What Alex Mortensen said before UAB's game at Temple

UAB head coach Alex Mortensen opened his weekly press conference by reviewing the win over Charlotte, acknowledging the offense started poorly with turnovers before rallying for 20 second-half points. Mortensen said he adjusted his play-calling in-game to lean on a dominant defense, a topic he addressed at length when asked to elaborate on what "mitigating risk" means as a play-caller. He also discussed the development of edge rusher Marlin Dean, who is tied for the national lead in sacks, the running back committee's unselfishness and the offensive line's health heading into the final stretch.

UAB travels to Philadelphia to face Temple at noon CT Saturday at Lincoln Financial Field. The Blazers are one win from bowl eligibility for the first time since 2022, and Saturday's game has American Conference race implications with three games remaining. Head coach K.C. Keeler won FCS national championships at both Delaware and Sam Houston before taking the Temple job. Mortensen warned against reading too much into the Owls' record. "Turn the film on, they have good players," he said. Temple played Navy to a one-score game, played ECU close and beat South Florida earlier this season. "I think they've got some really good people at certain spots. At all three levels on defense, I can say for sure."

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Full transcript

Coach Alex Mortensen

On the Charlotte win and Children's Harbor game:

Alex Mortensen: "I think we're 9-1 now in Children's Harbor games. So really neat tradition there, and very grateful to be a part of it. Going back to this last game — defense, I thought eventually we played very, very well. We had a lot of guys have standout performances. I thought our defensive staff did an excellent job as well and dominated most parts of the game. We were pretty good in the kicking game again too, so that was really positive. Offensively, we started very poorly in both production and in self-inflicted wounds, namely turnovers. And then somehow found 20 points in the second half and finished the game fairly strong."

On wanting more offensive aggressiveness:

Alex Mortensen: "We need to and want to play with more diversity, more aggressiveness on early downs. That doesn't necessarily mean everything's gotta be high risk or downfield throws and things of that nature, but for us to be able to play the way we wanna play, we need to be able to do that. But to overcome multiple turnovers, obviously our defense played really well, and I think that says a lot about them. And if you're looking for a silver lining or a positive, the offense did not unravel psychologically, mentally, and we kinda got into the game with a little bit more variety in terms of mix of calls on early downs, which is really a little bit more how we wanna play.

"But I'll be frank with you, my ego is not attached to total offense. It's not attached to scoring offense. We wanna do whatever we can to win a game. And at that point, when we failed to execute some things — which obviously it's our responsibility to help our players execute better — at that point I was like, 'What's gonna give us the best chance to win a game?' Our defense is playing really well. And so we mitigated risk, and I thought the guys also executed well too. We started to control the line of scrimmage, run the ball well, and we got more efficient in the passing game."

On missed explosive plays:

Alex Mortensen: "We did have opportunities for explosive plays in the first half. I think that was probably one of the more disappointing things. There were some routine plays — like the first play of the game should be a routine play, a really efficient play, maybe potentially explosive. But then the other part too is some of the explosive plays, really plays that could result in scores in one play, were things we missed on. We're looking for positives — a lot of it is still technique things, and I'm of the belief that those things can be corrected and improved.

"We're not gonna just do the same things. Everyone learns different. We're gonna find the best teaching methods to help our guys get better. Ultimately, good resilient win for our guys."

On Temple and K.C. Keeler:

Alex Mortensen: "Temple — Coach Keeler's won a lot of games through his career, and they're a team that I think is improving and playing pretty well right now. They took a good Navy team and made it a one-score game, and they scored a bunch of points on them. They played ECU really close. They beat South Florida earlier in the year. They're really a really good team. They're the real deal in terms of I think they've got some really good players in certain spots. And going up there in November will certainly be a challenge."

On Marlin Dean — the impact of a great pass rusher:

Alex Mortensen: "When you deal with a great pass rusher like Marlin, it can be very limiting for you, because if you wanna call pass plays, you've gotta have a plan on how to protect him. And with everything you do, just like in life, there's trade-offs with almost every decision you make.

