Despite a long NFL career as a quarterback that included helping the Baltimore Ravens to a victory in Super Bowl XXXV, as well as a 44-10 mark as the head coach at Lipscomb Academy (TN), Trent Dilfer was unable to translate that success in three seasons at UAB and became the latest cautionary tale for FBS programs looking to elevate a successful high school coach to the FBS ranks.
Dilfer was handed the reigns to the Blazers program just as NIL and the transfer portal were turned loose, creating a unique environment for the high school to major college transition that ended six games into his third season after a disappointing 2-4 start following a 4-8 debut season in 2023 and 3-9 season in 2024.
Now back in his role leading Lipscomb Academy (TN), Dilfer appeared on Outkick to chat about his tenure leading the UAB program over the weekend, and has drawn a fair share of criticism for some of his comments.
After talking for a bit on how fast NIL took over college football just weeks after he took the UAB job, Dilfer notes how they played a bunch of freshman early on with the plan to develop them and be good in the long term, but once those guys produced they were gone to Power Four programs offering them NIL money UAB simply couldn't compete with.
"It was one right after the other, so then it became how are we replacing them? You can't just go replace them with high school kids because you're going to get punished again for what you do well, so let's go to the portal."
Then came his comments that have drawn significant online criticism over the weekend.
"If I had to do it all over again, I would have just stuck with high school, had one or two year players, and lost them but would have been a .500 football team. Because when you go to the portal for leftovers, that is what you get. They are good kids, they're looking for opportunities, but there's a reason why it didn't work out at their last school if they're coming to UAB. There is usually a competitive piece to it, it's not a traits thing."
"We had some trait-y kids. In fact, we'd go play Tulane and Jon [Sumrall] would say 'Hey, you got a good looking team," and I'd say, "Yeah, well wait until this thing gets hard, and see how they respond.' That is where the personal fouls, and the lack of discipline, and missed assignments and dropped balls, and bad reads would pop up because from a competitive temperament standpoint there's a reason it didn't work out at Maryland, or Georgia Tech, or wherever we are getting them from because when it gets hard, a really good player rises. Our players...shrunk, and that was the thin in three years was just watching, unfortunately because I love these kids and got really good relationships with them, but just watching them shrink and remembering when I was a player, what that felt like and fighting through that and becoming a riser as a player instead of a shrinker as a player."
"But when you've got a team of shrinkers, you've got no chance."