Trent Dilfer one-on-one with Steve Irvine
By Steve Irvine
BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA - December 5, 2024
A disappointing season ended with a gut-punch of a loss for the UAB football team. It’s been a whirlwind of a week after for UAB head coach Trent Dilfer. On Tuesday, UAB athletics director Mark Ingram confirmed that Dilfer would be retained for his third season. Over the past two days, the Blazers began the early signing period with the additions of wide receiver Tristan Anderson of Rockmart (Ga.) High, tight end Gabriel Cline of Mosignor Pace High in Miami, cornerback Ja’Lyen Judson of Oxford (Miss.) High and defensive end Zach Johnson of Carrollwood Day School in Ocala. Florida. Dilfer has also been busy working on staff changes and players leaving to enter the transfer portal. Apparently, the latest to enter the transfer portal was running back Lee Beebe Jr., who announced his intentions on Thursday, according to ESPN.
Dilfer took time to talk about all of these things and more in a wide-ranging Q&A.
What are your thoughts on the announcement that you are coming back for another year and what does that means to turning the page to next season? “You know, I think the easiest way to say it, I was fired up. I have this unique ability to flush, as you know. It doesn’t mean I’m not hurt, it doesn't mean I’m not devastated. But I'm fired up about the things I saw in the midst of massive disappointment, that are things we can build upon. I think evidence of fluid and good culture is in the toughest times you still see effort, energy and passion, right? And we saw all of those things late in the year, despite massive disappointment. We have really good young players that now have a lot of key playing experience. We have offensive staff continuity, a recruiting department that's been killing it in both in high school and portal. You know, people enjoy each other. We start the entire offseason with, if nothing else, let’s have a true, authentic brotherhood. After we lose the last game, that’s what's being talked about in the locker room, where we started with brotherhood. I'm fired up about the support I've gotten from everybody in the area. Obviously, Mark (Ingram), number one, but Dr. Watts and everybody else. There wasn't finger pointing, there wasn't the blame game, there wasn't CYA. Instead, it was solutions, let's all look for solutions to fix this. That's super awesome, you know that fires me up. There's just a lot of reasons to be fired. I think everybody knows I'm transparent enough and self-reflective enough to know I got to fix some stuff. I got to do better, I got to bring better people into the building. Now, I got to take the foundation and start building a bunch of walls that have big W's on them in every part of the building. Everything that's built on this foundation now needs to have a W on it.”
How do you recognize what those W’s look like off the field? “I think we do have a strong foundation. I think it has some cracks in it. I think you got to fix the cracks to solidify it. And then, there's walls with W’s on it and our work with W's on it. That's about the inches. My biggest takeaway, as I sat down and started watching the film and rehashing my notes, you know, just going through kind of my self-scout right away was winning football is about winning all the little inches. There are inches in games, there are inches in preparation, there are inches in hires, there are inches in recruiting, there are inches in strength and conditioning, there are inches in mentality. But we just have lost too many inches. Let's start identifying them, make it really clear what they are, and start winning them.”
What staff changes have you made thus far? “So far, we’ll change our wide receiver coach (Austin Appleby), we’ll change our defensive coordinator (Sione Ta’ufo’ou), linebacker (Kenwick Thompson) and defensive line coach (Miguel Patrick).”
How difficult is the process for a head coach to make staff changes? “It’s one of the harder things I've gone through as a professional. I really never had to fire a lot of people. I had to make moves here and there. This was very difficult. These are people I respect. They're people that have a lot invested. People that are part of the building what I think is a strong foundation. But for us, to put W's on those walls, I feel like there's changes that need to be made.”
Going forward, what are you looking for in the defensive coordinator hire? “There's so many layers to this, Number one is a fixer. An immediate fixer globally and an in-game fixer. I think they need to be a really good leader. Now, that doesn't mean dynamic. I’m not saying that they have to be loud or quiet or whatever. I think they need to have that ability to bring the best out of people. And I think you have to be adaptable, you’ve got to be adaptable to modern-time college football, where you don't know what your personnel is going to be every year and sometimes within a season because of injuries. You need to be adaptable to play, not different styles but different structures. You got to be able to adapt to your personnel.”
What is your timeline to make the needed hires and possibly additional changes? “I’ll steal this from John Wooden, I want to be quick but not in a hurry. I want this to be timely so that we can continue to make urgent decisions collectively, me and the defense coordinator, but not rush it to where I don't make a wise decision. I want there to be lots of layers of vetting, multiple interviews, multiple people involved. You gotta get this one right. I don't want to feel rushed doing it. Haste makes waste.
The changes are just starting. The changes will be mostly done by the time the players get back (from the holidays). I can’t guarantee every timeline but my goal is to have the majority of the changes by the time the players get back on January 12.”
Why was there a low number of first-day high school signees? “That was intentional. We never, we never planned on having a big period. We never intended this to be a big (early) class. Everybody that you saw so far, we plan on coming in right away and playing, (like) Kelvin Hill, Amare Thomas and these freshmen that we've had that were contributors at an early age. We wanted to make sure that we invested heavily in the February signing date. Frankly, some of these kids, you know, you get extremes. You have some kids that are early enrollees that want to sign right away, so they want to find a spot. We identified that real early. But, then most of the kids we were recruiting, as we asked to process, they always intended on signing in February. Now we did lose two that we wanted to wait till February and they panicked and signed elsewhere today with other teams. I understand that side of it. But again, now we have until February to find prospects at that position.”
