No one was flinching

Here is what used to happen.

UAB would make a mistake. A penalty. A turnover. A breakdown in coverage. And the next play would get worse. And the one after that. One error bled into two, two into three, and a winnable game became a loss that felt inevitable by the fourth quarter. Under Trent Dilfer, the Blazers went 9-21 and never won a road game. They never won consecutive games. A 17-game road losing streak that began in 2022 became a permanent condition — something the program carried around like weight it couldn't put down.

Saturday at Protective Stadium, UAB was staring at it again.

Bryant Vincent — the former UAB offensive coordinator who went 7-6 as interim head coach in 2022 and was passed over for Dilfer — brought his ULM team to Birmingham for the first time as an opposing head coach. Vincent's Warhawks beat Dilfer's Blazers 32-6 in Monroe in 2024. And by halftime Saturday, the script looked familiar.

UAB committed eight penalties for 67 yards. Ryder Burton threw an interception in the two-minute drill before the half, and ULM turned it into a field goal as time expired. The Warhawks led 17-10 at the break. When ULM's Abram Murray hit a 24-yard field goal to open the third quarter, the deficit was 20-10 and the mood inside Protective Stadium had shifted from anticipation to something closer to dread.

This was the kind of game the Blazers lost for three years. The moment the wheels come off.

They didn't come off. And the men on UAB's sideline say that was never in question.

"When we went in for halftime, no one was flinching," center Adam Lepkowski said. "It was just encouragement, like, 'Hey, guys, we just got to get it together. Stop shooting ourselves in the foot. Get this thing rolling.'"

Lepkowski is a graduate student from Hoover who walked on at UAB and has stayed through every coaching transition the program has endured. He watched the 32-6 loss to Vincent's ULM from home, sidelined by a training camp injury that cost him the entire 2024 season. He called Saturday's game one that "meant a little bit more than some other ones."

"It still felt like we need to get our get back," Lepkowski said.

EJ Reid, a Wake Forest transfer in his first season at UAB, described the same halftime atmosphere from a newcomer's perspective.

"One thing about this team, everybody is together, so there was nobody pointing fingers, just that encouragement," Reid said. "We kinda looked at it, kept it pushing, and just go finish the game off."

After ULM's field goal made it 20-10, UAB stuck to its ground game — 52 carries for 266 yards on the day, with Rod Robinson II grinding out a career-high 114 yards and Bam McReynolds adding 75. The Blazers converted 10 of 15 third downs. Jonah Delange kicked three of his four field goals in the second half — from 45, 34 and 42 yards. And when Reid caught a 43-yard pass from Burton with 9:34 left to put UAB ahead 23-20, the sideline ignited.

The defense held the Warhawks scoreless over the final 25 minutes. Three players recorded double-digit tackles — Muaaz Byard with 13, Jo Pierce with 11 and Ike Esonwune with 10. UAB won the fourth quarter 13-0 and held on for a 26-20 victory.

"I am really pleased with our guys' effort, toughness, kind of their resiliency," head coach Alex Mortensen said after the game. "... I think we won the fourth quarter today. So that was really good to see those tangibles and their character."

The evidence is stacking

Saturday did not come from nowhere.

When Dilfer was fired midseason in 2025, Mortensen inherited a team that had fractured. In his first game as interim, the Blazers upset No. 22 Memphis 31-24. In his last, a depleted roster missing 39 players went to Tulsa and won 31-24 — UAB's first road victory in three years, the end of that 17-game losing streak. Mortensen went 2-4 as interim. He earned the permanent job anyway, because the program saw something in those six games that the record alone didn't capture.

At Illinois in the season opener, UAB outgained a Big Ten team 413-332, held the ball for 41 minutes and trailed just 14-13 before a Hail Mary at the end of the first half changed the game. The Blazers lost 42-23. They never stopped competing.

Then came Saturday — the first real gut check of Mortensen's tenure as permanent head coach, against a coach who knew every scar on the program.

This week, Mortensen was asked what a win like Saturday does for a team trying to build a culture with so many new faces.

"I think getting to a game where you get in a tough position — some of it the opponent does a good job, some of it's self-inflicted — and how do you respond to that?" Mortensen said. "Do you feel the pressure of it? Do you get tight? Or do you stick to what we talk about and believe in, having a no-scoreboard mentality? Each play has a history and life of its own. Don't worry about the last play that just happened.

"The positive energy that we had, all those things really encouraging to see us go the right way when it got hard. That was really exciting."

Safety Jeremiah Jordan, a transfer from Harding in his first year at UAB, framed it as something the players set out to prove.

"I feel like it just bring life," Jordan said. "We came in wanting to bring a change, and just showing like, no matter how the game go, we just stick together, see it through. Whether it's on defense or offense, we got each other back."

Jo Pierce, who followed defensive coordinator Todd Grantham from Oklahoma State, said the halftime message was direct.

"We went into halftime, and we had a lot of stuff that we had to fix," Pierce said. "... The main thing was just finishing the game hard, executing the play."

Now prove it on the road

Mortensen knows one game doesn't make a culture. He went to Rocky III in his postgame Saturday night.

"What happened to Rocky? He lost the eye of the tiger," Mortensen said. "Mickey tells him, 'The worst thing to happen to you that can happen to any fighter 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."

The next test arrives Saturday at Louisiana. The Ragin' Cajuns scored 30 points at USC last week. Their defense has talent at all three levels. UAB has not played in Lafayette in 24 years, and since 2022 the Blazers have one road win. Converting what happened Saturday into a road victory against a team that just put up 30 on a Big Ten opponent would be the strongest signal yet that the change is real.

Lepkowski was asked what has kept him at UAB through all of it.

"I just felt like the place where when I came into kind of fell off a little bit," Lepkowski said, "and I wanted to see it through."