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Trent Dilfer is the first year coach for UAB, and there are a lot of questions about the offseason’s most surprising hire in college football. The Blazers’ home opener is at 7 p.m. on Thursday night against North Carolina A&T.

Shedding some light on Dilfer’s transformation of the Southside Dragons, the new coach joined me for a Q&A about what fans can expect this season, his love of Birmingham’s cuisine and what it was like being called the worst hire in college football.

Dilfer is an enigma in college football after having only coached at the high school level for four years before being hired to replace UAB legend Bill Clark. Critics of the hire have framed Dilfer as a high school coach, but that’s a dishonest accounting of his experience (and not to mention an unfair shot at high school coaches). Dilfer is a former Super Bowl-winning quarterback, who is well known in the recruiting world as the longtime coach of the Elite 11 quarterback camp. Off the field, Dilfer is probably more recognizable as the former NFL analyst for ESPN with a reputation for being outspoken and opinionated.

As you might have guessed, the Q&A went long and got a little sideways.

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I don’t know anything about Dilfer as an in-game coach, and it’s not my job to promote him, but I have been impressed with the way he is approaching this new job. Dilfer wants to transform the image of UAB football and make it more inclusive for the city. To that end, Dilfer lives downtown and is making important in-roads in parts of Birmingham that haven’t felt much of a connection to UAB football in the past. He is using UAB football to promote community service in the city and wants Protective Stadium packed out in support of Birmingham and Birmingham’s team.

(I also want that, so at least we agree on something before things get weird in news conferences.)

Is there a bigger mystery in college football than UAB being coached by Trent Dilfer? Nope, so let’s dive in.

[INTERVIEW EDITED FOR LENGTH AND CLARITY]

Joseph Goodman: What was your favorite moment for this team in the preseason?

Trent Dilfer: The two things we did the worst off the get-go were offensive pre-snap procedure and defensive tackling, and I’m sitting there going, ‘What am I not getting through? This has to be a coaching issue. They’re not trying to jump offsides. They’re not trying to miss tackles. This is a coaching issue. This is something we’re not doing well.

And the second group comes on and it’s the same thing. I’m like, holy crude, what is going on. And I don’t get frustrated easily. I was very frustrated. About to blow my lid. So I stop, and we’re 15-30 minutes into the scrimmage, and I start listening, and it’s everything we’ve been talking about. Guys are encouraging each other. … No one is pointing a finger. No one is getting frustrated. The only person getting frustrated on the football field was the head coach and I went, ‘Oh, wow. They’re starting to get it a little bit. I need to check myself and practice what I preach because I’m watching the soul of this team coming together way faster than I thought I would.

And, by the way, we start tackling better. We’re doing better on offense, not jumping offsides and lining up wrong. We start making plays on both sides of the ball. And that’s just what I’ve been telling them. When you reset, refocus and have a clearer mind, and you’re just relentless with your effort, then good things happen. It was like that ah-ha moment.

JG: So that was your favorite moment? [LAUGHS]

TD: You wanted a one-handed catch in the back of the end zone, didn’t you? You’re not getting short answers, man. I’ve been burned on too many short answers. You’ve got to give context. You got to story tell. A Dilfer answer is going to have context.

JG: UAB is one of the biggest mysteries in college football. You’ve put together a dynamic staff and brought in good players. What’s going to surprise people about this team?

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TD: I think how quickly we’ve come together. I think that’s the greatest challenge for any new staff in a new program. You’ve got to earn each other’s trust and that sometimes can take years, right? I think we did it rather quickly. You have to have this bond that I’m talking about, and that stuff is reflected on the energy on the sideline, how they play, how they compete, how they handle adversity, how they handle success, how they are in the community, how they are academically.

Last year at this time, 16 academic probations. This year? None. We don’t have those issues anymore because kids are acting more professional away from football. Our service hours in football are just over 600, so I think they’ll be surprised by the quality of the vibe. The vibe of the program has really become good in a short amount of time. … It will have a professional feel to it because of my background, but I don’t know how explosive we’re going to be or how consistent we’re going to be.

I don’t know how well we’re going to tackle yet. I’d be lying to say that because I don’t have context. I haven’t coached a college team and seen what it’s like in camp and go, ‘Oh, if they’re like this in camp, then they’re going to be like this Week One or like this Week Four. … What will they be surprised by? Hopefully a team and a group of people that just chose to do it differently by just the temperament, the vibe of the team.”

JG: Describe the old UAB offense in one word?

TD: Static.

JG: By the way, this is a 10-question format Q&A. [LAUGHS] Just FYI, OK.

TD: So I’m killing your format. [LAUGHS] You can do paragraph answers. … How many words were you given for this?

