When you think of Birmingham, Alabama, the first thing that comes to mind is football. From Legion Field, Paul Bear Bryant, the Birmingham Bowl, the Birmingham Stallions, UAB, and even Hoover High School or Vestavia Hills, what if I told you there’s a football program doing everything it can to tap into the Birmingham market by being the football team of the city? That team? The UAB Blazers, led by none other than Alex Mortensen, come into the fall of 2026 with a lot of excitement inside the walls of the program. Under Coach Mortensen and his staff, the program has shifted its focus to represent the city of Birmingham by changing the narrative and turning UAB into Birmingham’s football team. 

In this modern age of college football, where your traditional fans of the bigger programs are being priced out of the sport, or just downright tired of the politics, a program like UAB has everything to gain when they shifted the target audience of the program from alumni to a mix of alumni and folks who might have been a fan of Alabama or Auburn who simply have been priced out of the current model of Southeastern Conference football. As a program as a whole, the athletic department has made investments while also meeting the fans where they are, with season tickets starting as low as $99 and suite tickets for more endowed fans ranging up to $800 for the season. If you’re a family, or even a single person, the average cost per game comes out to roughly 14 dollars per game, which is the cost of a meal at any fast food establishment nowadays. That provides you with seven weekends to come out to enjoy the beautiful stadium while not only enjoying UAB football, but one of the best conferences outside of the SEC and Big 10 at half the cost of those two conferences. Not to mention, compare that to the cost of season tickets at Alabama with the bare minimum of $750 without the donation, or at Auburn, which roughly starts around $850 without the donation. 

To go with the feasibility of UAB football, you have a program with a hungry coaching staff led by a man who learned directly under Coach Nick Saban at Alabama. Alex Mortensen enters his first season as Head Coach of the Blazers this season after assembling a group of well-known assistant coaches who came to Birmingham with the same common goal of putting a product on the field that not only represents UAB, but also embraces the city of Birmingham. In years past, UAB football was an afterthought in the city of Birmingham, as many people would come out to support the basketball program, leaving football to be a filler while they spent their Saturday at either Alabama or Auburn. However, Coach Mortensen brought in a coaching staff that went out and recruited guys who would make it their personal mission to return the city of Birmingham to full-blown support for Blazers football. It’s happened at other programs in the conference like Memphis, Tulane, UTSA, or even UCF or Cincinnati when they were still in the American. It all starts with the right coaching staff, followed by school admins who invest, then, lastly, with a solid product on the field: the fans. One of those “ If you build it, they will come” type situations for UAB football this season.  

Adding on to the coaching staff, when you listen to Coach Mortensen or any number of his assistants, you can sense that the belief is there inside the locker room that the upcoming season could be the season where UAB takes steps back in the right direction by winning a few more football games and making a triumphant return to the postseason. From there, with attendance numbers on the rise, the building of the program could shift the momentum for year two of this era, where the Blazers could go from competing for a return to the postseason, to finishing in the top half of the American standings, and truth be told heading into year one of his coaching career, Coach Mortensen seems to be that guy to get the Blazers back to competing for championships all the while turning UAB into Birminghams team. 

So before the Blazers start fall camp in a little over a week, the city of Birmingham needs to make plans to go out this season to support the effort of this hungry coaching staff and the young men who decided to call Birmingham home for the next four years. Once you decide to buy the tickets, if you’re able, I would also ask yourself what more you can do to support this program to get UAB back to playing for championships and one day down the road, to take that next step and compete with the upper half of the league for positions in the College Football Playoff. In this modern age of college football, with the amount of parity going on due to the talent being more divided, UAB is in the best position it’s ever been to not only compete but to turn Birmingham into the city all in on the Blazers.   

UAB will open the season on the road on September 5th as they travel to Big Ten country to take on the Fighting Illini of Illinois. 

Photo Credits- UAB football on X