Trent Dilfer is going to return for his third college football season as the head coach at UAB. The university announced its decision to give him another chance on Tuesday, which immediately proved to be the wrong decision on Wednesday.
His third recruiting class with the Blazers is one of the worst in the entire country.
Dilfer was hired on Nov. 30, 2022 after three seasons at Lipscomb Academy, a small high school in Tennessee. That was his only experience as a head coach. However, he also created the Elite 11 series and obviously won a Super Bowl during his 14-year NFL career so it’s not like he was a stranger to football. Just to coaching.
UAB’s decision was widely criticized at the time. It has aged poorly since.
The Blazers went 7-6 and won a bowl game during their last year of the old regime. They went 4-8 in 2023 and finished 3-9 in 2024. Dilfer’s record is 7-17 through two seasons. Most of the losses were blowouts.
To make matters worse, the fanbase has very quickly soured on Dilfer. Absolutely nobody showed up to watch a poorly-coached team lose more games over the last few months. They want him to be fired.
And yet, UAB decided to keep Trent Dilfer as its head coach for 2025. Athletic director Mark Ingram believes in the vision and promised to “make operational and staff changes, as well as additional investments.”
We don’t think losing is OK. I know our fans sometimes wonder or ask about it on social media, but losing is not something we’re OK with. We know what we’re capable of. While the American Athletic is a lot tougher league than what we’ve been playing in (Conference USA), I think we are positioned well to be successful here.
— Mark Ingram
Dilfer believes the solution is simple. He did a lot of self-reflection over the last few months and, believe it or not, came to realize that what he was doing was not working.
UAB announced Trent Dilfer will return for his third season as head coach.
— Ryan Hennessy (@RyanWVTM13) December 4, 2024
I spoke with Dilfer today as he goes into year three in Birmingham. pic.twitter.com/qcFXJI9eVP
The 52-year-old is going to be even more involved with every facet of the program.
The one thing I’ve learned is I need to manage more. I need to be more involved at every single level of the organization. I try to have a healthy involvement as well as collaboration. But what I’ve learned is everybody needs to go the same direction to win and the only way I can get everybody going the same direction is if I’m the one guiding each department. That’s going to be the direction I go from here on out.
— Trent Dilfer
Dilfer also put an emphasis on building his roster from the high school level.
We want to make sure you understand you are in our future, and we are not just go to the portal and try to replace you because it is a quick fix.
— Trent Dilfer
While that sounds great in principle, the focus on recruiting only works if you can recruit and Dilfer has failed to recruit at UAB. His first recruiting class ranked No. 95 in the country, which is not that bad. His second class ranked No. 88, with 20 transfers and 18 high school enrollees. It was a positive step forward.
This third recruiting Class of 2025 is a complete disaster. The Blazers landed only two recruits on Wednesday, the first day of the Early Signing Period. It has only two other commits.
UAB’s class currently ranked 136th in college football behind schools like Kent State, Buffalo, South Alabama, Old Dominion, Akron, Howard, Cal Poly and even the United States Navy. It ranks last in the American Athletic Conference.
There are still a few months to turn this class around between now and the traditional National Signing Day in February. The transfer portal also exists. All hope is not yet lost.
But maybe, just maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to give Trent Dilfer another year?