The unofficial online home for fans of the UAB Blazers. Part of Collegiate Sports Nation (CSN).

In a year where it was predicted UAB would dominate CUSA, there are currently 8 teams from the G5 ranked in the AP Top 25 and 5 others receiving votes. And UAB is not one of those teams. If you're Bill Clark you have to think this was a huge opportunity missed to put some national shine on this program. But because of this missed opportunity UAB is not in danger of losing its most valuable commodity to a P5 program.

Bill Clark has done a great job as a head coach and leader of our program and anyone with common sense would agree we are a lot better off overall as a program since he took over vs the entirety of the rest of our program’s existence. However, there are several glaringly obvious things that need to be corrected for us to take the next step that Clark has laid out as his stated goals for our program. This year, weird as it was, has been kind of a step back, and we are no where near the best of the rest outside of the big conferences nor near competing on a national level. If no changes are made this off-season I’ll be pretty disappointed and Clark will have made it pretty clear he’s ok with our ceiling being competing for championships in one of the worst college football conferences in the country.

If you can’t acknowledge there are clear deficiencies with the team that need to be corrected for the team to take the next step, you’re a total homer and have your head in the sand. There’s nothing disloyal to uab or Clark about admitting the obvious.

(12-13-2020 07:58 PM)BlazerGreen Wrote:  

(12-13-2020 07:40 PM)kdblazer Wrote:  Really??????

We play in the worst conference in the FBS. We're a couple of plays from a .500 regular season. So far we've achieved the bare minimum of the goals we needed to reach this year. I don't see the reason for a big celebration, yet. To get where we need to be, we need to make a big jump in talent and execution. Hopefully we can get started on both of those this coming week.

We are also a couple of plays away from being a one loss team. I’m not disagreeing with most of what you are saying, but I’m not a fan of the couple of plays away from x or y happening in most cases.

So is Coach Clark becoming our Jeff Bower/Skip Holtz/ Doc Sadler?

(12-14-2020 01:19 AM)blazers9911 Wrote:  

(12-13-2020 07:58 PM)BlazerGreen Wrote:  

(12-13-2020 07:40 PM)kdblazer Wrote:  Really??????

We play in the worst conference in the FBS. We're a couple of plays from a .500 regular season. So far we've achieved the bare minimum of the goals we needed to reach this year. I don't see the reason for a big celebration, yet. To get where we need to be, we need to make a big jump in talent and execution. Hopefully we can get started on both of those this coming week.

We are also a couple of plays away from being a one loss team. I’m not disagreeing with most of what you are saying, but I’m not a fan of the couple of plays away from x or y happening in most cases.

And our our starting QB started the season playing injured and was replaced by our freshman third string QB that only started four games in HS. And COVID

(12-14-2020 07:27 AM)UAB Schnauzer Wrote:  And our our starting QB started the season playing injured and was replaced by our freshman third string QB that only started four games in HS. And COVID

This is the third straight season we've had QB injury problems. Erdely didn't finish 2018, TJ missed almost half of 2019, and here we were again with an injured starter. It was pretty obvious we needed to bring in at least one new QB with starting potential (most likely a Juco or transfer) but that didn't happen.

COVID? Seriously? Not unless a lesser known side effect is causing stupid penalties.

(12-14-2020 08:22 AM)BlazerGreen Wrote:  

(12-14-2020 07:27 AM)UAB Schnauzer Wrote:  And our our starting QB started the season playing injured and was replaced by our freshman third string QB that only started four games in HS. And COVID

This is the third straight season we've had QB injury problems. Erdely didn't finish 2018, TJ missed almost half of 2019, and here we were again with an injured starter. It was pretty obvious we needed to bring in at least one new QB with starting potential (most likely a Juco or transfer) but that didn't happen.

COVID? Seriously? Not unless a lesser known side effect is causing stupid penalties.

Lol. Love this guy. ️

3 straight seasons of what?
Division Champs!
Bowl games!
At least 1 CUSA Championship.

-winner of Weakest division in weakest CFB conference.
-25-26 yr olds led ya in your best year in which you beat the worst East division champ put forward in recent memory.
-no signature wins
-needed team that smashed you in prior weeks to lose, to allow you into CUSA game for back for back title game appearances. Got smashed twice in post season.
-played your starting QB when he was injured.
-Blew two 4 qtr leads against 2nd and 3rd best opponent.
-needed technicality to allow you to return to a 3rd title game.
-Team undisciplined on field and continues to trend in worse/wrong direction
-Offensive philosophy and favoritism is killing your recruiting across the board. Forced to promote walkons to reach 85 man roster, but plays it off like we don’t have enough spots for good recruits when in reality you aren’t doing very well in that category. (Thumbs up to whoever recruits the south FL Area, though. You’re killing it)

Other than that, things are great.

Overhaul your offense and clean up the penalties, we’ll be in better shape.

Some people are half empty people. Some are half full types.
Clearly UAB was weak at QB this season. But they did not let that ruin the season.
Sure it would have been nice to have been that team with wins over LaTech and Louisiana.
The opposing coaches put the game’s outcome on the shoulders of our QB. Worked out for Miami, LT and Louisiana.
Getting votes or appearing in the top 25 would have been great.
However, the team goal of CUSA championship is attainable.
The Blazers can win the next 2 games and all the other stuff won’t matter.

