UAB Defense Dominant Again In Second Scrimmage
By Steve Irvine
BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA - August 23, 2026
The venue and time of day were different for the second scrimmage of UAB football fall camp. But, once again, the result for the Blazers’ defense was the same. Once again, the defense made a huge impact, this time under the lights on the outside practice field at UAB.
The final tally on sacks for the Blazers was 11, which was three more than a week ago on a steamy Saturday morning at Protective Stadium. This time it was Marlin Dean leading the way with 3.5 sacks and Blanche Gold chipping in with 2.5 sacks. The other sacks came from Eli Hall, Sterling Sanders, Chris Burge, Cam Cunningham and J’Quan Mason. UAB’s defense also an interception from Courage Ugo, who returned it for a touchdown, and Delvon Gulley.
“Defensively, I felt like we affected the quarterback at times and had some good pass rush,” said UAB head coach Alex Mortensen. “I think they were also able to play pretty tight coverage when they needed to. On some of the passing downs, I thought they did a good job from that standpoint. And also created some turnovers too. Really, I felt, defensively both against the run and the pass there were some really good things. I think the thing you see is that this is a group that seems to be communicating well together. They're lining up well and at least tonight not a lot of busts. I've seen real, real maturation with that group from day one to now.”
It wasn’t a completely frustrating day for the offense. The Blazers got seven receptions from the tight end position with Gabriel Cline and Scott Isacks each grabbing three passes. Mortensen talked about the performance of the tight ends in camp following the scrimmage.
“We do need to get better and they're no different than anyone else,” Mortensen said. “But I think Antonio Ferguson is doing a good job. Antonio's been with us for a year. Scott Isacks is also doing a good job. He's done a really good job and is probably more versatile player than maybe we knew, even knew. Gabriel Cline is a good young player that's a good athlete (and) still developing in a lot of areas. I like all those guys. Sean Persson's been injured, so it's kind of hard to judge Sean. Overall, I think it's a good group that I think can be more than serviceable.”
Overall, offensively, Mortensen did see some things he like from the offense on Saturday.
“We talked a lot about the poise part,” Mortensen said. “I thought the quarterbacks showed good poise through ups and downs and through playing with a lot of different players out there. I thought that they stayed very steady emotionally, which I think is a really good sign. I think some of our young backs ran hard. You know, Jayson Moll and JR (Mosley) and Hudson (Higgins) those guys ran really hard. I think we do have some guys that are capable of being playmakers at receiver that need to step up. We were short several (receivers) today for various reasons, all of which we expect to be able to play for us.”
UAB begins its fourth week of preseason practice on Monday morning. The Blazers open the season on Sept. 3 at Illinois.
MORE FROM ALEX MORTENSEN ON SATURDAY’S SCRIMMAGE
On overall impressions of the scrimmage: “I think the biggest thing is just the attention to detail on certain fundamental things (that were) not to our standard. Some of those things are things that I think sometimes you get in the stress of a competitive situation. They can rear their head, especially with the younger players. Overall, I thought the guys took the field with really good energy and effort and toughness tonight and played hard. We are playing a lot of guys in the scrimmage, and scrimmage formats can be weird because half of it we're tackling, half we're not. And then we're also breaking it up situationally. We worked on a lot of different situations, so sometimes you do lose the flow of the game. Now, the reason you do that is you want to make sure that we get a chance to work our calls in all these different situations, so we can make sure to touch on those things. So my point is some of it is hard to judge because you're not in the real flow of the game.”
On getting an inside pass rush: “I think we have guys that are, are capable of pushing the pocket inside. I do think it's the most difficult pressure to deal with when the pocket gets pushed from the inside. It's hard for the quarterback to navigate that. But also encouraging Nigel Tate to fight his way back and Chris Spencer. Those guys could really help us, too. If we can get them in there, then I really think inside, coupled with the guys that are going, you know, we can have a good presence there.”
On steps toward firming up the depth chart after the second scrimmage: “We'll start looking at that a lot more closely. We've got a good body of work now with spring ball and fall camp. I don't think development stops. I think guys can keep changing, growing and get better in the season. We'll continue to evaluate through the season. But yeah, we'll start looking much more closely at the depth chart, now we know, how we want to use guys and where we want to use them. I think the one part that is borderline tricky in our situation is that some of the guys that are out, you would anticipate they would be playing or, at least affecting your two deep somehow. But you still want to see them practice and do it.”
On his team’s depth: “I think you always like more depth. I heard Kirby Smart talking about this the other day. Maybe it was a year ago, but I saw the clip of it where, you know, he's saying he's had some really good teams at Georgia, but the depth that they had at Alabama when he was there was much greater. Just relative to the roster being deeper and being able to develop guys in your system longer and not dealing with a portal. The portal can be good, too, so I'm not trying to be totally negative on the portal. I think the depth thing is something that in our specific case I think it can potentially be good, but I would like it to be better. Yeah. This is kind of a program thing, but over the long haul, we want to increase our scholarships. We want to be able to recruit more players and get more quality players. But I do like the guys we have on our team. I think they got a good spirit to them. I do have confidence that there are guys that may not go out there first that can compete for us. But I think we're always gonna be trying to improve the depth on our roster.”
SCRIMMAGE STATS PROVIDED BY UAB
Receptions
Gabriel Cline 3
Scott Isacks 3
Antonio Ferguson 1
Ty Mims 1
Rashad Robinson 1
Kaleb Brown 1
Malik Muhammad 1
Defense
Marlin Dean 3.5 sacks
Blanch Gold 2.5 sacks
Delvon Gulley INT, 2 pass breakups
Courage Ugo INT (TD), PBU
Malachil Character TFL, PBU
Eli Hall sack
Chris Burge sack
Sterling Sanders sack
Chris Burge sack
Cam Cunningham sack
J’Quan Mason sack
Kyle Mosley TFL
Barden Sullivan TFL
Anta’Veon McKenzie PBU
Kris Wokomah PBU
Special teams
Jonah Delange FG makes from 25, 35 and 45 yards.