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

https://x.com/collegead/status/1722005491922997563?s=20

Someone asked in another thread if it's gonna be the same old same old from the Board. Here's your answer

At least he's at the games, and in a seat. Mackin stood in the tunnel. And... Pumpkin head hasn't been to either BB games yet. (btw, I loved the Blaze Halloween costume he was wearing at the Memphis game... with a pumpkin on his head. I thought there was some irony there myself.)

I don’t think Mark has been bad. I understand that he isn’t the BEST but I think there could be much worse. He’s made good hires regardless of how no brainer some may seem, like AK. The Dilfer hire still needs to age but at the end of the day a guy like Mark is trying to get a P5 job so he’s going to do everything he can to make sure he’s reflected well at UAB

(11-08-2023 08:55 AM)Golden-Ticket Wrote:  I don’t think Mark has been bad. I understand that he isn’t the BEST but I think there could be much worse. He’s made good hires regardless of how no brainer some may seem, like AK. The Dilfer hire still needs to age but at the end of the day a guy like Mark is trying to get a P5 job so he’s going to do everything he can to make sure he’s reflected well at UAB

Honestly, outside of AK, what good hires has he made? If Dilfer works out, he's going to get another job solely based on that. But his hires so far have not worked out. The overall state of athletics at UAB is what, maybe a four out of ten? We have better facilities today then we did when he arrived, but other than that he hasn't brought a ton of success to UAB.

(11-08-2023 08:55 AM)Golden-Ticket Wrote:  I don’t think Mark has been bad. I understand that he isn’t the BEST but I think there could be much worse

I, personally, want the best for UAB

Way too many people around here are ok with just ok

I don't even think he's just ok. He's totally squandered any momentum there was with the return of football and a new stadium. Chalk a little bit up to covid, to be sure, but hiring a guy literally out of high school was dumb. This is not the place to be taking wild ass swings at the fences, especially when you've never even hit a double

Not pleased with the overall status of the athletic department. I agree, there’s an acceptance of mediocrity. We’ve got to rise above that. Also, stop begging fans for NIL help. Get it from businesses. We don’t have a fanbase, therefore you can’t squeeze a lemon to get lemonade.

I agree. Not sure I believe all the conspiracy theories about ADMI, and I appreciate how approachable he is and that he will talk to fans, but he’s just been so-so to me.

All hires outside of AK have been questionable at best. Dilfer may well work out, but it was a WEIRD hire no way you spin it, and even if he does work out, it was still a strange hire.

I agree with transistor - protective is a funeral home. We’ve squandered any momentum we had coming off of several good years with Clark, moving to a nice new stadium, and moving into a better conference. He hasn’t done anything to get interesting home games at protective.

I give him a C- to C at best. Too many people are OK with that.

Yeah and that’s another point I forgot - what had ADMI done for the NIL for UAB? Outside looking in it doesn’t seem like much.

He also blatantly outright lied to everyone when he said “there was no contact between Andy Kennedy and WVU.” What a joke. I almost spit out my drink when I heard Him say that

Also / AK was the easiest, most obvious, SIMPLE hire ever. Sure, he gets some credit for it, but in my mind / the better question is: what is he doing to KEEP AK. Again, like with the NIL, doesn’t seem like much, outside of blatantly lying to UAB fans about contact between AK and other schools.

Imo, he’s pretty good at a lot of things, but he’s been…. shall we say “so-so” at the thing most fans care about, which is hiring coaches. Obviously the AK hire was good and appreciated by fans, though I think you could’ve put anyone in the AD’s seat and they would’ve been able to hire AK at that time. I like Dilfer, and none of the other names I saw mentioned were inspiring. There’s no question though, men’s soccer, softball, and basketball before AK came back home, are all down (basketball is probably still dealing with a little of the backlash from the Ehsan years). Women’s basketball, baseball, and others have been kinda stuck in the mud under his watch as well.

Idk. Part of me is good with him getting an extension, part of me isn’t. My opinion of him probably changes quite a bit if Dilfer turns out to be “the guy”, like I think he can be.

