UAB Blazers College Football Pregame Quote, 09/01/2025

I am obviously pleased we found a way to win our opener. There were a lot of good and a lot of bad, but as I have said, we know we are a team in progress and process, and we will look to get better this week on the things we were not sharp on in the opener. We have an incredible foe in front of us. I have a ton of respect for Navy’s football program, their head coach, Brian Newberry, is as good as there is in the business, and what they have done in the last couple of years is pretty remarkable, so we have a great challenge ahead of us and (we will) try to approach this week to find a win.

Coach Dilfer on his assessment of the defense after game one:

I think the simplest way to put it is we had missed opportunities. We had a lot of opportunities to make plays, and we did not. I do not think it was for a lack of effort, we just did not make the plays that were available to us, and then (Alabama State) made a lot of plays. Their quarterback is a special player, and he was supported really well. They ran the ball hard in the run game, their wide receivers did a really good job finding space and finishing on plays. We had missed opportunities on our end, and they capitalized on the opportunities we gave them.

Coach Dilfer on the health of the defense going into week two:

I think we will be much healthier this week. The extra couple of days off really helped us. There will be some guys back later in the week but they should be ready for the game so we should have more assets available to us.

Coach Dilfer on approaching the Navy defense:

Navy creates a whole new set of challenges. The biggest thing I was proud of with our offense was that they were decisive. We made mistakes, there were a lot of things that could have gotten us in trouble that did not, but at least they were full speed. They were decisive, there was great effort on the offensive side for the most part, and when you do that, good things happen.