wish you could've been on the sideline hearing them cheer for J’Quan (Mason), cheer for Chris Burge or Blanche (Gold) or Eli (Hall).”
Seven of the eight sacks were credited to players who line up on the edge. Mason, a 6-foot-5, 240-pound redshirt sophomore from McAdory High in nearby McCalla, was the most active as he was in on four sacks.
“He's been here for a while,” Jones said. “With the new defense, he's really taken pride in to learn his job and what to do. He studies hard. He texts me at night asking questions. When he got here from McAdory, he was really raw, just kind of ran around and ‘See ball, get ball.’ That's just what he knew and that was OK. But he's developed, especially on the mental part of the game because he has some really good physical tools. He can run, he's athletic, he's just continuing to put it all together so that he can consistently be on the field in all situations. We try to challenge those guys to be three down players, and that's his challenge.”
One of the strengths of the group is the mixture of body types and skill sets that Grantham and the defensive staff put together. Mason and Marlin Dean, who has been dinged up recently, are the prototypical long-arm taller edge players winning with speed and explosiveness. Tylin Jackson, who had a tackle for loss, forced fumble and pass breakup in the scrimmage, has similar size and is a combination of power and speed. Gold, Burge and Hall have a bit more of a compact build in comparison. Colby Archie, a 6-foot-2, 220-pound junior college transfer, is an athletic player who moves inside and outside.
“We do have a variety of body types, you know, guys that can rush the passer and play the run,” said UAB head coach Alex Mortensen. “I think Coach Grantham's got a lot of really good packages where he can mix it up as to who's on the field and where they're playing and where they're gonna rush from. And then also has the balance of using guys as droppers too. So I think the diversity in body type and skill set gives him flexibility with the scheme to be able to actually do more.”
The key to it all, Jones said, is the way the group has come together.
“Probably the coolest thing is how tight they are as a group and they all pull for each other,” Jones said. “They all hold each other accountable. They push each other, coach each other up and there's not a big ego in the room. They celebrate each other's success. So that’s probably the coolest thing about all of it is just seeing how quickly they've gelled as a unit and they get in there and they get after it.”
Obviously ,the group gets even better when Dean returns to full strength, which should be soon. The 6-foot-5, 240-pound Dean, who played collegiately at Georgia, Utah State and Georgia State before coming to UAB, was one of the Blazers top defensive players in the spring and has the ability to be one of the top at his position in the American Conference. However, the production of the group has continued while Dean is sidelined.
“It’s a testament to the room,” Jones said. “Next man up. The guys are smart. We train them to learn different things, not only when you’re on the field but what do other guys have. We want to be able to put the best player in the game, not the next Jack or the next end, whatever. We want to put the best player in the game we challenge them mentally to be able to do that. We practice that way. We rotate guys and put them in different spots, see who can handle what. We love to do it when they're tired at the end of practice and throw them a curve ball and see if they can go operate because you never know, in a game, when somebody's helmet gets broke or goes down, we got to get out, we got to find a way to get a stop and go execute. With Marlin being out, the guys stepped up and really looked at it as an opportunity to get some more reps because his reps had to go somewhere.”