UAB Coach trent dilfer looks ahead to week 2 and ulm
Photo courtesy of Ken Shepherd
By Steve Irvine
BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA - September 2, 2024
UAB head coach Trent Dilfer met with the media Monday. He looked back at the season-opening win over Alcorn State and ahead to Saturday’s trip to Louisiana-Monroe. It will be an emotional week with a ton of UAB flavor on the ULM sideline. Bryant Vincent, the former UAB offensive coordinator and interim head coach in 2022, led his team to a season opening victory. Check out what Dilfer had to say today.
Opening statement: Obviously were pleased with getting a win to start the season, I don’t think satisfied, but pleased… Big challenge ahead I mean, we’re 1-6 in Week 2 since the program has come back and 0-6 under my tenure on the road. So, a lot working against us, and a staff at ULM that knows us intimately. Knows our schemes, knows our systems, knows our terminology, knows our philosophies… A staff we respect a lot. They’ve done a really good job recruiting since BV (Bryant Vincent) has been there, getting longer players, more athletic players. They had a good win; I think we have our work cut out for us.
On relationship with former UAB interim head coach and current ULM head coach Bryant Vincent: It was an uncomfortable start for both of us. We were sharing this office for two and a half weeks and he was great, the first day I was here he said “I’m getting out of here, I’ll go work somewhere else” I’m like “no, this is your football team until after the bowl game” and I sat right there in that corner and he sat at his desk and we spent hours together talking about the history at UAB, his experience, the football team that he was leaving, things he wanted to accomplish but didn’t get the chance to, went through the roster player-by-player, went through coaches. So, he was extremely helpful with onboarding. I’d say, he gave me a couple months head-start with that. I have a great deal of respect for him as a man, as a person. His coaches that he, I don’t want to say took from us but, were on our staff are great coaches, guys that I felt like I was going to be with for a long time, so he obviously can identify coaching talent. So, again, no hard feelings that those coaches are with him, I don’t blame him. They were elevated and that’s part of this business, but it all adds up to a unique challenge.
On matching ULM’s emotion: You have to match it the right way. If it’s who can scream the loudest and break the most chairs in the locker room, I don’t know if that’s the right type of emotion. We’re still learning our emotional peak performance as a football team. I think it’s a really important thing to learn as a unit, and there’s a lot of research behind that, it’s not just my opinion, there’s a lot of research in the human performance world around what is peak emotional performance. I think one of the things I did at Lipscomb was really search for that with those teams, you know, you’re doing it with a different demographic but it’s still important. And then once we found that, you know, we knew every week: road, home, big game, cupcake, it didn’t matter. When you find your peak emotional performance spot you’re going to play your best ball.
On challenge of preparation with limited film: Early season game planning is difficult because you got to, well one, you have one game of this group together. So, schematically, this is what they’re doing with this group of people and then you go back in their coaching career and kind of figure out what they do schematically with different personnel and you’re trying to piece it together, but at the end of the day it’s a guessing game. I think you have to be prepared for everything, and then ultimately you got to make sure players and coaches are focusing on them. If we take care of what we want to take care of we’re going to play our best football. If you get so caught up in what could happen, you lose sight of what you need to do which is go execute the plays that are called and do what you’ve done in training camp. You know, you look at training camp as a pretty good barometer on how you react to different looks because every day is different. You’re not getting the same looks every day. This is very much like a training camp practice/game where you just go trust your rules and trust what you do and whatever they present to you, you should have an answer be pretty well prepared.
On ULM QB General Booty: He's an athletic kid, he's smart, he's tough, he's very accurate. So he presents a lot of challenges because he can do a lot of things. I think we very much realize that what we saw in week one from ULM’s offense is not the totality of their offense. So, they have other things that they'll use him for in this game. And again, we have to just trust our preparation, our rules to respond to those things as they show up.
On the UAB defense in Week 1: Yeah, they're growing. They did a lot of really good things, especially in the defensive line. We were physically better than them too. You know, I think you can't (forget that). The scheme is part of it, but we were physically better than them at the line of scrimmage and our defensive line showed that. I don't know if that's going to be true every week. We looked very closely at technique, effort, things that you can address this week to get better. The message on whatever day it was Friday, the day after the game, was very clear and it was not to be mean or harsh, but I asked them if they were satisfied and nobody raised their hands. I said, good, then they were on the right track, because we played okay. You know, there's a lot of things to correct. But I think anytime you're trying to be really good, you're always going to see the glass a little half empty after a game. You're going to want to make corrections. You're going to want to keep pushing to improve. And we have a group of kids that feel the same way. Then you have a puncher's chance.
