UAB's Miraculous 2017 Season Ends With Bowl Loss

BIRMINGHAM, AL - Longtime UAB fan David Smith stood clutching his beer at the Iron City Grill on Birmingham's Southside near the UAB campus as he watched the Blazers play in the Bahamas Bowl Friday against Ohio, nervous that his Blazers were not going to crawl out of the 13-0 deficit they found themselves in early in the first quarter.

Smith could not make the trip to the Bahamas to cheer on the Blazers, but he did join a couple hundred other UAB football fans at Iron City to watch the game, only the second bowl game in UAB's history, and coming at the end of a season that marked UAB's first since coming back from termination of the program for two years. "I have always been a (UAB) basketball fan," Smith said. "But I will admit that until they did away with the program, I did not pay nearly as much attention to the football team. But it's like, when it was gone, you really missed it. I think that is how a lot of folks felt."

Smith attended grad school at UAB in the early 80s, before UAB had a football team, and became a UAB basketball fan immediately. While UAB football is not - and likely will never be - on the same level as the University of Alabama or Auburn University, UAB fans like Smith say this particular season has been special as the Blazers surpassed all expectations and went undefeated at home en route to an 8-4 regular season. "This has been a fun season. A fun team to get behind," Smith said.

UAB's Bill Clark, who was named Conference USA Coach of the Year and the CBS Sports National Coach of the Year, could have left UAB to pursue other opportunities, but he stuck around to see if the program would be resurrected, and when it was, after two years without a program, he made the Blazers competitive on the field, and attracted a fan base that was not as present before the program was terminated. "Coach Clark made a fan out of me," said Liz Fuller, who recently graduated from UAB. She and her boyfriend attended all but one of the Blazers' home games this season, which were the first games she had ever attended.

"I always meant to go, like when I was a freshman," Fuller said. "But I never did. I think Bill Clark made a lot of people realize that we have something great to root for here in this team. And it has been a lot of fun." Fuller said she and her boyfriend will purchase season tickets next season.

Of the approximately 200 fans at Iron City Grill watching the game, most stayed through the entire game, even though UAB was never really in the game, eventually losing in a 41-6 blowout . UAB's loss does not matter nearly as much as the fact that the Blazers are playing at all. The winning season was merely icing on the cake, according to most fans at the restaurant. "I was not expecting much," Smith said. "But man did we get a lot more than anyone would have thought."

In addition to setting a record for wins in a season, UAB also set attendance records, and milestones for individual players as Blazers Darius Williams and Spencer Brown each were selected to the Conference USA All-Conference Team.

When the clock ticked down to 0:00 in the Bahamas Bowl, UAB fans at the Iron City Grill did not take on the look of fans from a team that just lost a game by five touchdowns. The mood was cheerful, and the optimism in the room soared, as many fans were already engaged in conversations about next season.

Photo by Michael Seale