UAB football went 2-10 last season, ranking 122nd among Football Bowl Subdivision teams in scoring defense. The Blazers gave up an average of 43.8 points a game.
At the end of the season, head coach Garrick McGee bolted his post to become offensive coordinator at Louisville, a willful, backwards step down the job ladder.
UAB football owns a .433 all-time winning percentage, going 112-147-2 in its 23 long, painstaking years as a football program.
A short drive from campus, you can find two dozen high school football programs with better facilities than UAB’s.
If you were to fire one of those t-shirt guns into the stands at a home game, you would have to employ a Navy seal sniper to hit somebody.
Want good game day parking? Drive right up to the shadows of the stadium, 8-minutes from kick-off. And park for free.
Obamacare will work long before UAB football ever will.
I once attended a game with a friend who had blind devotion to the program, when they were giving away UAB visors to everyone in attendance. As we left after the loss to UTEP, I wish I had taken a picture of the boxes and boxes and boxes of visors stacked up at the entrance, unopened.
Sum total, UAB football needs to die. There is absolutely no reason whatsoever to continue this experiment. It has failed. It has not worked. It will not work. People will not come watch the product the Blazers put on the field opposite Alabama and Auburn each Saturday. Try any minor league baseball gimmick in the book, but it still isn’t happening.
The only thing that would work would be winning, and a lot of it. Not an occasional game, but a couple of seasons of winning football, something the Blazers have never managed. They’ve been to but one bowl game in their 23 year history, and (surprise) lost.
So why UAB took the head coach of a respectable program (Jacksonville State) only to sentence him to coaching death, or why Bill Clark agreed to come, one will never know.
Only this is for sure. UAB had a chance to do the right thing after yet another football season ended in utter failure. And yet again, UAB blew it.
UAB football is like that old dog you know, hobbling around on an infected, bad leg, whose owners should’ve put it down two years ago, yet inhumanely refuse.
And now, like a wayward woman on her 5th marriage, UAB has hired another coach…failing to take advantage of a perfect opportunity to let it all just go away. And the train wreck continues…
(Follow ITK on Twitter for Bama news, commentary and smack.)
27 thoughts on “UAB football fails again”
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That’s just willful ignorance, IDon’tKnow.
Can we agree that the Trustees of the University of Alabama system know how to build a program? Seen any evidence that they have attempted to with UAB’s program?
“Trustee – A person who holds a position of trust or responsibility for the benefit of another.”
I remember when UA was looking at hiring Rich Rodriguez, before getting Saban, and Cecil Hurt came out with a column entitled “Is this the best possible hire for the University of Alabama?”. When was that thinking ever applied to UAB?
That’s when UAB had Jimbo Fisher hired, (you know, the coach who just guided FSU to a national title) but because Saban might want him as an OC, a position he had held under Saban at LSU, the hire was not allowed. Think he might have been better than Neal Callaway, who was stuffed down our throats? A coach who I had never heard ever mentioned for any head coaching vacancy anywhere? He had just been demoted as UGA’s OC in midseason the year before – so make him a head coach?
What’s the lifeblood of a football program? Recruiting, that’s why it is followed so closely during the offseason. As you mentioned, there are high schools in B’ham with better facilities. How do you win without good players? Bama gets a waterfall in their locker room. A couple of seasons back there was no hot water in the locker room at Legion Field. The *home* locker room. Yeah, impress those recruits.
The only way things will get better for UAB football is to win enough games to gain some momentum. Fans will come out to see a winning team play good football, even to Lesion Field. Win games, put butts in seats, and maybe then we’ll be allowed to have what is taken for granted across the South – a decent stadium, on campus, where the students can walk across the quad and go to the game. We play in a place that wasn’t good enough for Bama twenty years ago, and I assure you that it has not gotten better since.
Why is it that UAB students are not allowed what is an essential part of the college experience all across this state? The football experience builds fond memories, and those alumni become tomorrow’s deep pocket alumni.
UAB is the biggest employer in the state other than the state and federal government. If not for UAB, Birmingham would resemble Detroit.