On helmet communication: It was okay. I think I said this last week, I said at my production meeting that we know there's gonna be a little growing process here with it. We thought less was more. (Alex Mortensen), especially, kept it pretty light. CJ (Cox), who was doing it for the defense, kept it pretty light. There were a couple of times during the game that we experimented with giving a little bit more information. It's also clunky from a technical standpoint. The refs aren't totally used to it either. There are some delays, there are some times when Mort was talking and Jacob couldn't hear, um, because it hadn't been clicked over yet. But you know, those are natural things.
We fully expect bad things to happen in Monroe, you know, for it to go out or whatever. Just so you know, non-conference games, if technology goes bad for the (visiting team), the home team does not have to adjust. I'm very much prepared for our technology to not work and their’s to work. That's one of the issues with where these things are going, is it does not carry over from conference to conference. We're prepared to play this game without any technology, helmet or iPads, trusting that the bad things that can happen and most likely will.
I'm indifferent, on it to be honest with you. As a player, when I used it, I thought there was times it benefited me. There was times I wish I could silence it. We've talked to Jacob about it. I think he kind of feels like I feel. He appreciates good, concise communication. He and Mort have a great relationship, they kind of speak their own language sometimes. But at the same time, he's playing the position. And if you have too much brain clutter, it can slow you down a little bit. I think defensively it's very helpful, because now the coach can recognize nuances in offensive formation, motion, tips, alignments, whatnot, to give a player a head start maybe on his eye progression or what he's looking for. So, I really don't think it's a game changer one way or the other.
On what the tape showed offensively from game one and not playing more players on that side: No, we didn't. I’ve been asked this question, I didn't think anything of it during the game, why didn’t we play more backups with a big lead. And the answer is simple. Our starters weren't playing well enough to put the backups in on offense. I think you can get better in game. You can learn stuff from in game. I wanted our guys in the second half, to feel the fatigue, to see if they still play with their hands with fatigue, if the receivers were exploding off the ball with fatigue, if our runners were having good contact acceleration with fatigue. The answer was no, you know, we did not play very fast or strong in the second half offensively. I wanted to condition them to do so. We might be in the 90-95 play game that we're trailing and we have to play our best football at the end. That was very intentional on my end. I never thought about putting backups in. Not one time did it cross my mind to sub. In fact, my anger on the sidelines was because we were subbing too much at the receiver position. I wanted our receivers to build up an in-game tolerance. It was evident we didn't finish very well in the second half. We didn’t protect very well in the second half. We didn't do the things on critical downs that we needed to do to if that wasn't even game to win the game.
That that was my frustration and that was the message to the offense. I told you this in offseason. I don't care about the 500 yards. That doesn't woo me. What woos me is finishing critical drives, playing the best football when you need to play your best football. We weren't able to do that, and that's why I was disappointed.
On the ULM coaching staff’s knowledge of Jacob Zeno: I think, more importantly, he doesn’t know the Jacob Zeno now. I would say that. Jacob will tell you that. Jacob, now, is a very different player than he was, before he got into this system. Now, (the ULM staff) knows our systems. Taylor Dupuis is one of the best coaches I've been around, young coaches I've been around. He knows everything about this offense. He knows a better than I do. So, that's the bigger concern is that Taylor is in that office wanting to win this game and he's been behind the veil. It's very much like the NFL, in the NFL you play a team twice in your conference, usually there's a coach or a player that's come from your team, it's on a conference team. Many times in free agency, you go sign up player from a divisional team into your team so you can kind of read the mail, so to speak. This is very much like an NFL divisional game for me. You know, reminds me of 20 years ago when you're playing the Steelers when I'm in Baltimore or we’re playing the Packers when I’m in Tampa. And you kind of know they know everything about you. So, do you abandon that and do something new or do you do what you do better? The answer is I don't know yet. But that is a massive concern going into this game.
