Good morrow, Blazers. Ozella Birchfield here, writing from a bench in the shadow of Vulcan himself, with a forge apron in my lap and a dog-eared copy of Shakespeare on the seat next to me. I believe in two things about football. One: a great team is forged, not given. Iron has to go through the fire before it becomes steel. Two: every season deserves a little drama, preferably in five acts.
Last Thursday night, UAB gave me all five acts in one game. Let me tell it honestly, from the opening scene to the curtain. Then we'll talk about this week, which is an open week, and the next act: a Halloween trip to Tampa.
Part 1: UAB 30, East Carolina 17 (OT)
Act One, Oct. 15 at Protective Stadium: the Pirates take the stage. East Carolina marched 75 yards in 14 plays on the opening drive, and Emory Williams threw a 3-yard touchdown to Ray Ray Joseph Jr. Early in the second quarter, Dawson Quarterman recovered a fumble in the end zone, and ECU led 14-0. I'll be honest. The iron was cold.
Act Two: the fire is lit. Jonah Delange kicked a 41-yard field goal before halftime, a 26-yarder in the third quarter and a 50-yarder with 1:26 left in the third. Three for three. ECU led just 14-9 heading into the fourth.
Act Three: the Pirates strike back. Noah Perez kicked a career-long 43-yard field goal with 9:24 left, and ECU led 17-9.
Act Four: the hammer falls. Ryder Burton took over at his own 7 and drove UAB 93 yards in 10 plays, without a timeout, and hit Bam McReynolds for a 17-yard touchdown with 35 seconds left. Then Burton ran in the two-point try himself. Seventeen all. Overtime. "Once more unto the breach, dear friends."
Act Five: the curtain. In overtime, Burton threw a 6-yard touchdown to Rod Robinson II. On ECU's possession, Delvon Gulley intercepted Williams and ran it back 80 yards for a touchdown. UAB 30, East Carolina 17. Forged, not given.
The stage notes. Burton finished 19 of 37 for 262 yards and two touchdowns with no interceptions. CJ Smith caught eight passes for 119 yards. Jo'Tavion Pierce made 16 tackles and Muaaz Byard made 15, and UAB didn't turn the ball over.
Now the honest review, because a critic who only praises is no critic. UAB ran for just 99 yards on 32 carries. ECU held the ball for 34:11 and ran 50 times. UAB went 6-for-16 on third down and committed nine penalties for 76 yards. That's a lot of sparks flying in the wrong directions.
The Open Week
UAB does not play this Saturday, Oct. 24. After a Thursday game on Oct. 15, the Blazers get more than two weeks before their next kickoff. In the forge, we call this letting the steel temper. You heat it, you hammer it, and then you let it cool so it holds its shape.
UAB is 4-3 and 2-1 in the American. The Blazers lost 42-23 at Illinois, beat UL Monroe 26-20, lost 21-14 at Louisiana, beat Navy 24-20, beat Samford 33-14, lost 38-13 at Memphis and beat ECU. All four wins came at Protective Stadium. Now we take the fire on the road.
Part 2: UAB at South Florida, Saturday, Oct. 31
Next up is a Halloween Saturday at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa. ESPN lists the time as to be announced.
Our Blacksmiths
Per ESPN's season numbers, UAB allows only 126.0 passing yards per game, and 24.6 points per game overall. Burton has thrown for 1,184 yards and six touchdowns. Robinson leads the run game with 436 yards, and Smith has 19 catches for 350 yards, more than 18 yards a catch.
The honest concern: UAB allows 190.6 rushing yards per game, and Burton has thrown five interceptions. Those need fixing during the open week. The forge is hot, and there's time to hammer them out.
Their Pirates
South Florida is 5-2 and 1-2 in the American, and it's coming off a 29-2 homecoming win over Kent State. I'll grant the Bulls their defense, which allows 15.1 points per game per ESPN, and their defensive end C.J. Hicks, whose 96-yard fumble return set a school record, per WUSF.
But listen to the Bulls' own local reporters. Per WUSF, USF had only 107 yards of offense in the first half against Kent State, and it was the fourth straight game in which the Bulls failed to score an offensive touchdown in the first half. Four straight! "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark," and also in the first half in Tampa. USF also lost two straight before that, 17-13 at home to Temple and 31-24 at UTSA.
Michael Van Buren Jr. has 1,266 passing yards and six touchdowns, and D.J. Crowther has 518 rushing yards and seven touchdowns.
The Series
CollegeFootballData.com lists South Florida ahead 3-2. UAB won 22-19 in Tampa in 2003 and 56-35 in Birmingham in 2023. USF won 45-20 at Legion Field in 2004, 35-25 in Tampa in 2024 and 48-18 in Birmingham last season. Revenge is a dish best served on Halloween.
Town Report: Birmingham vs. Tampa
Birmingham. They call us the Magic City, for the rapid industrial growth that built Birmingham from 1881 to 1920, and also the Pittsburgh of the South. Per Wikipedia, the Birmingham District is the only place in the world where significant amounts of iron ore, coal and limestone, the three main raw materials of steel, are all found close together. We were built to forge.
On Red Mountain stands Vulcan, the Roman god of fire and the forge, 56 feet tall and the largest cast iron statue in the world. He was Birmingham's entry for the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis, and today he stands on a 126-foot sandstone pedestal at the top of Red Mountain, looking out over the whole city like a coach watching practice. Sloss Furnaces is a National Historic Landmark. And Birmingham's history includes the Civil Rights Movement, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Letter from Birmingham Jail and protests that helped lead to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. That's a city with a soul of iron. Our home field, Protective Stadium, opened downtown in 2021 and seats about 47,100.
Tampa. Tampa is a sunny city of 403,364, and I hear the beaches are pleasant. But consider its most famous party. Every year since 1904, give or take, Tampa holds the Gasparilla Pirate Festival, a "friendly invasion" by the crew of the pirate José Gaspar. And Wikipedia calls him a mythical pirate. Mythical! The whole city dresses up to celebrate a buccaneer who, per Wikipedia, was the stuff of legend. In Birmingham, our symbol is a 56-foot iron god, and you can go visit him.
And USF plays its home games in an NFL stadium with a replica pirate ship in the end zone. Ahoy. "All the world's a stage," and Tampa built a boat on it.
The Final Act
Here's the script for Halloween. Cool the iron this week, fix the run defense and protect the football. Then go to Tampa, make USF's first-half offense prove it exists, and let Burton and Smith work. UAB just showed it can come from 14 down. Let's not need to.
Forged, not given.