The Postgame Report: UAB 26, ULM 20

UAB’s 26-20 win over ULM Saturday at Protective Stadium was ugly in spots — eight penalties, one red zone trip, a first half full of self-inflicted damage. It was also the most important game this program has played in two years, because of what the Blazers did when everything was going wrong.

Bryant Vincent came back to Birmingham with a game plan that had his former team down 20-10 in the third quarter. Vincent spent six seasons on UAB’s sideline, coordinated the offense, coached the interim season and won a bowl game in his final game at UAB. Saturday, his Warhawks scored first. An interception before halftime gave ULM a short field and three more points. Monroe opened the second half with a 59-yard drive for a field goal and a 20-10 cushion. Everything was going the Warhawks’ way.

Then the Blazers took the game away from him.

UAB wore the Warhawks down with 52 carries for 266 yards and shut Monroe out entirely in the fourth quarter. Jonah Delange kicked four field goals. And when the game was there to take, Ryder Burton scrambled UAB into position and threw a 43-yard post to EJ Reid that gave the Blazers their first lead with 9:34 remaining.

The Blazers did not always play well. They had eight penalties for 67 yards. They made one trip inside the red zone all afternoon. The passing game produced only 115 yards on 16 attempts. Burton was sacked three times, and officially hurried four times — although it must have felt like more than that.

But they always played hard. For a program that has been on the wrong end of games like this, grinding out a comeback against a coach who knew every tendency on the UAB sideline tells you more about where this team is headed than a clean win would.

Alex Mortensen is building something. Saturday was more real evidence that the foundation is taking.

WHAT IT MEANS

The record says 1-1 after a 42-23 loss at Illinois in the opener. What matters is how they got the second one. This is a roster with 62 newcomers and a coaching staff in its first full season, with a new defensive coordinator. Recent UAB teams folded in games like this. Down 10 in the third quarter against a coach who knows your playbook and a quarterback who can hurt you with his legs, the path of least resistance is to come apart. These Blazers went the other direction.

Mortensen talked about his core values after the game: work hard, play hard, play smart, play together. He graded the team high on the first two and low on the third — the penalties and the discipline lapses that shortened fields. But the intangibles that cannot be schemed — the conditioning to play four quarters, the refusal to quit when the scoreboard says you could — showed up when they had to.

UAB won the fourth quarter 13-0. That is the number that matters most from this game.

THE TURNING POINT

UAB’s defense forced a three-and-out early in the fourth quarter, and the Blazers got the ball at their own 47 trailing 20-16.

A holding penalty wiped out a Robinson rush on first down and left UAB at first-and-20. Burton rushed for 5 yards on second down, then 8 more on third-and-8 to convert at the ULM 43. On the next play, he threw deep middle to Reid for 43 yards and the go-ahead touchdown with 9:34 remaining — UAB 23, ULM 20, the Blazers’ first lead in more than 40 minutes of game time. The drive covered 53 yards in four plays and 2:50.

Ike Esonwune intercepted Austin Carlisle on ULM’s next possession — UAB’s first defensive takeaway of the season — and the offense ran 11 plays over 4:40 before Delange’s fourth field goal from 42 yards with 1:10 remaining made it 26-20. Jo Pierce broke up the final pass on ULM’s last drive with eight seconds left.

THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY

Good: The ground game. Robinson and Bam McReynolds combined for 37 carries and 189 yards. Robinson — a former four-star recruit who signed with Georgia before transferring — set career highs in carries (21) and rushing yards (114). McReynolds, playing against ULM after transferring from Monroe this season, rushed 16 times for 75 yards and scored UAB’s first touchdown on a 27-yard run in the second quarter. KJ Daniels added a 35-yard end-around on his first collegiate touch. UAB converted 10-of-15 third downs (67 percent) and never punted.

Bad: Eight penalties for 67 yards. Mortensen called discipline the area where his team graded worst: “The discipline to do your job and the discipline to play within the rules of the game — holdings, offsides in the red area, shorten the field for them … those are things I’m trying to do everything I can not to go irate in the middle of the game.”