On UAB special teams: Not just that (punt return for TD and punt block), but the plays that were made by starting players on teams. It's guys that now have a passion and a desire to play special teams. There's a sense of pride in that unit and it's only growing. I think blocking the punt and having the punt return only affirms the work they've put in. One of the things we talked about yesterday with the team was this is going to be a game where we expect a tough game. Special teams need to win. (We need to) win the special teams battle, all hands on deck type of deal. Really pleased with our kickers, our snap kick operation and field goal was really good. (Patrick Foley) got lucky and had a 31-yarder turn into a 64-yarder. But it was good, like the final number was good. We covered really well. I thought our kickoff coverage, that to me, was more impressive than the punt stuff. Last year, we really struggled on kickoff coverage. And we were dominant on kickoff coverage the other night. Both putting some in the end zone, but when we purposely kicked it high, to let our guys run and cover, they run and covered well. The one that went out of bounds doesn't bother me a lot. I thought it was tactically a really good decision, post penalty. I thought execution, obviously, the kick wasn't executed like we wanted it to. But it's also difficult to ask them. And that's like asking the guy to hit a 92-yard soft sand wedge to a back left pin. It's not the easiest shot in the world. So we'll get better at that. I thought the tactics of it were the right one.
On the familiarity between the two coaching staffs: Well, we know they worked all of June on us. So, we know a little bit about them, too. Let's not forget that we know a lot about them as well. Their defensive coordinator (Earnest Hill) sat in our offices last year, and everything he said has been chronicled. We also know that they think this is a very big game for them and they spent all of June working on our schemes. I'll answer the bigger question, we are very concerned with how much they know about us. We have not decided yet how to address that. That's a today thing. That's every meeting room in this building today is working on that exact thing. But let's not forget, if they watch this, we know a lot about you too. They should be as equally concerned with their processes, because we very much are aware of how they do things and what they call things. We've informed our players. We use the extra time to inform our players of those things. as well. So again, this is an NFL divisional game when it comes to information that flows between programs and how you deal with it. You know, I'm not saying I have all the answers, but I've seen a lot of different methodologies to handle these types of situations and we'll discuss them all today.
On UAB running backs: Well, one, I'll talk about Hindley Brigham, who is as fine a coach at the running back position as there is in college football. He's a great recruiter. To be a college position coach, you have to recruit your area, your position very well. You have to connect with your room. I call it mentoring. You have to mentor your room in life and in football. And then you got to develop them on the field. They've got to get better. And Hindley does all three extremely well. His eye for talent, you know, Lee Beebe was a walk -on, Isaiah Jacobs was a JC, Armoni (Goodwin) was injured, Solomon (Beebe) was a walk -on, Lee Witherspoon had a bad knee injury coming from a different school and has been mentored back to peak performance. (Brigham) does a great job with that room. We're deep. Like I said before the game, they can do a lot of things. They're all three tool backs. They can block, they can run, they can catch. So, they created a lot of problems.
Now how they played the other night, anytime you turn the ball over, you can't say your room played well. (Lee Beebe) would be the first to tell you that. You know, they practiced so hard. They played hard. I think they played a little out of control. We missed pass protection. We turned the ball over. There were some opportunities to break tackles that they normally break that they didn't. But I mean, of all the things I'm not worried about, it’s kind of that. They didn't play to their standard that they've been practicing to, but also know that they will.
On Delano Townsend: I think if you look at off-season MVPs, which probably isn't that important, but you know, you keep the track on it, he would be one of them. He's a guy that attacked his redshirt year. That's the thing, like today, we had a bunch of guys, not attack their Monday. Even though it's their day off, they still have things they can do, voluntary things they can do. You know, Delano's a freshman that every opportunity to get better as a freshman got better. And then carried that over to the offseason. And then had a camp where he continued to get better every day in camp. So, you know, I told him yesterday, when you continue to improve, we're looking to find ways to put you on the field. You know, we played 34 guys defensively the other night. That was just because we're ahead, because there's 34 guys on defense that you're looking to give opportunities to. Offensively, I would not say we have that many players. But Delano is one of them. We're looking to give him opportunities. So, I thought on his limited time he played well. He definitely plays with a youthful energy. You know, maybe the way I would say it, is like he just, he moves like somebody that doesn't have a lot of tread on his tires. So, we'll continue to look for ways to insert him into the game. I fully expect us once we're in shape to rotate 6 -7 -8 offensive linemen.