When the talking point of who is the worst quarterback to ever win a Super Bowl comes up at the water cooler or at the lunch table, Trent Dilfer’s name often gets mentioned.
Whether that is fair to Dilfer or not, it’s just the fact of the matter. The 2000 Baltimore Ravens had a dominant defense, one of the best in league history, and Dilfer ended up starting only because of Tony Banks’ ineptitude at the position.
Since then it’s been a long road for Dilfer to getting onto the Razorbacks’ radar. After a stint with ESPN and following the Hugh Freeze-approved route of coaching a private high school in Tennessee, he was given the keys to the UAB football program after Bill Clark resurrected it following its shuddering in 2014.
Last year, Dilfer and his Blazers went 4-8, which was the worst season for UAB since a Garrick McGee-led unit went 2-10 in 2013.
The former quarterback was not satisfied with that performance and went back to the drawing board this offseason. He was kind enough to allow CBS Sports football reporter John Talty around his program recently as it prepared for its Arkansas football game last week.
Dilfer’s Specialty with UAB Football
In an NFL career that began with promise but quickly devolved into journeyman status, Trent Dilfer played on five NFL teams and was likely able to learn a variety of different coaching styles and strategies.
Based on how he talks to the team as chronicled in Talty’s article, it seems he leans into psychological warfare as a tactic. Dilfer challenges his charges to look inward and consider if they just worry about giving their own individual 100 percent, it will lead to an increased chance at victory.
In a quarterback meeting, where he meets with former Razorback Alex Mortensen, his offensive coordinator, they discuss a game plan where they plan to attack the Razorback defense with relentless fervor. The goal is exact “death by a thousand cuts.”
“Nick them, and before you know it’ll be a puddle of blood,” Dilfer tells the room. “If we go in with a machete, they have a samurai sword.”
According to Talty, Dilfer learned the philosophy from longtime NFL head coach and offensive coordinator Norv Turner, which is to try and steal three explosive plays from your opponent, especially when said opponent may be better or more talented than you. Turner was tutored under both John Robinson and Jimmy Johnson, the latter of course the former Razorback player and assistant in the Frank Broyles era.
What it Means for Arkansas Football
Obviously as a head coach, Trent Dilfer has to consider his defense as much as his offense.
Dilfer has studied Arkansas OC Bobby Petrino intently, from his time in the NFL to what he’s done in the college game both at Arkansas and Louisville and then at Missouri State and Texas A&M.
“If you’re looking for a trend over the years that have slowed Bobby down — Lamar (Jackson) is an exception to this — complex NFL-type pressure packages have given his offense trouble,” he says. “Doesn’t stop it, but it gets in trouble. We’ll have a lot of creative pressures that are designed to give us a chance.”
This is the kind of insight surely not lost on Auburn defensive coordinator DJ Durkin.
Durkin, who worked with Petrino last year with the Aggies, is now tasked with stopping him this week in the SEC opener for both teams at Jordan-Hare Stadium.
BoAS contributor Adam Ford already laid out what Durkin is likely to try to do to stop Taylen Green and the Razorback offense in this article, but Durkin may reevaluate if he reads the CBS article, and goes back and watches the UAB film, where the Blazers defense had Green off balance all day on pass plays, including intercepting him on the Razorbacks’ opening drive.
The problem for Durkin is if they can’t stop the run, they’ll be forced to bring more people in the box, and that just opens up the field for Petrino’s chess game with his receivers. It becomes a numbers game at that point.
Dilfer mentions to Talty about how late in the game, they had the perfect pass defense lined up, but Petrino dialed up a designed QB run that Green executed to find paydirt in the end zone and put the game out of reach.
“Bobby was Bobby,” Dilfer told Talty. “He’s a maestro.”
Dilfer will also play an indirect role in the outcome of Arkansas vs Auburn. A few years ago, he coached none other than Auburn’s freshman starting quarterback Hank Brown, who got the job after Payton Thorne threw four interceptions against California.
Trent Dilfer: Lightning Rod?
Talty at one point asks Dilfer why he thinks he’s so polarizing and Dilfer seems a bit stumped about how he could be viewed negatively, despite some of his grisly life-and-death metaphors about football that don’t come across as anywhere close to politically correct.
Of course, there’s also that viral video from years ago on an episode of NFL Live where Dilfer infamously said you can’t lose football games in the NFL and still win, because, duh:
After licking its wounds from the Arkansas loss, Dilfer and UAB may get back on the right track with two weeks to prepare for its American Athletic Conference opener against Navy at home. That’s far from guaranteed, though, considering the Midshipmen are 2-0 and next play Memphis, who just took down a bad Florida State team.
Dropping a game to an SEC team was forgivable. But if UAB gets sunk by Navy, then watch out: Dilfer’s program may just find itself in its own puddle of blood.
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