Hiring Dunn away from Samford is impressive.

While the Dunn hire was seen as a good one, it has not produced anything in two years.

Women's rifle and bowling, which everybody claims to have wanted to keep, are both pretty bad. Women's basketball is average at best. Men's soccer was run into the ground. Softball is okay. I will never blame the Ehsan hire on Ingram, as the fans/boosters brought that upon themselves.

I do agree that the football coach candidates we saw were very underwhelming as a whole. I will tell you that if Skip Holtz had our current record I would feel like we set the program back a decade. I still feel like Dilfer has some upside, he just needs to make some major adjustments in the offseason.

Basically every player Dunn has developed has been lost to the transfer portal, mostly to SEC teams. Hard to see how anyone would succeed in an environment where you are basically 4th in line for recruits behind MLB, P5 teams with NIL money, Baseball teams in states where they can use lotto scholarships to ensure their whole team is practically on a full ride, then you are stuck with recruiting from the pool that's left, AND Any diamond in the rough you develop is going to be instantly snatched up by a team with NIL money.

(11-08-2023 10:21 AM)uabblazer2012 Wrote:  Hiring Dunn away from Samford is impressive.

I agree. The lack of baseball success has more to do with the very limited resources the baseball team has including some of the worst facilities in D1. Hard to expect much from Dunn until those issues are resolved.

Ingram has done well with facility projects including major items like Protective Stadium/Football Practice Facility/Basketball Practice Facility, hiring AK, hiring Dunn, and getting us into the American. The Dilfer hire was weird and still needs time to pan out. He definitely took a big risk there.

All of the facility projects played a big role in getting into the AAC. That was somewhat watered down by how many came with us from CUSA, but that's outside of his control. Aresco said in an interview we were at the top of the list for expansion options and maybe would've gotten an invite to be the 12th team in the previous version of the AAC if all the realignment hadn't happened. That's what we/Ingram were working towards and I think we were almost there, but then the ground shifted with realignment.

(11-08-2023 11:22 AM)BlazerMatt Wrote:  Basically every player Dunn has developed has been lost to the transfer portal, mostly to SEC teams. Hard to see how anyone would succeed in an environment where you are basically 4th in line for recruits behind MLB, P5 teams with NIL money, Baseball teams in states where they can use lotto scholarships to ensure their whole team is practically on a full ride, then you are stuck with recruiting from the pool that's left, AND Any diamond in the rough you develop is going to be instantly snatched up by a team with NIL money.

Yep, MLB was an issue for shoop, too. You sign somebody in November, then they get drafted in July.

Now, the portal is probably worse on baseball than any other sport for us.

We’ve had at least 4 guys go SEC via portal. 1 to UA, 1 to Ms St, 2 to AU.
Probably more Im Missing.

(11-08-2023 11:32 AM)hooverblazer Wrote:  Ingram has done well with facility projects including major items like Protective Stadium/Football Practice Facility/Basketball Practice Facility, hiring AK, hiring Dunn, and getting us into the American. The Dilfer hire was weird and still needs time to pan out. He definitely took a big risk there.

All of the facility projects played a big role in getting into the AAC. That was somewhat watered down by how many came with us from CUSA, but that's outside of his control. Aresco said in an interview we were at the top of the list for expansion options and maybe would've gotten an invite to be the 12th team in the previous version of the AAC if all the realignment hadn't happened. That's what we/Ingram were working towards and I think we were almost there, but then the ground shifted with realignment.

I think based on who the last two candidates were for football taking the risk was the right call. I can't think of anything really bad that Mark has done that doesn't warrant the new contract.

I think that last sentence in a nutshell sums up what is wrong with the extension. Not being able to think of something that doesn’t warrant the extension shouldn’t be the bar we set for anybody in the athletic department.

(11-08-2023 12:20 PM)blazers9911 Wrote:  I think that last sentence in a nutshell sums up what is wrong with the extension. Not being able to think of something that doesn’t warrant the extension shouldn’t be the bar we set for anybody in the athletic department.

Well put.