"So if you decide you're gonna do additional things to help protect him, that's probably gonna hurt you somewhere else. Maybe you can't get as many guys in the route. Maybe they're slower to get into the route. Maybe it allows other pass rushers to be isolated. It can help in an immense amount of ways. And then too, you may get more conservative, more cautious. Does it shrink how many longer developing patterns you wanna run? Are you gonna go to the screen game more? A guy like that can have a major, major impact on a game."

On what makes Marlin Dean a great player:

Alex Mortensen: "Let's start with his tools. I think he's talented. He's got really good physical traits in terms of the size that you want in a position like that. He's very explosive. He's very fast-twitch. He's fast off the ball. With Lyle Henley, he had a great summer in the weight room. I don't have all of his numbers off the top of my head, but I can tell you his power clean was really impressive, particularly for a guy of his height. That bar got moved a long way.

"And then I think the next thing is he's really embraced the teaching. I think Coach Grantham's done a tremendous job. He would talk about that whole thing of the teacher and the student and your partnership working together. Coach Grantham's got an immense amount of knowledge. He's a great teacher. And I think Marlin has really embraced that. There are aspects of his technique that help him. And the other part too is he's also playing well against the run. So there are a lot of positives there.

"At the same time, I think maybe the best part about him is his hunger. There's no sense with anyone in our program, defensively or with Marlin, that there's any kind of arrival here, even though he's got a pretty prominent national stat. I think he's very hungry to go accomplish more and get better and continue to press forward."

On motivation and playing for something this time of year:

Alex Mortensen: "I think what we want to do is create a program where everyone is striving for excellence. I think that starts at the top of our university. Dr. Watts talks about it a lot — strive for excellence. When I worked with Coach Saban, I think he talked a lot about, hey, it's not just about trying to win a championship. It's really more about trying to be a champion. And the results kind of fall where they are. It's all really about trying to get better and be your best. That's really what our hope is — to create a program where guys are motivated that way.

"So regardless of where we're at in the season, whether we're in contention to play for a championship or a bowl or whether we're not, we really want to have the kind of character that is always pressing forward. And I do think you'd be naive if you didn't acknowledge that there's a human element — that when those things are alive, I think people can definitely be more motivated and it's a little easier to sometimes get guys going."

On finding Marlin Dean and the recruiting department:

Alex Mortensen: "I want to give our recruiting department, our personnel department, a lot of credit. I think Brendan Donovan did a tremendous job in the portal, particularly with the defensive side of the roster. Leno Lupinetti did a great job as well. And then obviously Coach Grantham is a really good evaluator and has really good work ethic. Those guys worked really hard to get a good group.

"I think when we all saw Marlin's film, we were all pretty excited because we felt like there was a high ceiling here — a guy that had not even come close to playing his best, not even close. And so he accepted the challenge of knowing, okay, here's how I've played at whatever level, whatever performance level, and here's what I'm capable of. And here's the things it's going to take for you to get there. Coach Grantham, our defensive staff — we all tried to define that form early and he really committed to it and got excited about it and has really more than answered that challenge.

"Was there a moment? First team pass period. I mean, it was like — and really we knew, frankly, in the offseason the way he was performing. All the reports from Lyle Henley in terms of how he was performing in workouts confirmed everything we knew in terms of his physical traits. But then there was a work ethic and drive that showed up there. And when we got in the team periods, he was really a challenge to deal with pretty quickly. It did not take long at all to recognize that."

On mitigating risk — play-calling philosophy:

Alex Mortensen: "I was here in 2023. We set a school record on offense. We averaged 450 yards a game. I'm not going to say — I don't want to overstate it, but we were pretty good offensively. But we were balanced. We were diverse in our presentation. We were diverse in play type. We had a lot of quick throws. The quarterback completed the ball at a really high rate.

"Getting into this last game, I'm just going to be frank — there are some areas that we failed to execute. I don't want to get into too many specifics. I'm just going to ask that people give me the benefit of the doubt on this one. That we know what's going on. And at that point our defense is playing well, and we knew we could get out of the game with a win by tilting it a certain way. And I wanna be clear — our players did play well down the stretch. The last 14 plays of the game, we scored 14 points and averaged something like 8.3 yards a play, really coming off the ball well. Had a little bit of balance.

