FOOTBALL: Blazers Shock No. 22 Memphis 31-24

In program's biggest win since 2021, UAB reclaims Bones behind interim coach, backup quarterback

If it were a movie, audiences would have claimed it was too cliche.

With no permanent coach, no starting quarterback, and no conference wins in the last 329 days, UAB hosted its biggest rival, a ranked, undefeated College Football Playoff contender it hadn’t beaten since 2011. Sportsbooks gave the Blazers, 23.5-point underdogs, a greater chance to lose by four touchdowns than to achieve victory against No. 22 Memphis.

But — although it’s been a few years — UAB is accustomed to doing the impossible. Saturday afternoon, the Blazers tapped into a muscle memory it had repressed since 2021, shocking the world as they once did so often. Backup quarterback Ryder Burton was efficient and composed, Iverson Hooks accumulated a career-high 172 receiving yards, and the Green and Gold emerged from the wilderness it had inhabited since beating BYU in Shreveport. Six days after Trent Dilfer’s firing, the Tigers fell 31-24; the Bones returned to Birmingham.

“I’m so proud of these guys, man,” Burton said. “We battled like crazy. I couldn’t be more proud, man. It took everybody today, and we did it.”

UAB turned in its best offensive performance of the season, controlling the tempo of the game with 219 rushing yards — its time of possession was 35:05 to the visitors’ 24:55 — and outgaining Memphis 470 to 362. Burton completed 20 of 27 pass attempts for 251 yards, earning himself a Manning Star of the Week. Running back Solomon Beebe ran for 106 yards on five carries against the nation’s 15th-ranked rushing defense. Hooks’ explosion won him American Conference Player of the Week honors.

An Auspicious Debut

Interim head coach Alex Mortensen had never led a college team before. Set to make his 15th consecutive start, Jalen Kitna was officially ruled out with an upper-body injury just hours before the game. With the odds so dramatically stacked against them, no one would have batted an eye if the Blazers rolled over in front of a sparse homecoming crowd.

Instead, UAB set the tone with a 10-play, 75-yard possession, scoring its first opening-drive touchdown since week 2 at Navy. Small gains were interspersed with large chunk plays; explosive runs from Nate Rogers and Beebe carried the Blazers deep into Memphis territory, at which point Burton established his fruitful connection with Hooks, finding the redshirt sophomore receiver streaking down a crease into the end zone.

A redshirt sophomore who saw the bench at both BYU and West Virginia, Burton quickly adapted to his first extended stint in an FBS game, starting 5/5 and throwing a 15-yard touchdown pass. Burton attributed his composure to three years of “preparing like a starter” and a Mortensen gameplan that eased him into action.

“I think with Coach Mort’s plan, it was easy to see some of those first little completions, you know?” Burton said. “I didn’t necessarily make all the big throws on the first drive. I think I just settled in well, and then it just opened up a little bit from there.”

Holding Strong

No observer of UAB football was shocked by what happened next: a Blazer team that struggles to string together positive plays again struggled to string together positive plays.

Moments after Hooks scored, a Sutton Smith return touchdown erased the hosts’ lead. On UAB’s subsequent drive, a pressured Burton threw a telegraphed interception that gave the Tigers the ball at their own 38-yard line. From there, the script was obvious. The fun was over; the hammer was about to drop; Memphis would use the 18 minutes left in the half to take the lead, consolidate its advantage, and cruise to an easy victory.

In perhaps the most important sequence of the afternoon, that didn’t happen. For the first time all year, UAB denied its opponent a first-drive touchdown, overcoming one of its biggest weaknesses to do so. Facing a fourth and 3 at the Blazers’ 40-yard line, Memphis decided to try its luck against a defense prone to giving up fourth-down conversions, but the UAB secondary held steady. Chased out of the pocket, Tiger quarterback Brendon Lewis had no options but to throw the ball into the stands.

Although the Blazer defense went a middling 5-11 on third downs and 2-4 on fourth downs, it walled up on the plays that mattered most. UAB’s offense was also highly effective on late downs, a welcome departure from precedent. Entering the matchup, the Blazers ranked 70th nationally in third-down offense and 76th in fourth-down offense. Saturday, the Green and Gold went 9 of 13 on third down and 1 of 1 on fourth, a result set up by early-down successes.

“We’ve struggled a little bit when we’ve gotten behind the sticks on early downs,” Mortensen said. “And so one of our key focuses on offense this week was to try to stay ahead of schedule, and let’s see if we can make another team beat us first, you know, instead of defeating ourselves.”

The Blazers’ lone fourth-down conversion briefly rescued their next drive, which came at the beginning of the second quarter. After stopping Memphis in their tracks, UAB mounted one of its many long marches but found itself in traction at the opposing 39-yard line. On fourth and 2, Jackson ripped off a 10-yard run, keeping his balance as he barely evaded a Tiger defender in the backfield.

