Bill Clark built UAB into a winner, leading the Blazers to 49 wins and five straight bowl appearances following the revival of the football program in 2017. That’s the level of success UAB is trying to return to after failing to win more than four games in each of the past three seasons.

Following a forgettable three-year stint under Trent Dilfer, UAB is now turning to Alex Mortensen to lead the program back to its previous winning ways. But is that possible in college football’s new NIL landscape?

While Clark rose UAB from the ashes, he did so before the days of players earning money through shared revenue and name, image and likeness deals. It’s no secret that UAB’s funding is a fraction of what college football’s elite programs receive. But can the Blazers still build their program back into a winner with their current resources?

“The short answer is yes, we can,” Mortensen said when asked if he can win at UAB during a Thursday appearance on WBRC’s Good Day Alabama.

Mortensen listed recruiting as UAB’s biggest advantage, pointing out the strong five-hour radius of talent the Blazers have at their disposal. Before coming to UAB, Mortensen spent nine seasons working as an assistant on Nick Saban’s talent-laden Alabama teams. On the opposite side of the spectrum, he began his coaching career overseeing quarterbacks at New Mexico Highlands, where he was faced with a dearth of local prospects.

“No offense to the state of New Mexico. I coached New Mexico for a year, not a densely populated area,” Mortensen said. “Here we got a lot of people. We got really good football in this area. So I think we can recruit to the school in the area. That helps tremendously. So that’s an advantage that we really wanted to tap into. That’s something we did at Alabama, too.”

Alabama’s football program has a backing that dwarfs the one Mortensen will receive at UAB. However, UAB’s administration has expressed a willingness to extend more resources to the Blazers moving forward.

“I can just tell you that the institution, the administration, the university, they want to make a commitment to help as much as they can, to adapt in this era,” Mortensen said. “And then also you have people in the community that want to donate to our Excellence Fund and help that grow so we can, we can go compete.”

During a private interview with local reporters last week, UAB Director of Athletics Mark Ingram called the administration’s increased monetary commitment “significant” without providing exact figures.

“Well, first of all, having more is always appreciated, and the increase that [UAB president] Dr. [Ray] Watts and I have talked about is really important in a couple of ways,” Ingram said during the interview. “One, the amount of money is significant. And two, it’s him clearly understanding this new unusual challenge that everybody has to deal with. I appreciate his acknowledgement of that challenge. We’ve talked about it probably every year that I’ve been here. How do we compare to everybody else and how does that look and what can we do? Community guys want to participate and so you’re trying to do that. He certainly recognizes the value and what the institution can do as it’s able.”

Mortensen’s first step in rebuilding UAB’s program will be to retain as many of his top players as possible. The Blazers have already seen several key players announce their intention to enter the transfer portal.

UAB players are currently in the midst of a 15-day transfer window that opened up Wednesday, five days after the Blazers officially promoted Mortensen. The NCAA portal will open up for all players from Jan. 2-16.

“I think it’s really important to have really good relationships with your own players,” Mortensen said during his television interview. “You know, it’s always been important, but it’s maybe more important than ever, because you have to recruit them to retain them. And then you also have to be mindful of they have someone else in their ear now. There are agents out there that are going to be talking to them, and they’re going to try to convince them that your coach doesn’t have your best interests at heart and tehy only want you here for our own purposes.

“So there it’s it’s different. It is really different. And so there are some challenges there, and and we do have to recognize that you’re gonna probably get your heart broken some, but what we obviously want to retain as many of our players as we can.”

Despite facing a challenging next few weeks, Mortensen isn’t making any excuses as he looks to resurrect the Blazers in his first season.

“There’s an old saying, ‘Adapt or die,’” Mortensen said. “So we can complain about it and be frustrated, or we can say, let’s figure out how to compete in this new era. And you know, UAB, I have a lot of respect for the stretches of success we’ve had here. But at the same time, we got to recognize that to compete, it can’t just be copy and paste. We have to find how to compete in this new era, and I’m confident we will.”

The Indiana Hoosiers, at this point, have won their Super Bowl by taking down Ohio State in the Big Ten title game, but the Buckeyes know that while a Big Ten title was a goal, there is a bigger game ahead. While the Buckeyes would have loved to win the Big Ten Championship, a National Championship win is the ultimate goal.

Since beating the Buckeyes, Indiana has certainly taken every opportunity to rub the win in Ohio State’s face, including making shirts and selling them for NIL money. After the win, quarterback Fernando Mendoza uttered the phrase ‘flippin’ champs,’ and when Curt Cignetti spoke to the Hoosier faithful for the first time after being hired, he also had a memorable quote.

