Despite numerous rallies and protests against the closing of the University of Alabama at Birmingham Football program, the UAB Blazers have ceased to exist. They are the first Division One team since 1995 to close the football program. Some boosters are still fighting for the team to be reinstated for 2016 but for now the team is gone and the world of college football is preparing for life after the Blazers.
Assessing the Fallout from the Death of UAB Football
UAB football players were allowed to move schools freely and were immediately eligible which saw in-state rival South Alabama reap the benefits. SB Nation’s Bill Connelly noted that as many as six offensive starters for South Alabama Jaguars this coming season could be former UAB players. This includes quarterback Cody Clement and running back D.J. Vinson. Georgia State also pulled in around half a dozen players as part of their 2015 recruiting class as they hoped to improve on a 1-11 season in the Sun Belt Conference. The advantage of being a small school near the basement of Division One College Football is the players you recruit are more open to grey shirting or blue shirting for a year. This opened up the space for teams like Georgia State and South Alabama to add some starters from UAB without affecting their long term recruitment of talent.
UAB Head Coach Bill Clark has stayed on at the school in the hope of the football team returning and has done a great job in helping his recruits find new schools. But withe the death of UAB Football in some ways did help some of their local rivals improve their talent in the short term. If UAB fails to ever field a team again then they will be helped in the long-term in recruiting. With one less rival in the local area it means around 25 players who would have been recruited to the Blazers are now likely to be available to their nearest rivals.
Whilst none of the above is likely to affect the big college football programs, Tennessee were scheduled to play UAB in 2015, and Kentucy was scheduled to play them in 2016. Both teams will have to find late replacements to fill the gap in the schedule, but only after around $1.5 million is paid to get out of the contracts by UAB. A large sum to pay out if they do plan to re-open the football program. Some of the backlash has been against the Alabama Crimson Tide who many blame for the demise of UAB Football, claiming that politics amongst board members is the cause.
But it’s clear that the current NCAA regulations which allow the increase in the number of scholarships to cover the full cost of attendance at a school is likely to force some very tough decisions at other small football programs at this level. Schools which are unlikely to reap the benefits of large TV contracts in the Power Five conferences, just like UAB.
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