Interesting. Good luck to him.

(11-30-2022 02:28 AM)Fresno St. Alum Wrote:  

(11-30-2022 01:10 AM)teamvsn Wrote:  Setting himself up to be Fresno State head coach when Tedford retires.

That would be nice.....if he's good, but if he's too good, P5 for him.

I didn't even know he was coaching, or is this this college version of Jeff Saturday?

My best friends wife was friends with Dilfers wife so I hear updates, so yeah I hear about what he's doing. They were both in FCA, IIRC.

(11-30-2022 10:13 AM)Just Joe Wrote:  

(11-30-2022 09:27 AM)ArmoredUpKnight Wrote:  Too much splash, not enough substance.

Not a fan of going from High School directly to the AAC. Standards have seemingly changed overnight in the AAC.

The leftover AAC programs are really screwing over the new AAC programs with thier unequal payout. USF is offering Deion Sanders (apparently in a bidding war with Colorado) and UAB is offering high school coaches just shows the financial imbalance.

This. The last two HS to FBS I can recall were Todd Dodge at UNT and Tony Sanchez at UNLV, who were on paper much more qualified to make the leap than Dilfer is, and neither of those worked out well.

Bob Commings (Iowa, 1974), went 18–37 never a winning season
Gerry Faust (Notre Dame, 1981), went 30–26–1 and his best team was 7-5
Todd Dodge (North Texas, 2007) went 6–37 never a winning season
Tony Sanchez (UNLV, 2015) went 20–40 never a winning season

(11-30-2022 04:07 AM)Fresno St. Alum Wrote:  

(11-30-2022 03:02 AM)BlazintheAtl1 Wrote:  

(11-30-2022 02:28 AM)Fresno St. Alum Wrote:  

(11-30-2022 01:10 AM)teamvsn Wrote:  Setting himself up to be Fresno State head coach when Tedford retires.

That would be nice.....if he's good, but if he's too good, P5 for him.

I didn't even know he was coaching, or is this this college version of Jeff Saturday?

If he bolts for a P5 job then fine, that means he was successful here. The Saturday comparisons are fair although it seems Dilfer has been a more successful HS coach than Saturday ever was and Dilfer has been working with HS QBs for years with the Elite 11 thing he does. Like others have said, this is a boom or bust hire. Hopefully it pays off.

I'll be rooting for you guys. Usually I root for you knocking off top seeds in the tournament, now I'll have to watch your football team.

same here (been a fan of FS at least since the Pat Hill days) - hey we might end up on each other's schedule, who knows? I'm thinking if the PAC/UCLA thing gets resolution, y'all and SDSU should be the ones to replace them, if y'all want it...

(11-30-2022 10:06 AM)panite Wrote:  

(11-29-2022 11:06 PM)BeatWestern! Wrote:  https://twitter.com/PeteThamel/status/15...eHxKwsAAAA

Where did the UAB coach go. I missed something. Thought he was a UAB lifer after resurrecting UAB from the dead.

...well, the general story is Clark had to have 'heavy' back surgery which would take at least a year-ish to fully recover from... he knew this was 'pending' for a few years...

The timing was curious in that he came in and noted he was having the surgery pretty much just before the '22 season (I think late May-Early June was the announcement he was 'retiring', and surgery in late summer), so the OC (Bryant Vincent, who is a big bud of Clark's) was named interim for the season... ...it just seemed pretty odd that Clark didn't set up surgery as soon as possible after the '21 bowl game, so he could at worst be 'on the mend' and be ready to be in a 'limited role' for the '22 season at worst... ...some fans saw it as Clark just setting up his bud with a HC gig...

Ultimately, it is seen in retrospect that Clark was stepping away from the program, and will probably go onward to elsewhere sooner or later (2024, as he probably takes off the '23 season). Meanwhile, Vincent, a great guy, but...has a underwhelming season - some bad luck involved (we lost our starting QB (concussion) for the heaviest 3-game stretch on the schedule, thus went 0-3 in that span ), but overall the team didn't meet the expectations set as being potentially the best UAB has ever fielded.

