UAB’s Ryder Burton doesn’t just play quarterback like he owns the moment. He carries himself like the moment is lucky to have him.
That was on full display Thursday night at Protective Stadium, where the redshirt junior helped steer the Blazers to an unlikely 30-17 overtime win over East Carolina and turned the whole night into a Ryder Burton showcase. He had the arm, the words, the swagger, and, before overtime even started, the wardrobe choice that may have become his most memorable accessory yet.
After Burton finished off a 97-yard, 11-play touchdown drive in 62 seconds with no timeouts to force OT, he added a two-point conversion to tie the game. Then he strolled to midfield for the coin flip wearing a UAB baseball hat turned backward.
Burton had an explanation ready.
“I got hit really hard on the play before, so that’s a good excuse, right?” Burton said.
It wasn’t actually the play before. The heavy hit came on the touchdown throw that set up the two-point try, and Burton said it was the hardest hit of his career. By the time overtime arrived, a UAB equipment staffer was checking Burton’s helmet, which helps explain how a quarterback ended up taking an overtime coin flip looking more like he was headed into a casual hangout than a pressure-packed extra period.
“I couldn’t find the EQ guy,” Burton said. “The EQ guy, his name is Gary, greatest man alive, he follows me back and forth with my hat when I have my helmet on, and then when I take my helmet off, it’s instantly my hat.
“And, so, I thought, ‘We were going to win the toss. I’ll just walk out there with my hat.’”
He knows the reaction that move is going to draw, too.
“I’m probably going to get it from [UAB coach Alex Mortensen] and my mom and my wife, but, hey, you win some and you lose some. You can’t win them all.”
Burton did, in fact, win the one that mattered most. UAB scored 13 points in overtime after putting up only 17 through the first four quarters, with Delvon Gulley sealing it on a walk-off pick-six.
The wild finish only added to the impression Burton left afterward, because the postgame news conference brought another side of him: the one that jokes, tells stories and keeps the room loose.
There’s also a football reason Mortensen trusts him so much. Burton made clear after the game that he sees the coach through a Saban lens, and not by accident. Mortensen spent nine seasons at Alabama, and Burton said watching the Saban documentary brought the whole thing into focus.
“I’m probably going to get in trouble for saying this,” Burton said, “but the Saban documentary came out, right? I’ve been watching it. Obviously, Coach Mortensen worked under Saban for a while.
“So, there are some sayings that Coach Mort says, and I’m like getting PTSD sitting in my dorm room watching [the Saban doc] because I’m like, ‘Am I at practice right now? Because it is the exact same thing.’”
Burton said the documentary helped him understand Mortensen’s approach more clearly, especially the idea of shrinking everything down to the next snap.
“So, just one of the things that really stood out to me is … like, you put the scoreboard out of your mind and it’s six seconds,” Burton said. “What can you do in the next six seconds to affect the game?
“So, when I went out there, I kinda just told the guys, ‘Hey, six seconds at a time. O-line, let’s block inside-out, and I’ll make us right from there.”
Mortensen’s Saban ties run deep. He’s the youngest coach in that tree, and his Alabama background includes time around Jalen Hurts, Tua Tagovailoa, Mac Jones and Bryce Young, along with work under Lane Kiffin and Steve Sarkisian. Burton has bought in completely, and he made that plain long before this victory ever happened, saying last season he would play wherever Mortensen got hired.
Thursday night gave him another stage, and Burton used every inch of it. By the end of it, the hat, the comeback and the overtime win all fit together into one oversized performance from a quarterback who seems perfectly built for the spotlight.
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