JG: There are no word limits. It’s just what the reader will sit through and read. [LAUGHS]

TD: OK, give me some quick ones so they’ll read through the chunky ones. Static.

JG: So, describe the new UAB offense in one word?

TD: Fluid.

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JG: What have you learned about offensive coordinator Alex Mortensen?

TD: Relentless pursuit of excellence. See, give me context and I’ll help you out. You didn’t tell me it was 10 questions. [LAUGHS]

JG: What do you mean by relentless pursuit of excellence?

TD: He is always, always … and this is why I love him because we’re cut from the same cloth. I wake up thinking about how to get better and I go to bed thinking about how to get better and it never stops. And he’s the same way. He’s the exact same way. He never stops thinking about how to get better.

JG: You can kind of see it in his eyes. He looks like maybe he never sleeps.

TD: We literally, multiple times a day finish each other’s sentences. Multiple times. There are so many times I’ll go to say something and he’ll go, ‘Oh my gosh. I was literally coming in here to tell you that.’

This just happened yesterday. We spent five hours together yesterday and I started the meeting off with how I couldn’t sleep last night and this is what I was thinking about, and I start storytelling for about a minute and he goes, ‘I’m going to let you keep going, but I totally agree, I know exactly what you’re going to say, and I was up at 3:30 thinking the exact same thing.’ That was his answer and it was beautiful. I’ve never been around another offensive person who sees the world like me. He sees the world. He just doesn’t see football like me. He sees the entire world like me.

JG: Well, that could be a good thing or a bad thing. [LAUGHS]

TD: Yeah, I tell him, you’re playing with fire right now because what’s up here [points to head] is half crazy and that’s the direction you’re headed. And my girls — you can write this, I don’t care — I went home for 24 hours to see my grandson — and my girls, they’re asking me how it’s going and they’re asking me about Alex and I tell them basically the same thing and they go, ‘Oh, poor Alex.’ [LAUGHS] That’s exactly what they said because they’ve been around it. … You don’t just get, ‘You should be better this way.’ It’s an all-day-long thing for me. You should see my practice schedule. I’ve tweaked it every which way down to the second about how we can be more efficient, and that’s just how I’m wired and that’s how [Mortensen] is wired.”

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JG: Birmingham is a college football town, obviously, but what’s something that has surprised you about the city?

TD: The food. It’s a Top 10 food city in the country. I had zero idea. I mean, I just came from three really great … these are my last three places. Bay Area, and I mean I lived in the heart of Billionaire Boulevard with food, restaurants, five-star Michelins, all this crap. Then I go to Austin. Foodie town. Then I go to Nashville. Foodie town. Birmingham is better than all three and I am totally blown away. Every place I go, I’m like, ‘This is one of the best meals I’ve ever had. This is great service. The general manager is awesome. The owner is awesome. The atmosphere is awesome.’ You go sit on the patio at Bottega and it’s like heaven. You’re downtown on Second Avenue North at Bamboo or La Fresca or El Barrio or wherever, East-West has become a new favorite.

I was at East-West the other night and you would have thought there was a concert going on there were so many people out walking around. … It was one of the greatest meals I’ve had. You asked if I was surprised. Shocked. Because I didn’t know Frank Stitt from Adam when I got here. But once I started getting stories it made sense. He trained an army of these people and they are now infiltrated throughout Birmingham, but I didn’t know.

I thought I was just coming to a cool Southern town and was going to get good, solid food, but I had no idea it was better than where I’ve been. That’s why I got so fat. It was every single night for three months. I slept on that couch (points to office furniture) and I went downtown. And then I moved into the downtown loft and now I could walk to them all? It got even more dangerous. By spring ball I was pregnant.

JG: How do you want this team to be viewed by the people in the city?

TD: Professional.

JG: And what is your challenge to the city?

TD: Challenge is a dangerous word. My request would be this fire-breather idea. Become a fire-breather. Show up and breathe fire, breathe life into this program. These kids deserve it. I mean, they played in front of 2,000 people at times last year in the rain. They sacrifice a lot and they’re good kids. Now, if they were just hired guns like some programs around the county, then I wouldn’t show up. These are kids that go into the community. They go to school. They treat people well. They sacrifice a ton for this institution.

They have a massive investment in their career and their future but also to represent something bigger than themselves. So show up and breathe fire. Breathe life into them. Be an extra source of inspiration to them. Let them look up and see, oh gosh, it’s green and it’s loud and people are waving stuff.

There are kids from the junior highs and elementary schools that we went and did programs for and look, they’re right there in Section 113. Look, Glen Iris is right there. We dug weeds out of their playground. We cleaned their gym floor. We set up their basketball hoops…

The narrative in college football right now is that they’re professional athletes. No, I was a professional athlete. You’re a man. You’re a grown man. Professional athlete is a job. These are student-athletes. They need that affirmation.

