In his first couple of days as UAB’s interim football coach, Alex Mortensen quickly earned the respect of athletic director Mark Ingram, who was impressed by Mortensen’s composure, professionalism and steady leadership amid a challenging transition.
Mortensen, the 39-year-old son of late ESPN reporter Chris Mortensen, had been tasked with replacing former Blazers coach Trent Dilfer, who had given him his first big break in coaching when he hired him as the team’s offensive coordinator in 2023.
According to Ingram, Mortensen was calm and confident when he met with UAB’s players and assistant coaches for the first time after Dilfer was fired Oct. 12. Mortensen was polished and prepared when he faced the media the next day.
“You’re talking about a bunch of guys that were very emotional about that news, and I thought Alex handled that beautifully,” Ingram said. “He met with the staff, and I thought he handled that beautifully. He was fabulous at the podium with [the media]. I hate to say that I was surprised, but I was kind of pleasantly surprised at how well he’s done with all of that because he just hadn’t done it before.”
Mortensen had that same cool and measured demeanor when he made his head-coaching debut last week, leading UAB, a 21½-point underdog, to a 31-24 upset of then-No. 22 Memphis at Protective Stadium in Birmingham, Alabama.
After the Blazers punted with a seven-point lead and less than two minutes to play, the Tigers converted on fourth-and-7 when quarterback AJ Hill completed a 21-yard pass to Cortez Braham Jr.
Then it looked as if Memphis had a touchdown, with the potential to tie the score with a PAT or take the lead with a 2-point conversion, when Greg Desrosiers Jr. broke off a 41-yard run. But replay officials ruled Desrosiers’ left knee was down at the 1-yard line.
That’s when things fell apart for the Tigers. A false-start penalty backed them up to the UAB 6. Desrosiers nearly scored on first-and-goal but was pushed out at the 1. Then came another false start, two incompletions and a delay-of-game penalty, leaving the Tigers with fourth-and-goal from the 11 with 19 seconds remaining.
What was going through Mortensen’s mind in the biggest moment of his first game in charge?
“Do we need to or want to use a timeout in any of those situations?” Mortensen said. “What will we do if we don’t feel good about how we’re aligned or maybe what set they come out in? I’m thinking about, obviously, we’ve got to be prepared for them to run a 2-point play if they score. If they tie it, I’m also contemplating how maybe we want to handle overtime.
“So, you know, just running through all those things. There was even a point where you’re going, ‘OK, if they score with ample time on the clock, how do we want to handle the two-minute situation?’ However much time is left, whether we want to try to score or whether we want to take it to overtime.”
On fourth-and-goal, Lewis threw to the left side of the end zone for Braham, who caught the ball out of bounds. Once replay upheld the call, the Blazers wildly celebrated ending a three-game losing streak and winning for the first time in more than a month.
With backup quarterback Ryder Burton making his first career start (starter Jalen Kitna was sidelined with a shoulder injury), the Blazers had 470 yards of offense and went 9-for-13 on third down to end the Tigers’ 10-game winning streak.
“Obviously, the result was awesome to see our guys play really hard and play poised, right down to the end,” Mortensen said.
It was UAB’s fifth victory over an AP Top 25 opponent in the 28-year history of the program and its first since defeating No. 13 BYU 31-28 in the Independence Bowl at the end of the 2021 season.
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“Considering the emotion, not just of the week but of the season, and really coming out of last year, it was exuberant,” Ingram said. “Like a positively emotional afternoon to see the players’ and the coaches’ and the fans’ faces and how excited they were. Gosh, oh man, it felt really good.”
Mortensen called Ingram on Thursday night and said, “Memphis is really good.”
“My plan is to try to slow the game down as best I can to mitigate what they’re doing,” Mortensen told him. “You know, if they don’t have the ball, then they can’t score. And even if we don’t score, we can hopefully keep it away from them. We can keep it close to where we’re in the game, because if it’s low-scoring enough, then we’re never really out of the game.”
Instead of running the fast-paced offense that had been a trademark under Dilfer, the Blazers were more deliberate and patient. They still didn’t huddle most of the time, but they didn’t snap the ball as quickly, taking more time off the play clock.
There was an unexpected benefit from Mortensen’s plan. UAB’s offense was more disciplined and made fewer of the mistakes that had plagued it in the past. The Blazers were penalized 13 times for 110 yards in a 56-24 loss at Tennessee, 11 times for 73 yards in a 31-13 loss against Army, and 15 times for 128 yards in a 53-33 loss at Florida Atlantic.
They had only six penalties for 47 yards against Memphis.
“They were all maybe a little bit more confident in their assignments on offense,” Ingram said. “When you go hurry-up, you better know what you’re doing. There’s no room for error; your margin for error really shrinks. And by slowing down, I just think there was this, like, ‘OK, everybody, deep breath.'”