Two plays later, a 19-yard Beebe touchdown was nullified by a holding penalty against UAB, but it seemed the hosts would score anyway as they advanced to the Memphis goal line on the shoulders of Hooks and Jacobs. However, the Green and Gold’s red zone offense — another of the weaker facets of its game — couldn’t punch it in, forcing UAB to settle for a field goal. Memphis proceeded to find the end zone and took a 14-10 lead with less than 80 seconds to go before the break.

The Middle Eight

The “middle eight” — referring to the four minutes on either side of halftime — is a game management theory pioneered by Bill Belichick. According to SportSource Analytics, FBS teams that won the middle eight from 2014 to 2019 went on to win the game 74% of the time. Saturday proved no different.

UAB’s momentum begun to dissipate as the second quarter drew on. Down four points with the ball at their own 25-yard line, the Blazers had one minute to drive the length of the field and revitalize the crowd entering the locker room. For an offense that had scored on all but one of its possessions, a field goal seemed attainable.

It was attainable and more. Turning in one of his best series of the day, Burton was phenomenal under pressure, avoiding multiple near-sacks and methodically moving his unit into enemy territory. A seven-yard completion to tight end Elijah Lagg was followed by a 17-yard completion to receiver Brandon Hawkins; Burton was unfazed by a Hawkins drop on the next set of downs, finding Lagg for 15 more yards as a Memphis linebacker bulldozed the pocket.

Although it appeared UAB would have to bring out the special teams unit, sitting at the Tiger 36-yard line with 14 seconds on the clock, Jonah Delange’s entrance was delayed by the Strap Hooks Show; instead of attempting a field goal, the kicker was brought on for an extra point. Hooks followed up a 20-yard reception with a highlight-reel catch in the corner of the end zone, made all the sweeter by the identity of the defender — former UAB safety Chris Bracy.

“[Hooks] is my dog, man,” Burton said. “I wouldn’t have it any other way. Just a guy that’s as competitive as they come. Confident as all get-out, and I don’t think you can ask for much more as a receiver.”

“Get the ball to zero,” the quarterback added. “It’s that simple, right? The guy’s electric, man. The quickness, the twitchiness, and also, he wants the ball. What kind of receiver am I going to want that doesn’t want the ball? He wants the ball, so I’m going to give it to him.”

Even outside of his three touchdowns, Hooks served as a safety blanket for Burton all day: five of his 11 catches were third-down conversions, and he caught the ball every time he was targeted. The receiver attributed his success to the connection between him and Burton, crediting the quarterback for “putting the balls in the right spot and trust[ing] me to go get them.”

“[Burton] knows I’m a competitor,” Hooks said. “There was times in the game I go up to him and say, ‘Hey, if he’s looking like this, if [a defender] is flat like this I’m running right by him.’ Like, it was just like a connection-type thing that we had.”

Thanks to its dynamic duo of redshirt sophomores, UAB went into halftime leading 17-14, an advantage it expanded on almost immediately. After another redshirt sophomore — safety Jeremiah Vessel — sacked Lewis, knocking him out of the game and forcing Memphis to make its first punt of the afternoon, Beebe ripped off the longest run in UAB history, rumbling 81 yards down the left sideline to put his team up 24-14.

Against a team that held Florida Atlantic to just 75 rushing yards, the play was a home run. On the day, UAB averaged a respectable 5.3 yards per carry. According to Mortensen, the Blazers’ consistency on the ground set up Beebe’s explosion.

“We really like our backs,” Mortensen said. “We still like our offensive line, and a lot of respect to Memphis. They’ve been really good against the run, and their front has been incredibly disruptive. So really, our guys did a good job of covering them, getting a hat on a hat, and then the ball-carriers, again, like we talked about, just gaining the extra two at the point of contact. We felt like we could treat it that way, and we kind of talked about, ‘Hey, treat it like a boxing match,’ you know.”

“We’re not going to come out and throw haymakers, but we’re going to set them up.”

When all was said and done, UAB won the middle eight by a score of 14-7.

A Wild Fourth Quarter

Of course, the battle wasn’t yet won. On the visitors’ final drive of the third quarter, Memphis backup quarterback AJ Hill powered the Tigers into the UAB red zone. Once again, the Blazers’ defense bent without breaking, stuffing Memphis running back Greg Desrosiers in the backfield on third and 3 and forcing a field goal.

However, a Rogers fumble killed a potentially crushing UAB drive, and Memphis again had life with 12:33 on the game clock.

Over the past two and a half seasons, the much-maligned Blazer defense consistently came up short in moments like these, in which game-changing plays were necessities, not luxuries. It was for this reason what happened next prompted such an impassioned celebration — from the Blazers’ 33-yard line, Hill overthrew Cortez Braham, his top receiver. The ball fluttered into the end zone, landing not in a Tiger’s hands but those of UAB safety Pierre Royster.