"You do what you need to do to win that game and ensure the odds are in favor of that as much as possible. You're always trying to manage risk-reward. Our defense is playing really well. Special teams are playing pretty well. But there's this other thing where, here's these other things we know — to be as good as we need to be, we need to work on all this. We need to get better at this. And we're not gonna wave the white flag that we're gonna play like that all the time."

On the running back committee:

Alex Mortensen: "The backs all — when we recruited all of them, I think they all knew that we've got a little bit of history doing things by committee. They understood that, they liked it, and they've all by and large handled that well. I think that's really important — we've got some really important games ahead of us, but we've won some tough games this year, and I think part of what's allowed us to win those tough games is just the broad character of the team of not crumbling, not turning on each other, not getting negative in the course of a game.

"I think it's inside position groups too. The running back position, where you got three guys that are all pretty good players sharing a load — I think that's a big deal. And as good as that group is, we've challenged them too. I think in the last two and a half quarters of that game, I think they lit a fire a little bit. And I think Coach Brigham recognized that too. I think he does a great job of getting the best out of his guys and inspiring them."

On winning on the road:

Alex Mortensen: "I don't wanna make light of going on the road. Obviously there's components of travel — sleeping in another bed and things of that nature. But I think sometimes those things become a self-fulfilling prophecy if you get too worried about it. I just think it's mental toughness and just not making it to be more than it is.

"We're gonna approach this one with a level of seriousness and aggressiveness that we need to. Last year in the interim time period, we went and won our last game of the year on the road, a conference game. I think it was the first one in like three or four years. We didn't really make — there wasn't a big narrative around the need to win on the road. The narrative was, we need to play our best football. We need to make good identifications in the run game. We need to protect, we need to make good decisions. It's more keeping the focus on what we need to do from an execution standpoint."

On the significance of reaching a bowl game:

Alex Mortensen: "I think it'd be very significant. It'd be a pretty great accomplishment for the program to get there. I know it hasn't been done in some time, and particularly in a new era of NIL, portal, all those things. So it would be really positive to be able to accomplish that.

"At the same time, from a leadership standpoint, there's a fine line of how much we talk about that versus chasing our best, trying to be the best version of ourselves, getting better and improving. But I do think it would be a really big deal globally for our program. It could hopefully build momentum going forward. And in terms of program goals — long-term, we wanna go way beyond that. It'd be one step, but we wanna accomplish far more than that."

On offensive line development and health:

Alex Mortensen: "We have a few guys that are beat up that — we'll see how the week goes, maybe closer to getting more available, so that's positive. We've got some guys that have played recently that are a little beat up, so those are things we have to monitor through the course of the week. It's a mixed bag in terms of health — it's probably most teams at every position this late in the year.

"I think it would be a major error if we took this approach like, 'Okay, we just gotta get to Saturdays.' We need to get better. We have a lot of guys, particularly on the offensive line, that have not played a lot of football going into this year. We need to improve fundamentally. We need to improve how we play together in terms of communication. That's a really important focus — we're gonna take steps to actually improve and develop. We don't want to give up on that idea right now.

"I think it's important to not be stubborn. We're gonna say, 'What do we do well? What do these guys do well? What do they not do well?' And put plans together and call a game in a manner that helps them too. Like of 20 things we need to get better at, there are a few focal points we actually did get better at in this last game. Can we get better at a few more things this week and just keep marching forward?"

On Temple being better than its record:

Alex Mortensen: "Look, they're good. They are. Turn the film on, they have good players. To me it's almost like — as a competitor, don't even look at the record right now. Put the film on, see what — trust what you see a little bit because if you look around college football, pretty wild things are happening every week. It works both ways. You can be a team that's got a great record and that's not gonna earn you a win Saturday.

"I could cite some examples — Oklahoma State gets beat by Tulsa, right? Pretty handily. And then they go and play Oregon the next week and kind of dominate Oregon. So you've gotta show up every week with the right preparation, intensity, mindset to compete. I think Temple's got some really good people at certain spots. At all three levels on defense, I can say for sure."