Former University of Florida Athletic Director Jeremy Foley had a simple rule when it came to taking necessary actions, He would say, if you're going to do something inevitably, do it immediately.
USF's American Conference rival, UAB, should have heeded that advice a year ago when it was obvious that theTrent Dilfer experiment was never going to work. The Blazers brass came to that inevitable decision Sunday when they fired Dilfer, but it comes at the cost of another wasted year in Birmingham.
Dilfer departs with a 9-21 record, including a 53-33 loss at Florida Atlantic on Saturday. That's when UAB decided that enough was enough.
UAB has a convoluted football history. The program was disbanded after the 2014 season because of costs, but was reinstated in 2017 under head coach Bill Clark. He guided the Blazers to six straight winning seasons and a pair of Conference USA titles before stepping down for health reasons after the 2021 season.
Bryant Vincent stepped in and led the program to a 7-6 season as the interim coach, but that wasn't good enough.
Instead, UAB passed him over for Dilly.
Dilfer had only been a high school coach when UAB tabbed him to keep its run of success going. It was the equivalent of going all in while holding hole cards of 2 and 6.
Maybe the Blazers thought they were getting star power; Dilfer was the starting quarterback on a Super Bowl-winning team in Baltimore. Except he was a caretaker under center because the Ravens had a ferocious defense, a fact that was underscored when Dilfer was released shortly after the confetti drop to celebrate the Super Bowl win.
His time at UAB was a disaster from the start.
Halftime: Tulane 37, UAB 6. Blazers plunging toward another 1-4 start under @DilfersDimes. Protective Stadium is a ghost town. After 6 straight winning seasons. Pathetic.
— Kevin Scarbinsky (@KevinScarbinsky) October 5, 2024
AD Mark Ingram owes the fans an apology. Followed by his resignation. Can not let him hire the next coach. pic.twitter.com/0Uc33C37wh
Losses piiled up.
Fans stayed away.
And Dilfer sometimes made things worse by opening his mouth.
Take his first trip to the American Conference media days in Texas. He and his players flew back to Birmingham on a commerical flight.
"I was on an American Airlines flight with my players, sitting in TSA while Alex Golesh is on a private jet,," he said.
At a post-game press conference, he invited his grandson up on the stage, noting, "It's not like this is freakin' Alabama."
On a podcast with his athletic director, Dilfer gave a recruiting pitch for the University of Louisville volleyball program, where his daughter played. AD Mark Ingram, who hired Dilfer, said that, hey, recruits should consider UAB.
Dilfer responded, "They’re pulling from different buckets."
Translation: Louisville players were too talented to waste their time at UAB.
So, the book closes on this clown show, and the Blazers are left to play out the string and start over. Again. The new coach will have to tear the program down to its foundation and rebuild from the bottom up, much like Golesh has done at USF.
It took the Blazers long enough to figure that out.