Trent Dilfer, the 14-year NFL veteran quarterback and Super Bowl XXXV champion, was announced Wednesday as the seventh head coach in the history of UAB football.
“I like big climbs,” the 50-year-old said Wednesday at the UAB Alumni House. “I wish I was a better athlete these days. I’d be a mountain climber, because I like looking up at the top of the peak and people saying there’s no way you’re getting up there and I say, ‘Let me show you.’ That’s what we’re going to do here at UAB.”
Dilfer most recently spent the past four years as head coach of Lipscomb Academy in Nashville, where he led the Mustangs to the 2021 D2-AA State Championship. His squad will again play for the state title on Thursday before he begins his tenure with the Blazers on Friday.
But Athletics Director Mark Ingram said he didn’t hire a high school football coach.
“I’m hiring the No. 6 overall pick in the NFL Draft, a guy who spent 14 years playing quarterback at the highest level,” he said. “I’m hiring a guy that’s a Pro Bowler, who was the starting quarterback in a Super Bowl championship team, a guy who spent nine years with ESPN doing analytics, commentary and draft coverage, a guy who’s the head coach of the nation’s premier passing academy, Elite 11, and a guy who has coached countless college and NFL quarterbacks. And, yes, a guy who has been successful in turning his high school program around over the last four years into one of the nation’s powers in high school football.”
UAB names Trent Dilfer as new football coach from Alabama NewsCenter on Vimeo.
Dilfer said the foundation laid by retired head coach Bill Clark and interim head coach Bryant Vincent is “insanely solid.”
“You’re walking into something that’s a really pretty house,” he said. “It’s got a great foundation, a lasting foundation. All you’re really doing is adding fancy upgrades to it to make it elite so it’s not a rebuild. It’s not a remodel. It’s a beautification of something that’s already pretty darn good-looking.”
The new Blazer said recruiting will be a key to his success, even though that’s not yet a strength of his.
“We will learn to recruit at an elite level,” he said. “I’d be lying to tell you I knew how to recruit at an elite level. That would be a lie. Never done it.
“But we’re about to get really good at it,” Dilfer said. “I’ll hire people that have been great at it in the past, but recruiting to me is a different narrative. Recruiting to me is connecting.”
As UAB makes the move from Conference USA to the American Athletic Conference, Ingram said Dilfer has only the highest expectations for the Blazers program.
“Trent’s goals and vision for our program is to lead UAB to the College Football Playoff,” he said. “Most importantly, Trent is an outstanding man, husband and father with tremendous character who fits our department’s core values of winning championships, graduating with honors and making a difference in our community.”
Following his obligation to his high school team, Dilfer said he expects to be in Birmingham, supporting the current team’s appearance in the HomeTown Lenders Bahamas Bowl on Dec. 16 against Miami (Ohio). This is the seventh straight season the Blazers (6-6) have been eligible to play in a bowl game.
Dilfer attended Fresno State, where he was the starting quarterback and was named the Western Athletic Conference Offensive Player of the Year in 1993 after throwing for 3,799 yards and 30 touchdowns. Following his junior season, Dilfer declared for the NFL Draft, forgoing his senior season.
Dilfer and his wife, Cassandra, have three daughters, Maddie, Tori and Delaney. A son, Trevin, died in 2003.
(Courtesy of Alabama NewsCenter)
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