SO, all that to say a clean break is happening by our AD (Mark Ingram), who evidently 'butted heads' with Clark over something (money? hiring assistants?), and probably was not amused by the timing of the 'transition' from Clark to Vincent (leaving really no option to replace Clark in '22) - so Ingram wants 'his man' in, and is truly getting rid of the Clark/Vincent Era, which is pretty sad (but sorta needed), as it IS by FAR our best era in football. Lots of folks on both sides of the 'saga', so you will read all sorts of 'takes' on BlazerTalk among other venues...

Hope that helps, if you're still there...

Dilfer to be introduced as new UAB coach today.

https://twitter.com/PeteThamel/status/15..._zma0sAAAA

CBS Sports article:

https://www.cbssports.com/college-footba...d-blazers/

(11-30-2022 09:27 AM)ArmoredUpKnight Wrote:  Too much splash, not enough substance.

Not a fan of going from High School directly to the AAC. Standards have seemingly changed overnight in the AAC.

The leftover AAC programs are really screwing over the new AAC programs with thier unequal payout. USF is offering Deion Sanders (apparently in a bidding war with Colorado) and UAB is offering high school coaches just shows the financial imbalance.

(11-30-2022 09:27 AM)ArmoredUpKnight Wrote:  Too much splash, not enough substance.

Not a fan of going from High School directly to the AAC. Standards have seemingly changed overnight in the AAC.

The leftover AAC programs are really screwing over the new AAC programs with thier unequal payout. USF is offering Deion Sanders (apparently in a bidding war with Colorado) and UAB is offering high school coaches just shows the financial imbalance.

How many coaching hires that UAB could have made would be front page on ESPN? A super bowl champion quarterback who spent a decade in broadcast and is a household name will get some attention on a program that normally gets none b/c it's all on bama and Auburn. And for that backup at bama who thinks he should be playing now but he somehow got into sabans doghouse b/c he was late for curfew 3 times last month...maybe he starts to think that Dilfer can do more to prepare him for the NFL. That was never a remote possibility yesterday.

(11-30-2022 10:20 AM)ArmoredUpKnight Wrote:  

(11-30-2022 10:13 AM)Just Joe Wrote:  

(11-30-2022 09:27 AM)ArmoredUpKnight Wrote:  Too much splash, not enough substance.

Not a fan of going from High School directly to the AAC. Standards have seemingly changed overnight in the AAC.

The leftover AAC programs are really screwing over the new AAC programs with thier unequal payout. USF is offering Deion Sanders (apparently in a bidding war with Colorado) and UAB is offering high school coaches just shows the financial imbalance.

This. The last two HS to FBS I can recall were Todd Dodge at UNT and Tony Sanchez at UNLV, who were on paper much more qualified to make the leap than Dilfer is, and neither of those worked out well.

Bob Commings (Iowa, 1974), went 18–37 never a winning season
Gerry Faust (Notre Dame, 1981), went 30–26–1 and his best team was 7-5
Todd Dodge (North Texas, 2007) went 6–37 never a winning season
Tony Sanchez (UNLV, 2015) went 20–40 never a winning season

You know who else jumped from HS to College, but you conveniently forgot?

Deion. 4 years HC at prep/academies, 4 years at Trinity Christian as an OC. He's about to get $6m a year from somebody, maybe CU, maybe USF, maybe someone else...who knows?

Dilfer is not Deion, but if I was a stud QB who maybe needed some developmental work I'd be looking hard at him. Maybe a Zach Calzada type, great arm, huge potential, but needs some fine tuning. Mabye Dilfer has some guys at his Academy who are ready to roll day 1 at UAB. I don't know. But what I do know is that, in a similar way to Deion, if Trent Dilfer wants to talk to my 3* or 4* stud athlete about football, I'm inviting him over for dinner.

Also like Deion, Dilfer had some pretty decent coaches in his career. Dungy, Billick, Holmgren. 3 different super bowl winning coaches on 3 different teams for about a decade of Dilfer's 14 years in the NFL.

(11-30-2022 03:06 PM)bryanw1995 Wrote:  

(11-30-2022 09:27 AM)ArmoredUpKnight Wrote:  Too much splash, not enough substance.