JG: You were hired to move the needle here.

TD: I don’t disagree with that.

JG: So, winning does that, but what else does that?

TD: How we treat people. I really believe that. Winning — don’t take anything I say holistically from a lack of wanting to win. I don’t think anyone would say that. The edge around here to win is second to none, but you can treat people well while doing it. And I think it’s another poor narrative in college football … I think Dabo (Swinney), Nick (Saban) … Chip (Kelly) does a good job with this. There are guys who do a good job with this who I have kind of modeled us after. You can win at a really high level and still treat people really well … I hope we’re recognized as a team who treats people really well.

JG: All right, if there’s a tough question here, then this would be it.

TD: Do you realize the questions I’ve been asked in my life? I’m doubting it’s going to shock me. [LAUGHS] Go ahead.

JG: OK, so Stewart Mandel of The Athletic called you the worst hire in college football. Knowing the history of the team better than anyone, I don’t agree, but how does something like that motivate you?

TD: You know, it doesn’t motivate me. I think a lot of times men are afraid to say it hurts them. It’s hurtful. Because what have I done in my football life that doesn’t say I have the capacity to figure this out. That would be my argument. I’m not saying I’m going to be great at it. I never once said I was going to be great at it, I think. But I definitely have the capacity to figure this out.

I have done a lot of football in my life. I have a life of football. All these NFL Films football life things, mine is as rich as any of them. Not as good, but as rich. So it’s hurtful to hear those things. I think my team and my people are inspired by it because they know what I’ve put into this. They know I haven’t done this to move the needle for fans. They know I haven’t done this to move the needle on ticket sales.

I don’t need to do this. There is great power in having wealth where you don’t need a job. It’s just an amazing place to be in life. I am so blessed. I don’t need to do this, so I sacrifice for my people. So, when you’re sacrificing for your people every day, when you’re serving people every day … they’re pissed.

They’re pissed. I’m hurt. They’re pissed. My players are pissed. Because my players trust me. Do they all like me? Probably not. But they all trust me. They know I’m in it for them. I’m not sitting there trying to leverage a winning UAB season for a bigger paycheck, and that’s how college athletes feel. They’re using me so they can climb the ladder. This team doesn’t feel like I’m using them to climb the ladder. Big difference.

If you’re a MAC coach back 10-15 years ago, how could you earn the trust of that team? They all know you’re there to go to the Big Ten or go to the ACC. … I remember being with Butch Jones when he was at Central Michigan and he had me speak to the team and blah, blah, blah, and I spent some time with their players and they go, ‘Oh, he ain’t going to be here.’ I’m like, ‘What?’ ‘He ain’t going to be here. We like him, but he ain’t going to be here.’

Like, I don’t think I have one kid down there, of the kids I recruited this cycle … I want to be there with them, so they’re pissed.

JG: You haven’t done it long, so maybe you’ll have a different perspective on this answer. What kind of college football coach is Trent Dilfer so far?

TD: Relational. I tried … I’ve changed a lot. I would not call myself relational 10 years ago. Maybe even eight years ago. When I retired from life, and I mean ESPN, I recognized the lack of deep relationships I had that football brought me. I spent a whole life where relationships in the game were so important and then I retired and golf relationships are fun but they’re not deep. Business relationships are profitable but they’re not deep.

Football relationships are really deep because you go through some hard stuff together, and I miss those so bad. … I work hard at the relationships because I do think you win more when those relationships are deep.

JG: You’ve learned to be a better friend?

TD: Much better. Much better. My friends say that. They say, ‘You sucked at this for a while. [LAUGHS] You’re better at this now.’

JG: What can this new conference affiliation do for UAB?

TD: I think it’s massive. Again, I’d be lying if I said I knew much about CUSA or knew much about the American. I didn’t know much about college conference structures in general, but as I researched it and talked to people who are influential, you realize the economics of it are massive. The TV aspect of it is massive, and what I’ve come to learn is the coaching staffs in this conference are very good. You have big-time staffs. You have big-time head coaches, guys who run programs really well and know how to recruit and develop, so it’s a challenge every week.

Because it’s not just the players playing the players. It’s also the coaches playing the coaches, too, so you have a great challenge every week because of the step up in coaches. American is loaded with some good coaches now.

JG: I guess this is a loaded question then. Can UAB win it in Year One?

TD: Yes. We can. We are set up to win. I can go longer or I can just give you that one line.

JG: Yeah, go ahead. Feel free.

TD: We have really good players that hadn’t played a lot but they’re really good players. We have fantastic coaches. We have the resources we need to win in Year One. I’ll leave it at that.