Coach Speak: UAB's Trent Dilfer on Georgia

UAB has a head coach whose name you might recognize. Former ESPN analyst and Super Bowl winning quarterback Trent Dilfer is the man in charge of the Blazers out of Birmingham. He’s in his first season with the program, taking over after a successful stint in Tennessee as a high school coach at Lipscomb Academy.

This week, Dilfer’s team takes on the top-ranked Georgia Bulldogs. It’s a challenge, and he knows it. Here’s everything Dilfer had to say about the matchup in Athens…

Trent Dilfer Opening Statement…

“Obviously, coming off another very disappointing performance, the focus is on getting better. As Blazers, we got to get better at football. We got to get better at coaching. We got to get better at running this building. The challenge only gets greater playing a, not good, but great Georgia team at their place. Primetime game, a lot of challenges there. So, trying to build this thing on embracing the challenges and doing hard things, and I got what I asked for. It can’t get any harder than this, they’ve allowed 24 points this year and we allowed 24 points in the first half of one game. We got our work cut out for us.”

Dilfer on what jumps out about Georgia, how you take a confident team into Athens…

“Well I think that’s two different things. Number one, and you know what, that’s something I’ve been doing all morning is studying them. I think three things jump out.

Number one, they have great culture, great energy and they play together. It is team football. Second would be they have really good people doing it, right? They’ve recruited at a very high level. They’ve developed players that they’ve recruited, so they’re better now than they were when they got them. The third thing, that is my NFL eye, is that they are NFL coached. They are incredibly well coached. From their eye discipline, to their hands, to their communication, they shed blocks and they sustain blocks. That is football at its highest level is can you shed blocks and can you sustain blocks when you’re on offense.

Their schemes fit into the coaching realm. They’re very complex defensively. Offensively, they’re multiple. So, you can’t guess. You can’t get into a guessing game with them. It very much looks like, when did I retire, in 2008? This is 2006, 2007 or 2008 as a backup quarterback studying defense from a coaches eye, it looks very similar. It looks very much like getting ready for the Baltimore Ravens, or getting ready for the Rams, or Chargers or whoever you’re playing that week. You have really good players that are really well coached, and that know what they’re doing, and that know what you’re doing. They can adjust, and they finish.

That would be the other thing I would say about really good players. People talk so much about height, weight, speed, measureables and all that. All that is true, but a great player finishes, and they have finishers. When their defensive lineman gets through and has a tackle in the backfield, they make the tackle. When their secondary player triggers on a blocker and needs to shed them and stay outside leverage, he does, and he tackles the ball carrier. When their corner needs to reroute and stay on the backside hip in man coverage and play the ball, he does, and it gets picked. When the ball is in the air and it needs to be intercepted, it gets intercepted. They have finishers, and that’s what I’m accustomed to. And that’s what we need to get better at is developing our really good players. We have really good players. But they got to develop, and they have to learn how to finish.”

Dilfer on the opportunity to play on prime time national television…

“I’ve never played in anything like this. I’ve been to one SEC game. My daughter was being recruited to the University of Alabama and we went to the Ole Miss-Alabama game. To this day, I think the Kentucky Derby is the coolest thing I’ve ever been able to go to live sports, but I think this is better than a Super Bowl. An SEC football game at night is a way better atmosphere than the Super Bowl. I think this is the second coolest thing I’ve ever been to as a spectator. I’m personally really excited about going and going to an SEC game at night. It’s different. Their slogan, ‘It just means more,’ it’s true.

It’s a great opportunity if we play well. If we have great energy, if we support each other, if we keep our composure and if we can handle hard things that are going to happen. Bad things will happen to the Blazers in this game. I can promise you that. How do we respond? I think you have to know that going in and you got to respond. Bad things don’t mean losses, right? It’s how you respond to those things. It’s a great opportunity for us IF, and that’s the message. This is a great opportunity if we can go out there and be the best versions of ourselves, and that’s what this week is about. This week is about getting better at football, it’s getting better as a head coach, it’s getting better as a wide receivers coach, it’s getting better at recruiting and getting better at operations. We have to get better at every single thing in this building. If we can do that then it’s a good opportunity to show off our best selves.”

Trent Dilfer on what he tells his guys about the fact Georgia has been in close games with lesser opponents so far this season…

“I haven’t talked to the team yet about Georgia. We talked about us. Yesterday was a work day, and I don’t think we even brought up the name Georgia Bulldogs because we have enough issues on our own … When I get to the team and talk to them, I think the focus will still be on us. What I will show them is that they make mistakes like us too.

I bet you Kirby is talking to his team about the mistakes they’ve made and trying to clean up their mistakes. Now their mistakes aren’t quite as catastrophic as ours. That goes back to the finishing. They play better team football than we do. When they have somebody make a mistake, they have another player or players that are shedding blocks, running to the football, filling the gap and making the play, turning what should be a 12-yard gain into a 6-yard gain. Offensively when the quarterback doesn’t play perfectly, a guy makes a play for them. When the offensive line breaks down, they have another guy make a play.

I think I’m going to use Georgia with our team as an example of what really good team football looks like. For our coaches, I want them to watch the film and look at the technique Georgia is teaching and watch it come out in the football game because it does. We teach the same stuff, the exact same stuff. It’s not necessarily coming out in the game, so what’s the disconnect there? Our inside linebackers can go up and punch and extend their arms and drive their feet and keep their head to the other side and shed and make a play. Georgia’s do that. Why aren’t ours consistently? That’s going to be the message. You use Georgia this week as an example of what really good football looks like and challenge them, can we do the same thing?”

Dilfer on his relationship with Kirby Smart…

“Yeah, we’ve talked a few times. I wouldn’t call us friends, I just haven’t been around him that much. He was great with me in the hiring of Eddie Gordon. I have a ton of respect for him. Really I don’t know him as a human being, but I have a ton of respect for the way he runs his program. The thing Nick (Saban) and Kirby don’t get enough credit for, and now that I’m living it, I always knew how challenging it was but I’m living it now, it is really hard with this age group and the size of these buildings and the size of these staffs to get people going the right direction. I don’t care if it’s left, right, straight or back, if you’re all going the same direction you can win. What normally happens in big buildings is you have some going every way. That’s losing in a building. They somehow have a way of getting everybody to go in the same direction all the time. That speaks volumes to their leadership and how they think about culture. And then they’re dealing with very successful young athletes. To motivate them every single day to play as hard as they play, I think is really impressive. One of the things that jumps out, and I’d put it on the coaching, is how hard they play. You take a play when they’re beating Ball State 41-3 whatever it is and you’re watching No. 32 chase down an outside zone this direction, put his foot in the ground, sprint 30 more yards, the play breaks out, he breaks another direction. Now he’s played 45-50 plays in this game, and the game is out of reach yet he’s playing at his maximum level to the whistle. You see that constantly as you watch them play. Their players play with a great deal of effort. It speaks volumes about how Kirby runs his program.”