“Off [the] game plan, we knew [Braham] was their guy,” Royster said. “So once they put him in the slot, that kind of gave me like a light bulb. Quarterback tried to look me off, he didn’t do too much of a good job, and I saw four streaking up the field, so I went and made a play.”

Royster spoke of the interception with pride, evidence of the fact that the Blazer defense had turned a corner. He credited cornerbacks coach Ryan Lewis, defensive coordinator Steve Russ, nickels coach Tee Mitchell, and secondary coach Brent Vieselmeyer with keeping the unit focused even as it received criticism.

“Yeah, coach Lew, coach Tee, coach Russ, coach V do a good job at telling us, like, don’t listen to the outside noise,” Royster said. “We know we got a good defense, it’s just a lot of different pieces. And I think tonight we finally clicked. We finally showed the world what we got.”

A 99-yard UAB drive that saw Hooks accumulate 74 receiving yards and yet another touchdown made the score 31-17 and put a nail in the coffin.

Or so the Protective Stadium audience thought. Using just two of its remaining four minutes, Memphis exploded down the field for a score before forcing UAB’s lone punt of the day. All of a sudden, the game was on.

With the hosts clinging to a 31-24 advantage, everything came down to the Tigers’ final series, the emotional volatility of which is difficult to express in words. It started with a heroic catch by Braham, who scurried over the UAB logo on fourth and 7, rescuing his team with a pickup of 21 yards. It continued with a Desrosiers touchdown run that, after minutes of review, was not a touchdown run; Blazer cornerback Tariq Watson dragged him down at the 1-yard line.

It ended with a goal-line stand for the ages. A false start backed Memphis up five yards, allowing Watson to again deny Desrosiers at the goal line; another false start wiped out the Tigers’ progress, sending them back to the 6; two incompletions preceded an inexplicable delay of game penalty, which forced Hill to toss the ball into the end zone on an 11-yard fourth and goal. Intended receiver Braham was out of bounds, and improbably, the scoreboard read UAB 31, Memphis 24.

“We preached all year, field goals and takeaways,” Roster said. “So we weren’t surprised. We knew we had to buckle down and just play good defense like we did.”

“We’ve been through so much adversity this year,” he added. “It was just another thing, like get them down, we’re going to go finish it. We’re going to go play defense, no matter what.”

Moving Forward

It is unclear where Mortensen stands as a candidate for the permanent job. On the one hand, there is something to be said about paying a guy $2.4 million to go away and then replacing him with his longest-tenured assistant; on the other, Saturday was the program’s three-year high point. In the current climate, it is perhaps wise for a Group of 5 team to save on coaching hires — especially if it just paid a large buyout — and invest money into its roster. Mortensen would likely be among UAB’s cheaper options.

One thing is for certain. Although Mortensen, Burton, and Hooks spoke glowingly of Dilfer after the win, UAB looked like a different football team under Mortensen. The man who made a note of his inexperience in both of his press conferences — “I had to talk to the press on Monday, and I told you then it’s going to be a little off the cuff. Not used to this, so I’m kind of saying the same thing,” he said Saturday — out-coached perennial P5 candidate Ryan Silverfield, a fact Silverfield admitted.

It now seems plausible the 3-4 (1-3) Blazers could compete for bowl eligibility. Two of UAB’s next opponents — Rice, at 3-4 (1-3), and Tulsa, at 2-5 (0-4) — surround the Green and Gold in the conference standings, but the Blazers will have to sweep the Owls and the Golden Hurricane while picking up a win against No. 18 South Florida (6-1, 3-0 AAC, 40th in SP+), North Texas (6-1, 2-1 AAC, 43rd in SP+), or their next opponent, UConn (5-2, 56th in SP+). Mortensen’s squad has little room for error; if they reach .500, however, it will be hard to deny Mortensen the permanent job.

The Blazers will travel to East Hartford, Connecticut on November 1st, but before that, they have an open week. UAB will need to figure out whether Kitna or Burton will be under center on the other side of the break, as well as rest and rehabilitate their injured roster.

“We’re also at a point in the season where we’re pretty banged up,” Mortensen said. “The other thing that I can say that Coach Dilfer probably couldn’t say is that we’ve lost a lot of guys this year that have been hurt. I think the open week gives us an opportunity also to get some guys healthy. We have some guys that worked their way back this week, but I think the open week gives us an opportunity also to get some guys healthy. The guys that are currently healthy can get some good fundamental work in.”

Mortensen made clear that UAB won’t coast on its laurels, quickly putting the Memphis win behind it and making a plan for the rest of the season.

“I think too, we can kind of step back as a coaching staff and, and again, not overreact to one win and still acknowledge like, hey, we have some things that we really need to improve on. Let’s develop a strategy to go improve those things.”