Not a fan of going from High School directly to the AAC. Standards have seemingly changed overnight in the AAC.

The leftover AAC programs are really screwing over the new AAC programs with thier unequal payout. USF is offering Deion Sanders (apparently in a bidding war with Colorado) and UAB is offering high school coaches just shows the financial imbalance.

How many coaching hires that UAB could have made would be front page on ESPN? A super bowl champion quarterback who spent a decade in broadcast and is a household name will get some attention on a program that normally gets none b/c it's all on bama and Auburn. And for that backup at bama who thinks he should be playing now but he somehow got into sabans doghouse b/c he was late for curfew 3 times last month...maybe he starts to think that Dilfer can do more to prepare him for the NFL. That was never a remote possibility yesterday.

Yep, exactly. If this had been any other high school coach, I'd be pissed. But Dilfer is a big name and is familiar with recruiting. This is so much better than the names that were being thrown out there for our vacancy.

(11-30-2022 03:14 PM)bryanw1995 Wrote:  

(11-30-2022 10:20 AM)ArmoredUpKnight Wrote:  

(11-30-2022 10:13 AM)Just Joe Wrote:  

(11-30-2022 09:27 AM)ArmoredUpKnight Wrote:  Too much splash, not enough substance.

Not a fan of going from High School directly to the AAC. Standards have seemingly changed overnight in the AAC.

The leftover AAC programs are really screwing over the new AAC programs with thier unequal payout. USF is offering Deion Sanders (apparently in a bidding war with Colorado) and UAB is offering high school coaches just shows the financial imbalance.

This. The last two HS to FBS I can recall were Todd Dodge at UNT and Tony Sanchez at UNLV, who were on paper much more qualified to make the leap than Dilfer is, and neither of those worked out well.

Bob Commings (Iowa, 1974), went 18–37 never a winning season
Gerry Faust (Notre Dame, 1981), went 30–26–1 and his best team was 7-5
Todd Dodge (North Texas, 2007) went 6–37 never a winning season
Tony Sanchez (UNLV, 2015) went 20–40 never a winning season

You know who else jumped from HS to College, but you conveniently forgot?

Deion. 4 years HC at prep/academies, 4 years at Trinity Christian as an OC. He's about to get $6m a year from somebody, maybe CU, maybe USF, maybe someone else...who knows?

Dilfer is not Deion, but if I was a stud QB who maybe needed some developmental work I'd be looking hard at him. Maybe a Zach Calzada type, great arm, huge potential, but needs some fine tuning. Mabye Dilfer has some guys at his Academy who are ready to roll day 1 at UAB. I don't know. But what I do know is that, in a similar way to Deion, if Trent Dilfer wants to talk to my 3* or 4* stud athlete about football, I'm inviting him over for dinner.

Also like Deion, Dilfer had some pretty decent coaches in his career. Dungy, Billick, Holmgren. 3 different super bowl winning coaches on 3 different teams for about a decade of Dilfer's 14 years in the NFL.

Jackson St isn't FBS (or FBS equivalent in the Commings/Faust cases).

When is the last time someone went from coaching high school to the highest level of college football and did it successfully? Paul Brown?

And Deion is pretty much a unicorn. Yeah Trent Dilfer can walk into a recruits house and show off a Super Bowl ring, and that's cool. But he doesn't have Deion's aura/charisma/HOF legacy that appeals to 5 star recruits. Those kids dad's wore Deion's shoes in middle school, there's elements of Deion's history (i.e. hit a home run and scored a TD in the same week) that are unique only to him in the history of pro sports. Trent Dilfer doesn't have that aura.

(11-30-2022 03:28 PM)Just Joe Wrote:  

(11-30-2022 03:14 PM)bryanw1995 Wrote:  

(11-30-2022 10:20 AM)ArmoredUpKnight Wrote:  

(11-30-2022 10:13 AM)Just Joe Wrote:  

(11-30-2022 09:27 AM)ArmoredUpKnight Wrote:  Too much splash, not enough substance.

Not a fan of going from High School directly to the AAC. Standards have seemingly changed overnight in the AAC.

