mistakes costly for uab as usf extends blazers’ losing streak to six
By Steve Irvine
BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA - October 20, 2024
USF 35, UAB 25
WHAT IT MEANS: UAB is still searching for a winning formula. The Blazers carry a six-game losing streak into the bye week.
WHEN THE GAME TURNED: In a loss like this, there are plenty of turning points. We’ll narrow it down to three critical moments. The first came with UAB holding a 19-7 third quarter lead with USF in possession. The Bulls misfired on a third down pass and appeared to be in a punting situation. But UAB cornerback Colby Dempsey was whistled for unnecessary roughness at the end of the play, extending the drive. USF not only ultimately scored on that drive but they outscored UAB, 28-6 the remainder of the way. That was a big moment. Another important moment came when Sean Atkins returned a punt 54 yards to set up the go-ahead touchdown for the Bulls in the fourth quarter. Another critical mistake came later in the fourth quarter with UAB trailing, 28-25. The Blazers put Trace Campbell at quarterback while facing a 3rd-and-1 from the UAB 37-yard line. Campbell tried to run over left tackle but the play was blown up quickly and he lost two yards. Instead of preserving field position by punting and using defense and timeouts in attempts to get the ball back, UAB head coach Trent Dilfer kept his offense on the field. After an incomplete pass, USF took over on the UAB 34-yard line with 4:30 left in the game. It took the Bulls three plays to build the lead to two scores.
WHY UAB LOST: UAB did plenty of good things but timely mistakes in all three phases, costly penalties and some coaching decisions were also part of the equation. It was certainly a different script than during three weeks of blowout losses, but the bottom line is UAB didn’t find a way to win.
WHAT ARE THE KEY STATS: Jonah Delange hit field goal attempts from 41, 29, 32 and 48 yards to improve to 14-of-14 on field goals this season. That’s the good news. The bad new is that if the Blazers turn those field goal drive into touchdown drives then maybe they win the game. Jalen Kitna completed 33 passes on a school record 56 attempts for 384 touchdowns. But he also had a costly interception and lost a fumble. He nearly lost another fumble but UAB retained the ball when Lee Beebe Jr. fought for the recovery and had another interception negated by offsetting penalties. UAB gained 483 yards, which is more than they’ve had since compiling 517 yards in the opener against Alcorn State, but also was 6-of-24 on conversion downs and averaged three yards per carry. UAB ran a season-high 90 plays while USF had 73 snaps.
WHO GETS THE GAME BALLS: Nobody from UAB. But tight ends Dallas Payne (six catches for 67 yards), Bryce Damous (three catches for 50 yards) and Terrell McDonald (one catch for 38 yards) had a productive game. Wide receiver Amare Thomas had eight catches for 97 yards with two touchdowns. Linebacker Michael Moore led the defense with 11 tackles and one pass breakup and Everett Roussaw had seven tackles and two sacks.
WHAT DID COACH DILFER SAY IN HIS POSTGAME APPEARANCE ON BLAZER SPORTS NETWORK FROM LEARFIELD
General thoughts: Yeah, there are definitely steps forward, not enough to win the game obviously. But we talked all week long and it really made it non-negotiable about our energy being about helping others and staying positive and looking for something good to happen instead of something bad to happen and then being resilient. I really thought they did both of those things. You can do those things and still not win. You know, a lot of plays that we left out there and then a lot of sloppiness, penalties, again, turnovers, things that lose football games and is maybe the difference in a losing team and a winning team. So yeah, there's some good, there's some things to build on, but we're not gonna win a whole lot of games if we don't fix those.
On Jonah Delange: He's been obviously great this year. I don't know if that's ever a great thing when you're talking about your kicker and I love Jonah. Today there's actually a couple fourth downs that the book, quote unquote, said go for it, that we ended up kicking on and he finished the drives for us. Beggars can't be choosers right now. We're happy we have Jonah, he's doing a great job, and yeah, I sure hope he starts kicking some extra points instead of field goals.
On the upcoming bye week: Right now, we gotta get better at so many things, and that's been our approach. It's not like we don't think we have to get better. I'm aiming towards more fundamentals. We do have a lot of guys banged up, so I have to be careful how we practice, but we gotta get back to making sure that if we turn this thing around, it's gonna be by controlling our emotions, playing good technical football, making good decisions, playing with the enthusiasm and energy we played with tonight, continue to build resilience as a group, and then buying in. I think anytime you have the record that we do, there's always that danger of a fractured locker room. We gotta go to work, and the team leaders gotta go to work on making sure that we don't fracture, because there's no winning that. You have to stay together, regardless of circumstances and try to get one. You get one and you get better and try to get two and get as many as you can before the year's out.
On Jalen Kitna: He's been really resilient, he's been really tough, he's getting better each week. It's tough though, I think we put a little too much on him at times. (We) wanted to run the ball a little bit better tonight, you know, and then the one interception is an unfortunate miscommunication between him and Amari. We gotta get better at those things. But man, he's a tough kid, he's resilient kid, fighter, and wildly talented. He'll continue to get better as long as he's the starting quarterback.
On the tight ends: We really went in this approach, they play a lot of man coverage, we felt like our matchups were with the tight ends at times. They took advantage of it. And then when they played and dropped into zones, there's opportunities to work the tight ends as well, so they were definitely a part of the plan. The offensive staff really did a good job of identifying that early in the week. I wish we could have done more of it. I think there are opportunities there in some critical times where we had a chance to get them the ball and we didn't. We'll just keep trying to get better as coaches as the players try to get better as well.
On the UAB defense: I thought (Everett Roussaw) did a nice job on those blitzes. Sione did a really good job mixing it up. We put them in some bad positions with turnovers, and the penalties got them in some bad positions too. But, hey, they fought. It’s hard. They're getting better. You know, it’s a tough road we had early in the year and they took a brunt of the criticism. I think they've they've rallied around that, trying to get better each week. We played a lot of players tonight, I thought that was important. You know, we played a lot of players and we'll grade the film and see which ones are gonna be ones that help us win moving forward.
On Michael Moore: He’s played really hard. Again, another player that gets better each week. He takes his preparation very serious. He couldn't practice full speed this week, the whole week. He still was bought in and getting himself healthy for this game. We're gonna need to lean on our veteran leaders to carry us through the storm and continue to get better and play better.
WHERE IS UAB’S NEXT ASSIGNMENT: UAB has its second bye of the season this week. The Blazers then begin the final stretch with a home game against a Tulsa team that is currently 2-5 overall and 0-3 in the AAC.