“Purdue sucks,” Cignetti said. “But so do Michigan and Ohio State.”

While Ohio State fans will agree with the Michigan part, the fact that they are now selling shirts with those quotes on them just seems like a pathetic attempt to troll Ohio State.

Ohio State knows a bigger game is ahead of them

As stated earlier, of course, Ohio State would have wanted to win the Big Ten Championship, but sometimes suffering a loss can help teams go forward. Last season, while the Buckeyes never wanted to lose to Michigan, that loss helped fuel the team in the College Football Playoff and to a National Championship win.

Indiana is riding high right now, but they now have to bring themselves back down to Earth and get ready for the CFP. Last season, all of the one-seed teams lost in their first matchups after the bye, and some of those could very well happen again this season.

Ohio State knows that it needs to be in the right mindset going into the CFP with a target on its back as the reigning champions. A loss can put things into perspective for teams and show what needs to be worked on.

The Michigan football program could not have found itself in a more disruptive moment to deal with a full-blown coaching crisis. The abrupt firing of head coach Sherrone Moore has thrown the program into instability at the exact point of the year when college football programs need to be the most organized.

The unfortunate truth to all of this (from just a college football standpoint) is Moore’s dismissal doesn’t just create a leadership vacuum — it collides directly with the most delicate stretch of the college football calendar. The transfer portal’s primary window opens on Jan. 2 and only lasts two weeks, and Michigan enters that period without a permanent coach to reassure players, guide roster plans, or engage in the backchannel relationships that define portal recruiting in today’s landscape.

More critically, NCAA rules will inevitably trigger a 15-day transfer window for all current Michigan players once a new hire is announced. This means the Wolverines are facing the possibility of back-to-back waves of player movement if the search stretches too long. In other words: interested programs will be ready to pounce, quickly and legally, once those windows open.

Behind-the-scenes portal work and early NIL discussions are also assuredly starting to take place. Without a head coach, Michigan will have a hell of a time participating in this process competitively. Every day without clarity is a day where other programs strengthen their position with some of the nation’s top available prospects while the Wolverines continue to catch up.

The timing is equally damaging on the recruiting front. Michigan’s 2026 recruiting class, ranked 11th nationally per 247Sports, is already in jeopardy. Under NCAA rules, recruits who signed their National Letters of Intent may now request releases due to the coaching change, including prospects like five-star running back Savion Hiter and five-star edge rusher Carter Meadows.

Still, Michigan has one crucial advantage: its brand power. The Wolverines remain one of the biggest names in college football with national reach, a strong NIL infrastructure, top-tier facilities and a track record of producing NFL talent. That prestige will keep some players and recruits interested in what the next move is, but the Block M alone cannot hold the roster together indefinitely. Stability needs to follow, and quickly.

Familiar names like Washington head coach Jedd Fisch or Los Angeles Chargers defensive coordinator Jesse Minter would bring ties to the program and a built-in understanding of its culture. Others like Kalen DeBoer, Clark Lea and Kenny Dillingham represent more ambitious swings outside of the traditional Michigan hire.

Everything that happens next will shape the foreseeable future of Michigan football. The recruiting class is vulnerable, the roster is undoubtedly tired of the drama, the transfer portal is around the corner, and the internal 15-day portal window will open shortly after a new head coach is hired. Every day without a leader increases the chances of losing players, recruits, staff and momentum.

Michigan is officially on the clock.

It’s the best time of year to be a college football fan. After another chaotic season, the field for the 12-team College Football Playoff has been set, and in just a few short weeks we’ll be crowning a new national champion.

Indiana, Ohio State, Georgia, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Alabama, Oklahoma, Tulane, Ole Miss, Miami (Fla.), Oregon and James Madison are the final teams standing. Whether you’re a lifelong Aggies fan, or just jumping on the bandwagon this year, we’ve got plenty of ways to gear up for the postseason. Here’s everything you need to cheer on Texas A&M throughout the College Football Playoff.

Related:How to buy tickets for every College Football Playoffs game

Texas A&M vs. Miami CFP tickets

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Teams are increasingly declining bowl bids due to coaching changes, NIL dynamics, transfer portal chaos, and financial losses, reshaping the postseason landscape.

Throughout college football history, the bowl game marked the celebratory conclusion of a successful season, or at least one in which teams finished with at least a .500 record and became bowl-eligible. Teams’ fans travel from far and wide to cheer their team on national television in a festival-like environment. But the new era of college football has threatened the model that has served the sport admirably for more than 80 years.

