UAB's Alex Mortensen Finding His Footing as First-Time Head Coach
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Alex Mortensen took over a flailing Alabama-Birmingham football team last October with the Blazers on their way to another losing campaign.
After head coach Trent Dilfer was fired midseason, UAB’s young offensive coordinator was entrusted as the interim coach for the final six games. It was supposed to be a temporary role, but Mortensen showed enough promise in the ensuing months to lose the interim designation and make the position permanent.
Now, the 40-year-old Mortensen is settling in as a first-time head coach of an FBS program in a rut. UAB is a resilient program, having come back from a two-year shutdown. But the Blazers are also in the midst of one of the worst stretches in their nearly three-decade history.
“It is a challenge, and it is a tall order,” Mortensen told Athlon Sports recently. “But it is one we’re pretty excited to take on.”
The football part of the job came naturally to Mortensen, a former college quarterback at Arkansas who spent nine seasons on Nick Saban’s staff at Alabama. That much was evident when Mortensen led UAB to an upset win over then-No. 22 Memphis in his debut.
The triumph over the Tigers was the Blazers’ first win over a top-25 team since 2021. Though a four-game skid followed, Mortensen capped off his interim tenure with a gutsy win at Tulsa. That was the Blazers’ first win away from its home turf of Protective Stadium since 2022. It also came with 39 players unavailable after a violent incident the week before, which resulted in an arrest.
UAB finished 4-8, marking its third losing season since it joined the American Conference in 2023. But those victories were proof enough that Mortensen could lead, even in the face of adversity. So on Dec. 5, Mortensen was announced as the Blazers’ next head coach.
Introducing the eighth head coach of UAB Football, Alex Mortensen!
📰 : https://t.co/d3POA59Fgp#WinAsOnepic.twitter.com/Wy3Q6rhErO
— UAB Football (@UAB_FB) December 5, 2025
Mortensen immediately got to work recruiting — high school prospects, transfer portal entrants and, as is increasingly necessary nowadays in college football, the players on his own roster. The timing of his hire put UAB behind in the high school recruiting game, as it overlapped with the early signing period.
The Blazers brought back just two starters, both on offense. That forced Mortensen’s first roster to be more reliant on transfers than he would have liked. UAB took 41 newcomers out of the portal.
“We’re gonna have turnover every year, and I’m not anti-transfer portal,” Mortensen said. “We’ve had some great guys, great players out of the portal that have been an absolute joy to coach. But I would like to have a higher percentage of players coming from high school, and we feel like we’re on a really good, fertile recruiting ground.”
Center Adam Lepkowski is one of those local success stories. A graduate student from Hoover, Alabama, he returns to the Blazers as one of the top offensive linemen in the American Conference. Though they were originally both transfers, quarterback Ryder Burton and wide receiver Kaleb Brown were also priority targets who were retained. Mortensen mentioned all three players as culture-setters for UAB.
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Mortensen intends to continue calling plays, a responsibility that head coaches are increasingly delegating to coordinators. He acknowledges there are multiple models that can work and emphasized his confidence in the staff he has assembled.
The off-field responsibilities of being the face of the program — press conferences and constant public attention — took some getting used to for Mortensen, the son of late NFL reporter Chris Mortensen.
“I don’t know that I’m in love with all of it yet,” he said. “But it’s kind of gotten to a point where I’m comfortable enough doing those other things that maybe don’t involve coaching players, game-planning, mapping out a calendar, talking to the team.”
Mortensen learned all that and more from the best college football coach of all time. Across three separate stints with the Crimson Tide, Mortensen was a part of three national championship-winning teams.
And perhaps the most important thing he said he learned from Saban had nothing to do with Xs and Os. It was how to manage his time.
“I think the time management challenges are definitely legitimate in a position like this,” Mortensen said. “Having experienced the interim portion of it, I do feel like being incredibly organized in the role is really crucial to be able to do it well.”
With his first spring practice as head coach behind him, Mortensen is still figuring out how to allocate that time best as he builds out the program in his vision. He says it was an advantage to have spent three seasons at UAB before taking over as head coach.
That time furthered his understanding of what the Blazers have, what they don’t, and what still needs to be done to bridge those gaps to get back to being competitive.
Mortensen mentions talent acquisition of coaches and players as top priorities. He acknowledges there are financial realities to attracting and keeping top-flight talent on his staff and roster as the cost to do business increases across college football. But, Mortensen said, “I’m confident that we’re equipped to do those things.”
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This story was originally published by Athlon Sports on May 14, 2026, where it first appeared in the College Football section. Add Athlon Sports as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
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