Ultimately, what do you think your recruiting class will look like in terms of high school, juco and transfer portal? “I think it'll be fluid. This is about as honest as I can be. It will be fluid based on if the junior college and portal kids are our kind of kids. If their motivation is help us fix this, and that's their sole motivation, then we'll probably sign as many of those as possible. If we feel like the portal and JC (player’s) agenda is not aligned with my agenda of fixing this, then we will supplement those spots with high school kids.”
Is this a little different approach that you’ve taken in the first two signing classes? “I think the biggest difference in approach hasn't been numbers or timelines or recruiting periods or age of player. It's that I’m absolutely steadfast, everybody in this building has heard me say it, knows it and is in line with it, that we are only taking players that want to make UAB Blazer football greater. Period. They’ve got to love football and the process, the grind and all the hard stuff more than they love Instagram, money, self-promotion, agendas, whatever it is.”
Have you been surprised by any of your players on last year’s roster that chose to enter the transfer portal? “I've not been surprised. A couple of them and I had really good conversations the last few weeks of the season. I strongly encouraged them to go explore and would take them back to heartbeat if what is out there is not what they expected, whether it be a higher level, Power Four or whether it be economic, life-changing type money. I've fully supported that. Some are doing it because they think the grass is greener and some have been encouraged to do it because there's probably not a spot for them in this program anymore.”
Do you anticipate there will be more of your players opt for the transfer portal? “Yeah, I would think so because typically what happens, and this is one of the really dysfunctional pieces of this process, is they're all gone (home for the holidays). Like, everybody's pretty much gone. Their finals are mostly online and we had probably 25 (players) around this week. But they're going to go home and they're going to get a lot of bad information. They're going to have agents and high school coaches and 7-on-7 coaches, who don't really care about what's best for them, give them a bunch of information that isn’t true. They're going to get excited about that because everybody likes to hear good things about themselves. And then my guess is that some will choose to jump in. What I've told them is that, listen, that's not going to hurt my feelings. But as soon as that happens, I'm moving on, meaning I have to go replace you. So, there may not be a soft landing spot if what you find out there in the grass is not greener.
We showed them a lot of data. The one thing I did, my final meeting. I had no opinions. I had a statement about backing some of all of this up, about winning football is about winning all the inches that it takes to win. We've lost more than we won, we got to go capture those inches. I said, now, for the next five minutes I'm going to show you facts. I showed them slides of facts of all our players from my tenure here, that have jumped in the portal. I showed them production before and the production after. I showed them a slide that 73 percent of G5 players that go to P4 programs play less, 37 percent never get a snap. Nobody plays more. Then, I showed them a slide of the draft, how astronomically, I couldn't even quantify, how much it hurts you in the NFL draft eyes to go from G5 to P4. The numbers are alarming. I showed them the slides and said ‘You guys are all men, you all have decisions to make. And I want anybody that wants to help us fix this, making this about us instead of me, meaning the individual, anybody that has a burning desire to chase the best, anybody that is willing to lock arms and know this is going to really hard. We’re not just going to wake up one morning and get a W.’ I said “If that's you then I would love to have you back, if that is not then there's no place for you in this building.”
Do you look your roster will have a different look heading into next season? “Yeah, inside especially. I think we need to have much greater grit, resilience, toughness. I think emotionally, we have to look a lot different. We can't be a rollercoaster, we gotta be a team of passion not emotion. They're very different things. Emotion is based on circumstance. Passion, your output is the same regardless of circumstance. I say those are two biggest things, or the two biggest areas. And, then physically, I really believe in length. I will never not believe in length, but I will not compromise soul for length. Does that make sense? Like, we're gonna have a soul to this team – win, lose or draw, bad circumstance, good circumstance, bad weather, good weather, tough break, bad call, guys spits in your face. It doesn’t matter, we are not gonna play this rollercoaster game of what they do affects us.”
At this point, what is your vision for this program and this upcoming team? “I don't know if I can answer that right now. I really want to get the DC hired and the defensive staff, make other changes, see what people we are able to bring into the building from a player standpoint, the character of those players, the traits of those players, before I make any big statements. I would count vision as a big statement. I would say I have great urgency and we must go to a bowl game next year. We must become a winning program again. And that's step number one. It starts with one W. I can say 1-0, which I still believe in that mentality, but I think this group, this generation of athletes is different than my generation. My generation is we do what we have to do today. And we're going to count as many of today's victories, trusting that the big pictures are going to come. This generation needs a goal. It needs a lighthouse in a storm and the lighthouse is we must get to a bow game. We must be competing for a conference championship late in the year.”
How do you need to evolve as a head coach? “There's so many areas. Again, big question, lots of answers, learned a lot. I think the simplest way to say it is just because I have been a part of and have executed winning on a daily basis before, does not mean you wake up and it just happens naturally. I need to be more attentive, that everybody is doing winning things all the time. Those are the inches, right? Like, the inches are unrelenting on the standard. It is not gray. It is not a winding road. It is linear. It is black and white. You are doing winning things or you are not. If you're not, that's a losing thing.”
What would be a final message you give to the UAB fan base? “I have been very appreciative of the affirmation I have received, as well as the criticism. I’m appreciative of the criticism because it shows the passion. I’m honored to be coaching a program that has this type of passion. When things don’t go well, you should be passionate, you should be angry. I'm okay with that. I appreciate that. And I appreciate the countless affirming messages that I've gotten from people that are like, we see it. You know, we see it. It's going slower than you thought it would, but we see it. Both, I appreciate equally and I'm inspired by it. I'm not a guy that needs to be motivated. My output is the same no matter what. But I do think inspiration gives you energy. I'm inspired and I'm juiced up and I’m energetic about the challenge ahead.”