Previewing the UAB Blazers
Georgia welcomes a new team to Athens on Saturday in the University of Alabama Birmingham Blazers. The Blazers have an interesting story. The program started playing football in 1991, and home was Birmingham's Legion Field for them up until 2014.
The reason for the home field change? Well UAB Football came to a complete end in December of 2014. You read that right. The team that Georgia plays this Saturday didn't even exist in January 2015. The University Board of Trustees decided that the program cost too much money to keep afloat, and rather than put in the money to upgrade the facilities for the team, they shuttered the doors.
The public outrage for that decision quickly made them change their mind, however. Public funds were raised, and the UAB Blazer program was resurrected in 2017 with new Facilities, and plans for a brand new stadium to open in 2021.
Since that point, under the leadership of Head Coach Bill Clark, the Blazers have stormed back into Conference USA, winning the West Division for 3 straight years from 2018 to 2020, and winning the conference outright two of those three years. That new stadium that was planned has been built and will open for game 4 on the Blazers schedule against Liberty this year.
Moreover, Bill Clark has been excellent in pulling in talent. This is not an undersized team by any means. UAB is BIG. Most power 5 schools would be proud to have an Offensive and Defensive front like UAB has. They also have NFL-caliber talent outside of the line of scrimmage as well, with an experienced Quarterback to boot. This will not be a pushover game by any means for the Bulldogs.
“Yeah, they are really good on defense. Bill (Clark) does a tremendous job mixing up coverages. They’ve got long, rangy outside backer-types that are hard to block, quick-twitch guys, really athletic linebackers. And their secondary - they’ve got a lot of guys who have started a lot of games. They have two corners who seem like they have been playing forever. You go back and watch games on them, and it seems like that same group of secondary has been playing for a long time. They do a great job. People don’t understand, these guys are a one-score game, late in the game with Miami. You know what they did to Georgia a long time ago, they played them really tight. They do a tremendous job; they’ve got really good football players and I have a lot of respect for what they do.”
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