Former UAB Blazers head coach Trent Dilfer — who was fired following two and a half seasons with a 9-21 record including just five conference wins and zero wins on the road — has spoken out once again as to why things didn’t work out during his time in Birmingham.

During an appearance on Outkick, Dilfer spoke about the realities of the transfer portal and its impact on the program, calling players he was able to bring in “leftovers” that bigger programs did not want.

“If I were to do it all over again, I would have just stuck with high school [players], had one or two-year players and lost them [to the portal] and been a .500 football team,” he said on regrets as to how he built the team.

“Because when you go into the portal for leftovers, that’s what you get. They’re good kids, they’re looking for an opportunity, but there’s a reason why it didn’t work at their last school if they’re coming to UAB. There’s usually a competitive piece to it, it’s not a traits thing. We’d go play Tulane and Jon [Sumrall] would say ‘Hey, you’ve got a good looking team’ and I’m like ‘Yeah, but wait till this thing gets hard and see how they respond.’

“And that’s where the personal fouls, and lack of discipline and missed assignments and dropped balls and bad reads, because from a competitive standpoint there’s a reason they didn’t make it at Maryland or Georgia Tech or wherever we’re getting them from. Because when it gets hard, a really good player rises. Our players shrunk.”

Perhaps someone should inform Dilfer that it’s the job of the head coach to get his players to respond “when things get hard” and that personal fouls and a lack of discipline are things that fall directly on the head coach.

It’s just the latest example from Dilfer in a long string of refusing to take accountability for the way things went wrong under his watch from a UAB program who was winning eight games plus per year under Bill Clark.

It’s never been more clear that the Blazers made the right call in deciding to move on from Dilfer.