UAB Scouting Report
We have never played UAB before. One fun trivia is that we've been to more bowl games (7) than UAB (6).
Ratings:
| Teams | Massey | Sagarin | ESPN |
|---|
| UConn | 95 | 97 | 84 |
| Georgia St | 113 | 120 | 106 |
| Rice | 110 | 100 | 97 |
| UAB | 118 | 119 | 118 |
| Tulsa | 123 | 170 | 131 |
| South Florida | 92 | 89 | 89 |
Note: The reason why Tulsa is 170 in Sagarin is because Sagarin combines both FBS and FCS. Put it another way, there's about 40 FCS teams better than Tulsa.
Rankings:
| Stat | UConn | UAB | Georgia St | Tulsa |
|---|
| Total Offense | 65 | 70 | 60 | 89 |
| Rushing | 25 | 113 | 91 | 83 |
| Passing | 102 | 28 | 41 | 72 |
| Total Defense | 37 | 105 | 106 | 127 |
| Rushing | 51 | 131 | 124 | 62 |
| Passing | 40 | 12 | 44 | 134 |
Team Notes:
UAB is coached by 2nd year head coach Trent Dilfer. That's super bowl winning Trent Dilfer.
Offense:
- UAB is an extreme passing team with 56.71% of their plays being through the air. That's 18th in CFB. Lots, lots of different pass concepts and looks. They are actually a really fun team to watch as a neutral.
- They have a couple studs at QB. QB1 4-star JACOB ZENO, RS SR transfer from Baylor. He's injured and I believe this is his last year of eligibility.
- QB2 is #17 JALEN KITNA. Son of famous NFL QB Jon Kitna. Infamously, mixed up with some sort of child scandal while at Florida. Kid has a tremendous arm. 404 yards, 6TDs, 78% completion, 92.5 QBR against Tulsa. Not as good in his other starts, 42.5 against USF, 33.4 against Army.
- Their workhorse RB is SO #29 LEE BEEBEE JR. 102 carries, 485 total yards, 4.8 yard/carry, 3 TDs. PFF scouts like him a lot. Also has 18 receptions for 162 yards. He's 5'10", 220 lbs and a load to bring down.
- Their WR corp is really good, one of the better ones we've played against. Two studs in RS FR #8 KAM SHANKS (41 recs, 486 yards, 11.9 yards/rec, 4 TDs) and SO #1 AMARE THOMAS (42 recs, 454 yards, 10.8 yards/rec, 8 TDs). They're both speedy and shifty with good hands.
- About 20% of the team's receptions go to their TEs. There is good balance in UAB's passing game.
- OLine is pretty bad. Gives up a sack 7.42% of the time, #95 in sack percentage. Their center, RS SR BRADY WILSON has NFL potential however.
Defense:
- Best (and I use that word loosely) unit on defense is LB. RS SR #15 MICHAEL MOORE, a JUCO transfer, leads the team in tackles.
- Dline is pretty much the definition of a sieve. SR #8 DESMOND LITTLE is an edge defender to look at for. He's the biggest passing rush threat.
- Opponents average 8 yards / reception the few times teams throw against UAB, good (bad?) for #97 in CFB.
My Takes:
Opponents rush 66.94% of the time against UAB. That's an insane stat and worst in all CFB. That's why the passing defense looks so great, teams don't really bother to pass against UAB.
UAB was a really bad matchup for Tulsa. Good passing offense vs the worst passing defense. UConn is a really bad matchup for UAB. Good rush offense vs the worst rush defense. You can say that's because UAB played Navy/Army. But Navy had 225 passing yards on just 9 receptions. Both UAB's passing and rush defense is bad.
UAB plays a simplistic defensive scheme. What you see pre-snap is what you get. Should make the read easier on our young QBs. I've only ever see them in zone. However, their zone to zone communication just isn't there. I've seen so many blown coverages just by having WRs run through multiple zones.
Expect UAB to run a lot of explosive plays to take advantage of Kitna's strong and accurate arm. If Shanks is streaking in a post route, Kitna is looking for him. They also like to do this gadget play with Shanks line up in the slot and motioning across the center. Kitna would then quick snap and toss to Shanks for a sweep.
Teams have disarmed UAB's passing offensive by mixing up their pass rush. This will confuse the oline and their pass protection. Stunts and corner blitzes seem to work especially well.
Our defense was a bit too aggressive against GA ST (cover-0 on a 4th and 1), leading to some explosive plays. UAB has good skill players and QB that knows how to extend plays. Though Kitna will not run often, he will if the pocket collapses and there's green in front of him. So our defenders need to be disciplined.
Our offensive, especially our rush offense needs to show up. This includes designed runs for Evers. A varied rushing attack alone should be enough to overwhelm UAB's defense, which by the way, is not a good tackling defense.
Predictions:
As we've learned from Temple, Rice, GA ST, et al., bad teams can win against really good teams. It's how we have transitive wins against Bama, Texas, and Notre Dame.
This is very much a winnable game for UConn as long as the offense stays on the field and not give UAB's explosive offense too many chances.
35-24 good guys.