The leftover AAC programs are really screwing over the new AAC programs with thier unequal payout. USF is offering Deion Sanders (apparently in a bidding war with Colorado) and UAB is offering high school coaches just shows the financial imbalance.

This. The last two HS to FBS I can recall were Todd Dodge at UNT and Tony Sanchez at UNLV, who were on paper much more qualified to make the leap than Dilfer is, and neither of those worked out well.

Bob Commings (Iowa, 1974), went 18–37 never a winning season
Gerry Faust (Notre Dame, 1981), went 30–26–1 and his best team was 7-5
Todd Dodge (North Texas, 2007) went 6–37 never a winning season
Tony Sanchez (UNLV, 2015) went 20–40 never a winning season

You know who else jumped from HS to College, but you conveniently forgot?

Deion. 4 years HC at prep/academies, 4 years at Trinity Christian as an OC. He's about to get $6m a year from somebody, maybe CU, maybe USF, maybe someone else...who knows?

Dilfer is not Deion, but if I was a stud QB who maybe needed some developmental work I'd be looking hard at him. Maybe a Zach Calzada type, great arm, huge potential, but needs some fine tuning. Mabye Dilfer has some guys at his Academy who are ready to roll day 1 at UAB. I don't know. But what I do know is that, in a similar way to Deion, if Trent Dilfer wants to talk to my 3* or 4* stud athlete about football, I'm inviting him over for dinner.

Also like Deion, Dilfer had some pretty decent coaches in his career. Dungy, Billick, Holmgren. 3 different super bowl winning coaches on 3 different teams for about a decade of Dilfer's 14 years in the NFL.

Jackson St isn't FBS (or FBS equivalent in the Commings/Faust cases).

When is the last time someone went from coaching high school to the highest level of college football and did it successfully? Paul Brown?

UAB was barely FBS, CUSA is the worst g5 conference. In fact UAB barely saved football a couple years ago when the BoR voted to stop playing completely. AAC will be different ofc, but it's not like Dilfer is jumping to coach Alabama.

But even if he was jumping to coach at a P5 instead of a lower-end g5 program, you can't use 4 historical examples over a 50 year period as a statistical analysis. Dilfer's lived experience in football is FAR different from those other 4. How many of them won a super bowl? How many played for 3 super bowl winning coaches over 10 years? How many had a 14 year NFL career? 10 year broadcast career focused entirely on football?

Perhaps Dilfer is a huge flameout and their AD gets canned. Perhaps he's able to recruit better talent b/c he gets phone calls returned that the last coach didn't. Perhaps he never paid attention to all the great coaches he had over the years and he falls flat on his face. I don't know. But I do know that, at least for today, UAB football is relevant like it has perhaps never been before.

(11-30-2022 09:27 AM)ArmoredUpKnight Wrote:  The leftover AAC programs are really screwing over the new AAC programs with thier unequal payout. USF is offering Deion Sanders (apparently in a bidding war with Colorado) and UAB is offering high school coaches just shows the financial imbalance.

This couldn't be more spot on. USF and Tulsa(!!!) are about to drop serious bags for their coaches, meanwhile UAB and Charlotte are going to be closer to the $1M mark. It's not a good look for the AAC and, in my opinion, is going to breed some serious animosity.

(11-30-2022 03:06 PM)bryanw1995 Wrote:  How many coaching hires that UAB could have made would be front page on ESPN?

Probably anybody. Covering coaching hires is what ESPN does.

Quote: A super bowl champion quarterback who spent a decade in broadcast and is a household name will get some attention on a program that normally gets none b/c it's all on bama and Auburn.

He was a QB on a team that won the Super Bowl, not a Super Bowl winning QB. Had worse stats passing than Joe Namath did in SBIII.

That Super Bowl was played before high school seniors were born so I doubt his name carries much weight. I had to Google him to see exactly who he played for. The Ravens were so impressed with his play they dumped him in the offseason.

Quote: And for that backup at bama who thinks he should be playing now but he somehow got into sabans doghouse b/c he was late for curfew 3 times last month...maybe he starts to think that Dilfer can do more to prepare him for the NFL. That was never a remote possibility yesterday.

