Mark Ingram is out at UAB, and that alone changes the mood around the program.
The school and its longtime athletics director agreed to “part ways” on Tuesday, ending a tenure that had become a lightning rod for frustration on the Southside. For a fan base that has spent years seething at Ingram, the move lands like a release valve finally getting opened.
It also arrives at a strange moment on the calendar, right on the edge of football season. But at UAB, there’s no appetite for mourning the timing. The sense is that this was overdue.
Ingram’s exit also brings a fresh wave of optimism for a program that badly wants to turn the page. The football team opens the season on Thursday, Sept. 3, with an away game against Illinois, and Week 2 brings Louisiana-Monroe to Protective Stadium for a 2:30 p.m. kickoff.
There’s at least one reason to be interested in what comes next on the field: Ryder Burton. He stunned No.
25 Memphis last season in his first career start, in the first game after former coach Trent Dilfer was fired. That performance already has a place in UAB lore, and it gave the Blazers a quarterback with the kind of charisma and swagger that can carry a season’s worth of hope.
Ingram’s departure was years in the making. He was the athletic director who hired Dilfer, and he was also in charge when Bill Clark was pushed out after Clark had revived the football program, won two C-USA championships and helped drive UAB’s move to the American Athletic Conference.
Football wasn’t the only mess on his watch, either. The softball scandal involving the coach and her players was the latest blow, and apparently the one that proved too much for the administration to keep ignoring.
For now, Andy Kennedy is serving as interim athletics director, and that gives UAB a temporary bridge while the school figures out what comes next. The idea of Kennedy in the role has obvious appeal: he’s a Gene Bartow guy, a UAB alum and someone the city already embraces.
If the job has to go beyond the interim stage, the list of possible names gets interesting fast. Bill Clark would be the first choice for one side of the argument, while former Auburn coach Gus Malzahn could fit the bill for another. Former UAB senior associate athletics director Marla Townsend also gets a mention as someone who knows and loves the Blazers deeply.
And then there’s the wild card: Nick Saban. The thought sounds far-fetched, but the idea has been floated because Saban is now said to be a fan of UAB with his protégé, Alex Mortensen, coaching the football team.
Absurd? Sure. But after everything that’s happened, UAB is suddenly in a place where even a fantasy like that can get some traction.
The other pieces are moving too. The softball team already has a new coach, and there’s even hope that the soccer teams might finally be allowed to plant grass on their field.
For a program that has spent too much time fighting old battles, that’s a lot of change in a hurry. And right now, at least, the mood around UAB is better than it’s been in a long time.
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