'City of Birmingham deserves more': Blazers head coach Trent Dilfer on UAB's 71-20 loss to Tulane

Humiliating is maybe *** better word. Um, what I told the players was, you know, this is, there's no manual for this as *** head coach. Um, but I do know I've been through *** lot of storms, I've been booed out of stadiums and outbacks and other places that what they can't do is blame each other if they need something to blame, they can blame me. You know, I apologize to the team for not getting them ready for that type of, uh, physical nature of football and, uh, I'll say to the fans like you deserve more. City of Birmingham deserves more. If you're gonna be angry, please be angry at me. Um, don't be angry at our kids. Our kids are giving us everything they have and it's my job to, uh, make sure something like this never happens again. What do you, I guess this is hindsight but you, what do you feel like you could have done this week to get them prepared for that? You said you didn't think they're prepared for that? Yeah, I don't know. Um, we thought we had *** good plan. Um, we practiced really hard, you know, we had *** really intense week of practice trying to prepare for the physicality. Um But, you know, John just does *** great job. It's part of his culture. You know, toughness is his culture. It's *** one word culture and uh they were just so and so much more tougher, more physical um and just kind of overwhelmed us. Uh coach. What was your assessment of jail? And Kitna today, I was *** warrior. I'm an absolute warrior. He um had very little protection, took *** lot of big hits. I mean, some hits where I didn't think he'd get up, popped up. Um Made some really nice plays under duress, extended some plays and I was careless of the ball *** couple of times. He hasn't started *** game in four years. So we did expect, um, there might be some carelessness there. Um It was less than anticipating, you know, the first interception is not his fault. Um So, you know, uh he's *** very talented kid, *** very tough kid and he showed that today in, in, in that sense when you look back at the first four games. WW, would it have been helpful for him or three games? Whatever it was, would have been helpful for him to get some snaps, you know, at some point, I don't like doing that to the starter, you know, Jacob so respected, um has invested so much into this thing. I've always thought it was weird to you know, take your starter out of the game to get somebody reps. Um, I'm not saying it's wrong. I just personally always thought it was tough situation to put on the starting quarterback, especially when he gets into *** rhythm. So, uh, it really never came up. Um, Jalen has done *** phenomenal job preparing in the shadows and, uh, knowing that at some point for whatever reason, he may get *** chance to play and, uh, with Jacob being banged up, you know, he got the chance today. Coach, I'm curious what the temperature of the locker room was after this. And I mean, this, what was your message? Because this Tulane team is ***, is *** really good team that has done some stuff the past few years. Yeah, they are right. But, you know, Arkansas is *** good team too and Navy is *** good team. Every Army is *** good, everybody's *** good team, you know, put it, let 70 spot on you. Um, and have whatever, is it five first downs at halftime or something? Um, you know, I, I, I would hope that the messaging since the time I got here is resonating in the time in the storm that we're in, which is, um, making sure that they're not blaming each other, making sure they're staying close together. And that's why I do think I listen, I'm not just saying as cook speak when you, when you give up 70 points and have no success offensively until junk time. It's the head coach's fault. It's not the coordinator's fault. It's, it's head coach's fault. So, you know, I've been on the other end of that and *** and, uh, you know, I knew, I knew at the time, you know, you don't tell your kids to stop playing. He apologized for the past. I said, no, John, I said it's our job to stop you. Um, but my point being is that I I if they need somebody to blame, they can blame me, but I don't want to blame each other. I want these kids to stay close together. I want to have lifelong relationships. Um Now I do think, you know, they need to look in the mirror as we look at the film and I'm sure they're all, they'll be as critical as we are to try and improve some things, but this does not need to be *** finger pointing contest. Coach Jonathan Hoppy with Webrc. You mentioned the city of Birmingham uh deserving more. What is kind of your message to the city and the fans that join you in the frustration after *** loss like this just that, you know, they deserve more, they deserve better product, um they deserve more out of me. So um I'll continue to try to do the best I can. Um So it hasn't been for *** lack of effort. Was it close with Zeno going into this week? I I know, we talked Monday about the injury or, or did you kind of plan the whole week with, uh, kit? And I planned the whole week as if Jacob wouldn't play. So, um, we'll take it day by day and, you know, we'll know more next week when, when *** game like this and when you're down by so much and, you know, calling the late time out there while, you know, trying to get the ball back type thing. What is, is that as much to sort of send *** message, uh type thing or trying to play as much football as possible, you get better at football by playing football and, um, I always, I've always believed in trying to play the game as long as it can possibly go because you get to play more football and you get to evaluate more, get more players in. Um, I just, I just believed in that forever, um, trying to slow the game down and all that stuff that, you know, these kids work really hard and they want to play football. So, you know, your receivers still want to have an opportunity to catch the ball and we need to evaluate offensive linemen. Um, we want to get other running backs in the game so we want to get the ball back. Now. I think, I thought when I called the second one, I thought we had stopped him, you know, and I, I went to the ref and I'm like, hey, you don't have to call that one. It was too late at that point. But yeah, I want, I get the ball back with *** minute to go and work on our two minute offense and I know you're obviously still trying to digest this right now. But, but how, how, how do you move forward from, from *** day like this? I mean, what kind of, what's the key, I guess to moving forward? The secret is always in the dirt, Steve like it's in the work. Um, I've seen miraculous turn around in football. People don't want to hear it. I get it, you know, but I, I, you know, I was part of the worst franchise in, in football in the NFL and *** few years later where, you know, winning playoff games. So it's doable. Um, it always seems so dark when you're in the middle of the storm, it seems hopeless. Um, but if you keep working, you keep believing, you keep treating people, right? Um, you keep getting support, you know, things can turn, they really can. Um, but, you know, you're sitting here today and if you're on the outside looking in, um, you know, there's no reason to believe any of that. I see that, you know, you go, go with the evidence that you have and the evidence isn't very good. But, um, you know, internally it's, it's not as hopeless as it seems. Anything else. I appreciate you guys. Thank you.