Three NFL starters were coached by Saban. I don't think any that played for him and bailed because someone else was better are in the NFL.

He'll probably be better than McGoof (who everyone thought was a home run hire) but I don't see him as an improvement on Clark.

The more I ponder this hire, the more I like it for UAB. Dilfer over the next few years will generate some national publicity for the program that most any other coach, had he been hired, would not have. That notoriety alone will be valuable.

(11-30-2022 03:38 PM)Auburn_Blazer Wrote:  

(11-30-2022 09:27 AM)ArmoredUpKnight Wrote:  The leftover AAC programs are really screwing over the new AAC programs with thier unequal payout. USF is offering Deion Sanders (apparently in a bidding war with Colorado) and UAB is offering high school coaches just shows the financial imbalance.

This couldn't be more spot on. USF and Tulsa(!!!) are about to drop serious bags for their coaches, meanwhile UAB and Charlotte are going to be closer to the $1M mark. It's not a good look for the AAC and, in my opinion, is going to breed some serious animosity.

Dilfer made $1.2 mill at his HS gig... he wouldn't be making the change for less... I figure at least double - $2.5 mill range...

(11-30-2022 04:27 PM)GreenFreakUAB Wrote:  

(11-30-2022 03:38 PM)Auburn_Blazer Wrote:  

(11-30-2022 09:27 AM)ArmoredUpKnight Wrote:  The leftover AAC programs are really screwing over the new AAC programs with thier unequal payout. USF is offering Deion Sanders (apparently in a bidding war with Colorado) and UAB is offering high school coaches just shows the financial imbalance.

This couldn't be more spot on. USF and Tulsa(!!!) are about to drop serious bags for their coaches, meanwhile UAB and Charlotte are going to be closer to the $1M mark. It's not a good look for the AAC and, in my opinion, is going to breed some serious animosity.

Dilfer made $1.2 mill at his HS gig... he wouldn't be making the change for less... I figure at least double - $2.5 mill range...

That $1.2M to $1.3M mark has not been verified by Nashville media (from what I can determine) and would seem insanely inflated. The nation's highest-paid high school football coaches seemingly don't make any more than $200,000.

(11-30-2022 03:38 PM)Auburn_Blazer Wrote:  

(11-30-2022 09:27 AM)ArmoredUpKnight Wrote:  The leftover AAC programs are really screwing over the new AAC programs with thier unequal payout. USF is offering Deion Sanders (apparently in a bidding war with Colorado) and UAB is offering high school coaches just shows the financial imbalance.

This couldn't be more spot on. USF and Tulsa(!!!) are about to drop serious bags for their coaches, meanwhile UAB and Charlotte are going to be closer to the $1M mark. It's not a good look for the AAC and, in my opinion, is going to breed some serious animosity.

Over time you are correct (see MWC and Boise). But at the same time, UAB, North Texas, Charlotte, Rice, FAU, and UTSA still signed and accepted those terms.

(11-30-2022 04:35 PM)bill dazzle Wrote:  

(11-30-2022 04:27 PM)GreenFreakUAB Wrote:  

(11-30-2022 03:38 PM)Auburn_Blazer Wrote:  

(11-30-2022 09:27 AM)ArmoredUpKnight Wrote:  The leftover AAC programs are really screwing over the new AAC programs with thier unequal payout. USF is offering Deion Sanders (apparently in a bidding war with Colorado) and UAB is offering high school coaches just shows the financial imbalance.

This couldn't be more spot on. USF and Tulsa(!!!) are about to drop serious bags for their coaches, meanwhile UAB and Charlotte are going to be closer to the $1M mark. It's not a good look for the AAC and, in my opinion, is going to breed some serious animosity.

Dilfer made $1.2 mill at his HS gig... he wouldn't be making the change for less... I figure at least double - $2.5 mill range...

That $1.2M to $1.3M mark has not been verified by Nashville media (from what I can determine) and would seem insanely inflated. The nation's highest-paid high school football coaches seemingly don't make any more than $200,000.

Perhaps he made that much from his coaching + his camp? I'd imagine that there's a lot of money to be made for someone with Dilfer's history.