I have yet to understand all the bile UA fans reserve for UAB. It’s not like we’re a threat. You’ll never play us, so we are not going to beat you. Do you seriously think we’ll take a recruit away that Saban wants?
So what are you afraid of?
“What are you afraid of?” Oh, that’s such a cute Blazer go-to, isn’t it? To suggest such is just desperation finding its way onto a computer screen.
Our retort is (and will always be), why should we help you? If you can’t stand on your own, maybe you shouldn’t be standing. The welfare system doesn’t work longterm.
Think with me. If you were in charge of a bakery, and no one ever came to buy your cupcakes, would it be a good move to build another bakery someplace else? The government makes decisions like this one every day, which is why we’re trillions in debt.
UAB football is just not a good product, as voted by the thousands who stay away every season. Let it die Michael. You have a good basketball program.
There are what, 12 or 15 NCAA football programs that turn a profit? All the rest run in the red. The benefits of getting your name out there, in terms of attracting students and other benefits are well known.
So fine shut down Vanderbilt because they always lose… oh, nevermind, they hired the right guy and turned things around. Yeah, I’ll be fair, UT is down, UGA hasn’t been all that good, Franklin’s timing was great – but the right coach and investing in your program makes a big difference.
Why should you help us? I’m not asking you to! I’m asking that the Trustees of UAB, whose JOB it is to grow and foster UAB, take the same attitude regarding UAB as they do the Tuscaloosa campus. Expect and foster excellence. If you don’t get it, find out why and by god fix it.
Hell, don’t help us, just get out of the way. We had a proposal on the table for an on-campus stadium which would have made a huge difference in both recruiting and cash flow. We had money in hand for maybe 25% of it. We had all the luxury boxes (which we don’t have now) presold. Add in that both interest rates and construction costs were as low as they’ve been in many years and that a bond issue would cost less… and not only was it not allowed, it was taken off the agenda without so much as a vote.
Alabama has an open meetings law. It is illegal to make such decisions without public debate. The OCS was taken off the agenda by Paul Bryant, Jr, who said “The proposal does not have sufficient support among the board to pass.” How do you know that if you have not decided it in out of the public eye meetings? And more to the point, if that is true, why not hold a vote?
You want a good comparison? Look at the University of Central Florida. They were in C-USA with us. They were bad. They went out and hired George O’Leary. He went O-fer his first season. They upped the ante and build a new stadium. They got better and better, and when NCAA realignment happened they moved up to the AAC, and this year they went to (and won) a BCS game.
The difference is that the Florida University trustees work across the board to grow all the schools in their system, not the University of Florida at the expense of other schools.
The only C-USA schools who did not move up to the AAC were Southern Miss (the Hattiesburg TV market isn’t very attractive) and UAB, whose facilities and performance didn’t make the grade, even with the Birmingham TV market. What might have been…
Stopped reading after the first paragraph. Michael, you are obviously one of the tens who actually goes to the UAB Blazers games at Lesion field, and just don’t understand why any game played on Friday night in Birmingham is more exciting than anything UAB has put on the field in their 25 years. I wish the Blazers could actually field a team that resembles a D1 organization on any given Fall Saturday, but, after 25 years and numerous coaching staffs, the result is the same in the stands. UAB doesn’t have a great football program – in spite of the hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on them over 25 years – BECAUSE the students don’t, and won’t, support a football program at their school, regardless of starry-eyed optimists like you and your dreams of eclipsing the major football powers in the state. 25 YEARS, Michael. They’ ex had 25 years to do something – anything at all – to generate even a modicum of interest in their football program, all with the same result. Why can’t UAB be happy with their better than Bama’s basketball program and dedicate all this wasted money and time they’ve pissed away on a fifth-tier football program to making their basketball program a Southern powerhouse?
And, Michael, you’re continued whining about the Board of Trustees and their support of the football program is tiresome and smacks of jealousy of the other fine and outstanding football programs in this state. I’d say you sounded like Bama’s Little Brother, but the Barn already has that one all tied up.