Ingram made the decision to fire Dilfer the day after the loss at Florida Atlantic dropped the Blazers’ record to 2-4.
Dilfer, a former Super Bowl-winning quarterback and ESPN analyst, had a 9-21 record in two-plus seasons at UAB.
“Trent said to the team after the FAU game, ‘I don’t think you’re a bad football team. You’re just not playing good football,'” Ingram said. “I agree with that because there were moments where we scored or had a nice defensive series, and I thought, ‘Gosh, if we could just keep playing like that, we’ll win a lot of football games, you know?’ And then we just hadn’t been able to maintain that.”
During a meeting with Ingram on the day he was fired, Dilfer recommended Mortensen to be the interim head coach. Before Dilfer hired him, Mortensen had been a position coach for only one season, in 2012 when he was quarterbacks coach at Division II New Mexico Highlands.
Mortensen, who played quarterback at Arkansas and Samford, spent nine seasons as a graduate assistant and analyst at Alabama from 2014 to 2022. The Crimson Tide won three national championships and went 115-12 while he was there.
“I thought he was one of the smartest people that ever was involved in our program,” former Alabama coach Nick Saban said. “He really understood football, had great knowledge and good teaching progression. He was a quiet guy, which is something that I always talked to him about. He needed to be more outgoing and more outspoken with players and with his colleagues.”
During his nine seasons at Alabama, Mortensen was exposed to several offensive coordinators who are now head coaches in college football and the NFL: Lane Kiffin (Ole Miss), Steve Sarkisian (Texas), Brian Daboll (New York Giants), Mike Locksley (Maryland) and Bill O’Brien (Boston College).
Mortensen primarily worked with quarterbacks while at Alabama, tutoring NFL starters Jalen Hurts, Tua Tagovailoa, Mac Jones and Heisman winner Bryce Young along the way.
“He had really good knowledge of the position, technically,” Saban said. “He was just made out of the right stuff. He was not a big ego guy and never got affected by all that stuff. He was a really good teacher and helped develop a lot of good players.”
Saban said Mortensen stayed with him for nearly a decade because other schools weren’t willing to give him a chance until Dilfer did.
“He could never break through and get an opportunity because everybody would always say, ‘Well, you need experience,'” Saban said. “But he’s an example of a guy that had tremendous resiliency professionally to persevere through the ups and downs and stick with it and hang in there. He believed in himself and prepared himself so that when he did get an opportunity, he would be able to take advantage of it, and he certainly did that.”
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One person who wasn’t surprised by Mortensen’s ability to remain unflappable and focused in the final minutes of UAB’s victory against Memphis was NFL reporter Adam Schefter, who worked with Chris Mortensen for 15 years at ESPN.
Schefter, Alex Mortensen and ESPN analyst Chris Berman gave eulogies at Chris Mortensen’s funeral. Mortensen died March 3, 2024. He was 72.
“I could barely hold it together,” Schefter said. “[Alex] got up there — and it’s his father and the most important figure in his life — and he was as calm and composed as anybody could ever hope to be. I never could be as calm and composed as he was that day.”
Chris Mortensen joined ESPN in 1991 and was a regular contributor to the network’s NFL shows and “SportsCenter.” In 2016, he received the Pro Football Writers of America’s Dick McCann Award and was honored during the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s enshrinement ceremony in August that year.
Chris Mortensen was diagnosed with Stage 4 throat cancer in January 2016. He stepped away from his role at ESPN in 2023.
“There wasn’t anything that made Mort any happier than Alex,” Schefter said. “When he kind of scaled back [from work], he wanted to watch Alex’s teams, and he wanted to watch Alex coach. That was the hope. That’s what he wanted to do with his free time. I can’t overstate how much he loved Alex.”
Schefter, who remains in close contact with Alex, watched UAB’s victory over Memphis on TV with his family Saturday. As Schefter watched his late friend’s only child guide his team to one of the biggest upsets of the season, he texted with a couple of ESPN colleagues.
At one point during the game, Schefter wrote, “I can’t believe how much I care about this game.”
Someone replied: “That’s what love does for you.”
“We love Mort, and we love Alex,” Schefter said. “We’re very proud of him. And in a way, we feel like we’re representing Mort, to look after Alex and cheer for him and support him from afar.”
Alex Mortensen thought a lot about his late father Saturday, too.
“I think about my dad every single day and think about what he’d tell me to do,” Mortensen said. “I used to seek his counsel on a lot of things, and so I’m always wondering what he would tell me. Saturday was definitely no different.”
After Burton took a knee in the victory formation to finish UAB’s stunning upset, Schefter sent a text to Chris Mortensen’s widow, Micki, congratulating her on Alex’s win and telling her how much it meant to so many of Chris’ former colleagues.
Her reply: “Happy tears,” with a heart emoji.