I’ll take our current success. I’ll be happy. I’ll want more success that we have currently achieved. I remember when we were dreadful and I am thankful for how far we have come which is further than ANYONE predicted. Beat Marsha.

(12-15-2020 04:09 PM)notnow Wrote:  Some people are half empty people. Some are half full types.
Clearly UAB was weak at QB this season. But they did not let that ruin the season.
Sure it would have been nice to have been that team with wins over LaTech and Louisiana.
The opposing coaches put the game’s outcome on the shoulders of our QB. Worked out for Miami, LT and Louisiana.
Getting votes or appearing in the top 25 would have been great.
However, the team goal of CUSA championship is attainable.
The Blazers can win the next 2 games and all the other stuff won’t matter.

I mostly agree with that statement and I'm happy we have the opportunity. If we can beat Marshall and win our bowl game, we can get things back on track. But the flip side off that is recognition that things have gotten a little off track, on the field and in recruiting. Saturday was basically a last minute stick save of what was supposed to be a big season for UAB. We get two more cracks at wins over pretty good teams. We need to win both to keep our positive momentum.

We beat Marshall. Score was close, however, we were dominant. We hit some of those over the top passes and loosened up their defense some. We controlled the lines and managed to reduce penalties. I enjoyed watching the game and the success of our players and coaches in a challenging season.

(12-20-2020 08:37 AM)notnow Wrote:  We beat Marshall. Score was close, however, we were dominant. We hit some of those over the top passes and loosened up their defense some. We controlled the lines and managed to reduce penalties. I enjoyed watching the game and the success of our players and coaches in a challenging season.

Yup and it was about time. A less sloppy team would have one loss and be ranked right now. Can we do it consistently enough to get there?

I'm happy with the conference title and excited to see who we play. We did what we were expected and capable of doing. I still think we need a change at OC no matter what the outcome of our bowl.

I think we all agree about the OC. I will say, we actually called some end arounds and wr screens and some simple throws that I’ve been begging for all year on Friday. I’m not sure why it took us so long to get those done in a game.

(12-20-2020 09:38 AM)blazers9911 Wrote:  I think we all agree about the OC. I will say, we actually called some end arounds and wr screens and some simple throws that I’ve been begging for all year on Friday. I’m not sure why it took us so long to get those done in a game.

I hope the conference title doesn't mean another year of stay the course on offense but I wouldn't be surprised if it does. It would kinda fit one of the definitions of insanity, doing the same thing but expecting different results. Hope springs eternal I guess.

(12-14-2020 07:20 PM)BlazinBham Wrote:  -winner of Weakest division in weakest CFB conference. totally out of the coach/players control
-25-26 yr olds led ya in your best year in which you beat the worst East division champ put forward in recent memory. experience is better than knowledge.
-no signature wins winning the conference championship is a signature win IMHO
-needed team that smashed you in prior weeks to lose, to allow you into CUSA game for back for back title game appearances. Got smashed twice in post season. sometimes its better to be lucky than good
-played your starting QB when he was injured. that's between the coach and the QB
-Blew two 4 qtr leads against 2nd and 3rd best opponent. still made the Champ game
-needed technicality to allow you to return to a 3rd title game. doesn't matter how you get there...just get there.
-Team undisciplined on field and continues to trend in worse/wrong direction that's G5 life having to live off JuCo transfers and two-star HS kids
-Offensive philosophy and favoritism is killing your recruiting across the board. Forced to promote walkons to reach 85 man roster, but plays it off like we don’t have enough spots for good recruits when in reality you aren’t doing very well in that category. (Thumbs up to whoever recruits the south FL Area, though. You’re killing it) with wins will come better recruits.

Other than that, things are great.

Overhaul your offense and clean up the penalties, we’ll be in better shape.

just an outsiders view.

Bill Clark has done an excellent job as our head coach, no way to deny that. It was his expressed vision to have us move up to the level of a former Boise state, UCF, etc. I believe we are close to doing that, but we just need correct a few things. I would be very happy if the OC was let go and a more modern offense installed. The penalties and turnovers have to be minimized - look at our last two games as examples.. if we just fixed or improved on those two things we would be markedly better than the last 2-3 years, which is where BC wants us to go.

I agree the offense did look a little better last night.

(12-20-2020 10:28 AM)The Answer UAB Wrote:  Bill Clark has done an excellent job as our head coach, no way to deny that. It was his expressed vision to have us move up to the level of a former Boise state, UCF, etc. I believe we are close to doing that, but we just need correct a few things. I would be very happy if the OC was let go and a more modern offense installed. The penalties and turnovers have to be minimized - look at our last two games as examples.. if we just fixed or improved on those two things we would be markedly better than the last 2-3 years, which is where BC wants us to go.

I agree the offense did look a little better last night.

Well said. What's been said on this board all season: clean up the mistakes and we're a Top 25 team. Frustrating when we are the obstacle keeping us from being there. If this team stops beating itself, no telling what kind of opponent we can beat. That's why I want to see us play Coastal in our bowl.

Well put. It is frustrating that we are our worst enemy.
Still say that getting a tough hard nosed team to play on edge means that you will go over that edge sometimes.
Penalties are part of living on that edge. Living on that edge has brought us our success.