Y’all can have Little Sister. It can be a new syndrome studied at one of UAB’s incredible research facilities.
Well you did manage to produce Roddy White who is pretty close to Julio Jones equal. And you managed to beat a Saban coached LSU team. Managed to throw a scare into Ohio St in 2012. But you are right about being overlooked by the UA system. Maybe it’s because they don’t want to throw good money after bad. I too think CR should quit picking on our Baby Sister. It looks bad. We can take comfort in the fact that we’re not Florida Atlantic, Florida International or Georgia St. And after Awbies meltdown, I wish Fisher had gone to UAB. NOT! Bwaa Haww Haww! RTR!
I think there’s enough talent in the yellowhammer state alone that can’t explain UAB’s lack of success for such a long time, nevermind the talent that’s permeated into other programs. In a world where programs like Baylor, Louisville, Cincinnati, Central Florida, Kansas State, Northern Illinois and Ohio are now recognized as having legitimate programs, would it really be that surprising if UAB did the same thing? I’m not sure what it would take or how important it is. I’m conflicted. I’m honestly not sure what to feel here.
Well, for the first time (!) we’ve hired a football head coach who has a winning record as a head coach. That’s a start.
As to money – We play at Legion Field, which no one wants to go to, and many over the mountain people think will get them killed or mugged if they go there. We have to pay the Birmingham Parks and Rec Dept. rent to use it. We don’t get the parking money. We don’t get the concession money. So there’s no cash flow there.
Losing season after season sucks the enthusiasm out of our fans. When you have a two win season following a three win season, how many people would you *think* are going to show up?
McGee did us a favor when he turned tail and ran back to Petrino. I think Clark has the coaching chops and connections within the Alabama high school coaches to turn things around. C-USA is watered down, it really shouldn’t take much to get to a six win season and bowl eligibility. He’s taking the program over with a week before signing day, so whatever happens this season he gets a pass on – but I’ll bet you right now that he doubles last season’s win total, recruiting be damned.
Why not the push to play at Lawson Field? Seriously, that would be a good temporary Venue for UAB. Or why not the Hoover Met? No one is using it now.
Too small, period. Lawson won’t fit even a small UAB crowd, let alone visitors. We played one game years ago at the Met, but all else aside, it is a purpose built baseball park. Sightlines are all wrong, lighting, issues with the infield, etc. And again, it’s too small. We do have home games like, say, Miss St. or Troy which draw a decent number of visiting fans. If we *had* to, as a stopgap, getting us out of LF while something better is built, maybe, but frankly, as bad as it is LF is better than either of those. Even if we are lucky to find soap and toilet paper in the restrooms… and I’m not kidding about that.
Setting aside the effects of a two or three win season, there are 15 to 20k pretty hardcore UAB fans who will show up. Sure, as a long losing season goes on this dwindles, I’m not minimizing that.
Birmingham is a walk-up town. We see it even on things like the UAB-Memphis basketball games, there will always be a lot of last minute walkup sales.
I’m not sure that Birmingham is still “The football capital of the South”, but there are plenty of football fans here. Put a decent, competent, fun to watch football team on the field and people will come see it, remember the Stallions, the Barracudas? Birmingham attendance was always above the league averages on those teams.
The thing is that nobody wants to put their time, money, and emotional investment into a team that perpetually loses. If Clark can build a winner, the students and UAB fans will come out. Keep stinking up the place and they’ll stay away in droves. There’s a pent up demand for good UAB football, but there has been so much bad history that people are leery of it. This is Alabama, people know and appreciate good football, especially if it is local kids.
Watson Brown is our winningest coach, still… and this season he will become the all time losingest coach in NCAA football history, passing Amos Alonzo Stagg. Of course, Stagg had 316 wins on the other side of the ledger.
Watson, not so much. And the BoT kept extending him.
Basically, the general feeling among the UAB people is that the BoT does not want to outright shut the program down and take that heat, but that not doing anything to help it, neglecting it, allowing it to stink until UAB gives up is their strategy.