Ugly: Burton’s interception with less than two minutes left in the first half. UAB had the ball at its own 24 after a defensive stop. One play, one pick, and ULM turned it into a 32-yard Abram Murray field goal as time expired — a 17-10 halftime deficit instead of 14-10. Recent Blazer teams let sequences like that snowball. This team absorbed it.

THE STATS THAT MATTER

52 carries, 266 yards (5.1 avg) — UAB controlled the game on the ground with 31:53 of possession. Robinson averaged 5.4 yards per carry, McReynolds 4.7. Burton added 10 carries for 16 net yards, including the two rushes that converted the go-ahead drive. Robinson on the three-back rotation: “We get a couple plays and rotate, stay fresh.”

0 punts — Nine possessions: four field goals, two touchdowns, one turnover on downs, one interception, one kneel. Six of eight meaningful drives ended in points.

ULM: 56 passing yards — Austin Carlisle completed 10 of 19 passes for 56 yards, no completion longer than 10 yards. Carlisle hurt UAB with his legs — 17 carries, 93 yards, a 7-yard touchdown run — but the defense made stopping the quarterback run its halftime priority. Pierce: “That was our main thing coming into the half, stop the quarterback run. We knew how important it was.”

UAB: 1-of-1 in the red zone — The one time UAB got inside the 20, they kicked a field goal. Every other scoring drive finished from outside the red zone — Delange from 41, 45 and 42 yards, McReynolds from 27, Reid from 43. Mortensen wants more touchdowns: “I love we got a good field goal kicker. I’d like to see him a little less and see him put the ball in the end zone a little more.”

3 STARS

1. Rod Robinson II, RB — 21 carries, 114 yards, 5.4 avg, long of 14. Robinson set career highs in both carries and rushing yards. “I’ve always been a hard worker, just kept my head down, believed that my time would come,” Robinson said. “I just wanna thank my coaches for having that belief in me, the same belief I have in myself.”

2. Jonah Delange, PK — 4-of-4 FG (41, 45, 34, 42 yards), 2-of-2 PAT, 14 points. Delange scored more than half of UAB’s points and kept the Blazers within striking distance when the offense could not finish in the end zone. He has 38 career field goals and made three or more in consecutive games for the first time in his career. The 45-yarder in the third quarter cut ULM’s lead to 20-13. The 42-yarder with 1:10 left sealed it.

3. Ike Esonwune, LB — 10 tackles, 1 interception, 1 pass breakup. The Oklahoma State transfer who followed Todd Grantham to Birmingham intercepted Carlisle with UAB leading 23-20 and gave the offense the ball at the UAB 35 to run clock.

Honorable mention: Muaaz Byard (career-high 13 tackles), Jo Pierce (11 tackles, game-sealing pass breakup — the other Oklahoma State transfer who came with Grantham), Bam McReynolds (16 carries, 75 yards, 27-yd TD against his former team).

FINAL TAKEAWAYS

The two most important defensive plays of the game — Esonwune’s interception and Pierce’s pass breakup on the final drive — came from the two players who followed Grantham from Oklahoma State. Both are leading a defense that held ULM to 257 total yards. Grantham’s group made the quarterback run its halftime priority and held ULM scoreless over the final 25 minutes.

Mortensen invoked Rocky III when asked about sustaining the mentality. “What happened to Rocky? He lost the eye of the tiger,” he said. “… Mickey tells him, ‘The worst thing to happen to you that can happen in any fight is you got civilized.’ … It’s one game. We got to continue to go to this every week and stay hungry and have an edge about us.”

UAB trailed for more than 40 minutes Saturday. The Blazers ground it out with the running game, made defensive adjustments and took the fourth quarter 13-0. For a program that has been on the wrong side of close games for two years, winning like that is how a culture gets built.

NEXT UP

UAB travels to Lafayette to face Louisiana on Saturday, Sept. 19.