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Notre Dame declined its invitation to the Pop-Tarts Bowl this week after being omitted from the 12-team College Football Playoff field, but so did 8-4 Iowa State and 6-6 Kansas State. And to replace those teams and complete the full field of 41 bowl games, some teams that went 5-7 were invited. But then, other 5-7 teams declined as well, including Florida State, Auburn, Kansas, Baylor, Rutgers, and UCF.

Why would college football teams decline to play in the postseason, something college teams, players, and fans look forward to all year? There are a few reasons, according to Matt Brown, who writes the excellent Extra Points college sports newsletter on Substack.

“The dirty little secret is these games often lose money for the schools,” Brown told Boardroom. Lower-tier bowl games require schools to buy a certain number of tickets. “If you’re a Power 4 team and you’re 6-6 or 5-7, your fans are not going to be as excited about buying ticket packages to go watch you play Central Michigan. There’s also the fact that the calendar itself has significantly changed.”

The college coaching carousel seemingly started earlier than normal this year, with James Franklin being fired from Penn State and Lane Kiffin famously leaving Ole Miss for LSU. Iowa State head coach Matt Campbell left the Cyclones for the Penn State job, while Kansas State’s Chris Klieman announced his retirement. Those coaching changes, Brown believes, were big contributors to ISU and K-State declining their bowl games. And even though the Big 12 fined each school $500,000 for not participating in bowl season, that fine may have been less than the losses they would’ve incurred had they gone through with their bowl games.

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For those 5-7 schools that declined offers, they had already begun their respective offseason processes. Assistant coaches were scrambling for better opportunities elsewhere. A percentage of rosters were already making moves via the transfer portal. In some of these cases, it may have been difficult to cobble together a roster and a coaching staff to make this bowl appearance happen. The NIL and transfer portal era, as Brown alluded to, makes the calendar more difficult for these schools to be nimble enough to accept an invitation on short notice.

NIL has also made the allure of these smaller bowl games less appealing. Bowl games, even as recently as 5-10 years ago, were known for the gift packages players received, which were big considering players weren’t officially allowed to make money.

“Even if you were going to a lousy bowl game and didn’t have a great season because it was kind of like a mini vacation where you were allowed to receive gifts,” Brown said. “You might get a free PlayStation, a Fossil watch. You typically do a bunch of team-building activities, and the practices aren’t as intense. But if you’re making $145,000 a season to play football, do you give a shit about any of that?”

If this trend of more teams opting out of bowl games becomes more prevalent, no stakeholder has more to potentially lose than ESPN. The network not only holds broadcast rights to all but a few bowl games, but also owns and operates 17 of the games outright under its ESPN Events umbrella. Luckily for the worldwide leader, Brown doesn’t think ESPN needs to be too concerned about the current bowl game model being threatened by some 6-6 or 5-7 teams opting out.

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“For these lower-tier bowl games, the only reason that these games are worth it for ESPN is because of the television rating that it would generate as essentially gambling inventory during a slow time on the sports calendar,” Brown said. “And it doesn’t really matter who plays in the game. The Boca Raton Bowl is going to do about the same rating, given its time slot and date, no matter who you potentially fill in from there. Having to use Appalachian State instead of Auburn or Rutgers doesn’t fundamentally change the value prop for ESPN at all. And for that matter, they could have 15% of both teams opt out to hit the transfer portal, and it won’t change ESPN’s value prop. Roughly the same amount of people are going to watch the game. If those ratings begin to ever dip, that would change the model. But people in this country really like watching football in December. They don’t really care who it is.”

Brown doesn’t think it will be common for a team that expects a bowl invitation to decline. You may still see it for 5-7 teams, especially from power four conferences, since there’s almost always going to be significant turnover on those rosters and coaching staffs. For a blue-blood program like Ohio State, Texas, or Notre Dame, Brown could see them decline bowl invites if they somehow go 6-6 in a given season.

Hypothetically, bowl games could incentivize certain teams and players to participate by offering them more money. But a large majority of these lower-tier games already operate on razor-thin margins, Brown said, and it’s a lot easier to pay an NIT-bound basketball team of 12-15 players than a 6-6 football team of 80-90 players.

So as long as the current model of revenue sharing, NIL, and the transfer portal in college sports remains the same, there will inevitably be major conference .500 teams that feel that going to a bowl game is just not worth it for them. While the tradition and pageantry of the bowl season will live on, along with fans getting their December gambling fix on ESPN, some fan bases looking forward to seeing their mediocre team play one more game will inevitably just have to wait ’til next year.

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