Lawson field would be PLENTY of room. It’s bigger than it looks, and let’s face it, UAB’s only toting about 4K on a good day anyway.
Keep pissing all over my alma mater. Your vitriol and stupidity will only make us grow stronger.
UAT screws us over all the time, but we will rise above it. Just watch.
You can buy alcohol at our stadium. It’s awesome.
OK – if this isn’t Little Sister Syndrome, then it must be pure insanity.
“We sell booze at our stadium.”
So, the thousand or so ‘fans’ in the stadium are either there for the alcohol, or the alcohol is there so they can actually tolerate watching their team play football. Whatever.
In case that last sentence blew right over your head, let me clarify. If Fisher had gone,to UAB, Fla St would not have been in the BCSNCG and Awbie might have won. Then we would have to listen to their shit, not just this year, but forever. So thank God for unforseen blessings. LMMFAO! RTR!
I could write a book about UAB and UA BOT relations.
The BOT has never helped UAB, but there is a section of UAB fans, who are much like Aubies…they hate Alabama and resent the success of Alabama in football. You can’t have that attitude and expect help or support from Alabama people.
It’s a shame that UAB and Alabama don’t play every year in basketball. That would generate some interest and be a win-win for both programs. Alabama would have won its fair share of games if they had been playing for the past 30 years.
It’s sad UAB couldn’t have hired a coach like Houston Nutt with a record of success in the SEC, but maybe Bill Clark will be able to get some recruits and win a few games. the standard for success at UAB is to be bowl eligible. I wish him luck and hope the best for UAB.
“Alabama would have won its fair share of games if they had been playing for the past 30 years.”
the naiveté astounds. every year we DON’T play them, they lose.
it’s really sad how we are forgetting Coach Bryant. how Coach Bryant came home when his school was in need. how that bastard bartow trashed his name after his death over a recruit he lost to Coach Sanderson.
we don’t need uab for anything. if we want basketball, all we have to do is want it.
build an arena.
hire a coach.
invest.
beat kentucky. beat florida. beat programs that matter. win our conference. fans will show up.
what we don’t have to do is put money in the hands of another program that hates us.
every thing you see in auburn al. is because of us. their own “historians” admit it. they were broke. stealing money out of coke machines to fund their pathetic athletic dept. they couldn’t get their own people to pay.
ditto uab.
how many more programs are we required to build?? for unappreciative bastards who hate our very existence.
jimbo fisher?? are you kidding me??? jimbo fisher?
what a joke. if they did get him hired he’d have stayed there all of a week.
the only sporting endeavor that’s EVER worked in birmingham is THE University of Alabama athletics. and they chose to throw their pearls before swine. the pearls WE provided for them.
so yeah, i’m bitter. i remember. what’s been said. what’s been done. and i don’t want to see us repeat past mistakes.
fuck birmingham.
and fuck uab.
Frankly, I’d just as soon never play UA in football. There are enough hard feelings without that. The only argument for it that I give any credit is “Why pay Louisana-Lafayette or GSU 800k, give it to UAB and keep the money in the system.” That’s ok, we’ll play our body bag games for budget purposes at UT or Miss St or something, I’m fine with that. Frankly, I think that it won’t ever happen, and I’m not sorry.
As to basketball, it would be a great rivalry game, and would draw a lot of interest, but I doubt you’ll ever see it voluntarily. Baseball and softball play yearly and that’s never an issue for some reason.
There’s a boilerplate line we hear – “The University of Alabama has everything to lose and nothing to gain by playing UAB.”
Nutt wanted the job badly, he shelled our athletic department. The thing is that I truly believe Clark is a better hire… maybe not in the court of public opinion, but within the Alabama high school coaching community. He’s young and hungry, and he’s got head coaching experience. He’s used to doing more with less. I’d rather catch a good one on the way up and lose him in three or four years, leaving the program better than he found it than do the hire a retread thing.
