There’s a shitload of college football goodness that I could talk about right now. I could talk about Ole Miss and LSU staging the kind of mid-season barn-burner between SEC middleweights that is EXTREMELY my kind of shit. I could talk about Notre Dame, whose football team I hate, walking off Duke, whose basketball team I hate, with a 30-yard touchdown run in the waning seconds. I could talk about Colorado bravely storming back to cover the spread against USC in what Fox Sports is calling The Game Of The Designated Timeslot. But this morning, I’d rather talk about this shit for brains:
The last time I saw Trent Dilfer, he was one of ESPN’s 50,000 replacement-level NFL studio analysts. The kind of color guy who loves it when players play hard, but also has “real questions” about ones who don’t. Dilfer was laid off by ESPN in 2017 and went on to become a high school football coach at Lipscomb Academy—formerly the Nashville Bible School—where he made a name for himself by asking his own player Beau Dawson some of those “real questions” in very pointed and Izzo-esque fashion. After shoving Dawson around in front of God and everyone, Dilfer hit the sorry button and issued a mandatory contrite statement in which he said, “I should have been a better leader and shown greater wisdom and discernment in how I handled this incident.”
In a move that Jim Irsay would surely approve of, UAB hired Dilfer straight out of that job anyway. The above video is what they got for their money. The focus of Dilfer’s ire yesterday was an illegal substitution penalty by his defense that handed Tulane, already ahead by eight, a free first down. Rather than give in to Satan and take his frustration out on a player, Dilfer instead took the path of righteousness and roided out on not one, but two of his own assistant coaches instead. And kudos to the ESPN booth of Roy Philpott and Roddy Jones for presiding over this manic episode like it was the most normal type of behavior that a head coach—currently working on a $1.7 million salary—could possibly exhibit.
Philpott: “An unbelievable mistake by UAB’s defense, and Trent Dilfer beside himself.”
Jones: “Yeah in that situation, as a head coach, that can’t happen. It’s unacceptable.”
Jones is talking about the penalty there, and not Trent Dilfer acting like a 5-year-old being asked to leave the house in a timely manner.
Tulane would win this game 35-23, with a game-clinching 32-yard touchdown pass in the final minute. UAB is now 1-4. Dilfer was not asked about the incident after the game, nor does UAB appear inclined to make a statement about it, let alone punish the man. Perhaps they already know he’ll show greater wisdom and discernment going forward. Asshole.