ITK,
Bill Clark is a great coach, won 2 state titles and played for 3 while at Prattville. Did good things at South Alabama with Joey Jones, also did a great job his 1 year at Jack State. I myself am dumbfounded over why he would take the UAB job, but if anybody can save the program i would say Bill Clark is the man for the job.
Off subject, but. If ya’ll have seen todays multiple stories on the Coker saga then you can look right here on the other thread last night where I told you about Coker over half a day before the media released it. RTR!
It is laughable that the only BCS program that REFUSES to play UAB is BAMMER! Is it because Bammer is scared of an upset? Sounds like it!!
Vol, you are a joke. Every time you post anything on this board, you prove you barely possess walking-around sense.
Bama doesn’t pay UAB because, #1, Bama doesn’t have to. UAB needs Bama, not the other way around. Why would Bama PAY this miserable program to hitchhike all the way to Tuscaloosa in order to provide what would be barely a scrimmage on the Tide’s campus, bringing with them the 3 or 4 hundred “fans” who would show up with a purchased ticket (no alcohol at BDS to draw the street fans in). Then take the several hundred thousands of dollars that they would get paid to get pummelled into non-existence by Bama and piss it away on some other goofy scheme to try and get a few hundred more of their pedestrian campus dwellers to go to the Lesion field on a Saturday, risking life and limb, only to see their team get beat by the University of Deaf and Dumb Dry Cleaners the next week.
Get a clue. We don’t like UAB Football. They are a fine institute of research. They have a nice concrete campus downtown away from the bad section of town. Every now and then they get a coaching staff that used to know what they were doing until they fell into the black hole that is UAB athletics.
UAB needs to stick to things they know and can be successful at, like girl’s lacrosse or soccer. Leave the real sports alone at the schools that will support them and become successful at them.
I have a feeling we may say these same things about a certain school in Knoxville, TN before long. Hey, Vol – think you can learn the rules to lacrosse? Even as poorly as you understand the rules of football?
What a COP OUT and a piss-poor argument!
Does Bammer need Chattanooga?
YOU ARE A DUMB ASS!
No Volunqueer, you are the dumbass. Besides the fact thT Chattanooga would have stomped UcheaT’s ass last year – why the fuck doesn’t UcheaT play their little sisster UTChattanooga or UTMartin, etc. Huh, why dumbass? Go back to your holler and bugger a pig – er, Tennesse girl. Redundant. LMFAO! RTR!
Why don’t you get your head out of your ass, CrimsonTURD?
The Vols play Chattanooga in 2014 and played UT-Martin a couple of years back, you pathetic MORON. Before posting and making a DUMB ASS out of yourself, why don’t you use that pea-brain to research and find out correct info!
Bammer will not play UAB because Bammer is SCARED of getting upset; END OF STORY!!!
Yep, inbred. That has to be it.
Actually you played UT Martin in 2010 and next year doesn’t count yet. Aside from that, UAB’s best team ever couldn’t beat Bama’s worst ever Scout team. On the other hand UAB this year alone could beat the shit out of an allstar combo team from UTC and UTM together. Were talking Apples and Oranges here. UAB is FBS and UTC and UTM are FCS. Nor do I think UTK has a hate – hate relationship with UTC or UTM. UTC was 9-3 last year. Doesn’t look good for UTK! Bwaa Haww Haww! RTR!
Backtracking now are we CrimsonSHIT?
You are full of SHIT! The fact is, Bammer is SCARED to play UAB and has been since UAB went BCS! Almost every other SEC school has played UAB, but not Bammer! Too afraid to give little brother a big payday because of a possible LOSS!!
You whiney cock sucker, why don’t you go away and stay away. Retarded motherfucker, Bama isn’t scare to play the fucking Green Bay Packers, much less football vomit little sister. We don’t play Alabama Huntsville either. It’s a punishment thing for the uppity bullshit UAB pulled when they tried to get Bama in trouble with the NCAA over basketball recruits. And UAB is not BCS, they are FBS. There are only 5 conferences with BCS teams. Your little sister is in the bedroom with her legs spread and calling your name. Screw off!