Roundup: Friday, December 27th

The return of a leading wide receiver and two rumored football staff hires.

TODAY IN UAB HISTORY

1985: Gene Bartow gets revenge on an old nemesis

Even before postseason play began, the 1976-1977 UCLA men’s basketball team didn’t live up to the standard of dominance John Wooden had established during his 27-year tenure at the school. Yes, the Bruins posted a 23-4 record during their second season under Gene Bartow, and yes, they won the Pac-8 by an impressive margin. However, the UCLA faithful, spoiled rotten by the Wizard of Westwood, weren’t satisfied with anything but perfection. Bartow’s inaugural season, in which UCLA merely finished third place in the nation, had already been bad enough in the eyes of Bruins fans — four more regular-season losses were absolutely unacceptable. By the end of the 1976-1977 campaign, Bartow had begun to receive boos during introductions at Pauley Pavilion.

Nevertheless, UCLA entered the NCAA Tournament as the nation’s second-ranked team. A potential Elite Eight meeting between the Bruins and #5 UNLV sent waves of excitement through the tournament’s observers, as Rebels coach Jerry Tarkanian, who lost three tournament games to UCLA during his tenure at Long Beach State, would finally get his shot at revenge.

Dreams of a made-for-TV matchup were quickly crushed, however, when Bartow’s squad was shocked by coach Jim Killingsworth’s Idaho State Bengals in the Sweet Sixteen. The cataclysmic loss marked the first time in over a decade UCLA failed to reach the Final Four. Faced with rumors that alumni were trying to raise money to buy out his contract, an exhausted, stressed-out Bartow decided to leave Southern California to start the athletic department at UAB.

Eight years later, Bartow and Killingsworth found themselves in far different circumstances: the former was now the well-appreciated head coach of a nationally ranked Blazer team, while the latter had departed Idaho State to take over at TCU. On December 27th, 1985, the two programs met in the first round of the UNLV Holiday Classic in Las Vegas. Again the underdog, Killingsworth couldn’t replicate the magic of the ‘77 tournament, as UAB leaned on impressive performances from guard James Ponder and forward Anthony “Big Jack” Gordon to defeat the Horned Frogs by a score of 69-62.

“It was like Jack would just jump up there and say, ‘Hey, why are you guys jumping? This belongs to me,” guard Steve Mitchell said of Gordon, who finished the night with 16 rebounds.

As a team, UAB made a miserable 15 of its 33 free throw attempts, but Ponder saved the day, going 5/5 from the charity stripe in the game’s last minute to secure a Blazer victory.

“I wanted the ball because I thought I could make free throws when everybody else was missing them,” said Ponder, who scored a game-high 22 points. “At the end, Coach [Bartow] told them to get the ball to me.”

FOOTBALL

• Matt Zenitz of CBS Sports is reporting that Trent Dilfer intends to hire Brent Vieselmeyer as UAB’s linebackers coach and Sam Mills III as UAB’s defensive line coach.

  • Vieselmeyer has over a decade of experience at the high school level, having coached Christian McCaffrey at Valor Christian High School. He was also a Raiders assistant from 2015-2017 and a Commanders assistant from 2020-2022.

    • Vieselmeyer’s only college coaching experience came in 2013-2014, when he was the co-DC for FCS Houston Baptist, and in 2018, when he was an offensive analyst for Kansas.

  • Mills III’s 19-year coaching career has taken place entirely within the NFL. The son of Hall of Fame linebacker Sam Mills, Mills III spent 2005-2019 as a Carolina Panthers assistant before spending 2020-2021 as the Commanders’ defensive line coach.

  • If hired, Mills and Vieselmeyer will join new defensive coordinator Steve Russ and new defensive assistant Ryan Lewis on Dilfer’s revamped defensive staff.

• UAB WR Corri Milliner, who entered the transfer portal last Saturday, announced his withdrawal from the transfer portal yesterday.

  • Milliner, who signed with UAB as a freshman out of Alexander City in 2023, recorded 455 receiving yards in the last six games of the 2024 season. He becomes the Blazers’ most productive returning WR.

  • Milliner joins Xavier Daisy, Iverson Hooks, Joshua Jackson, and incoming Iowa transfer Kaleb Brown as the top options in the receiver room.

• In the wake of Monday’s NCAA waiver that gave him an extra year of eligibility, UAB OL Quez Yates entered the transfer portal yesterday.

  • Yates came to UAB from Jones College (JUCO) in 2022. Yates was one of UAB’s more productive linemen during his time in Birmingham, appearing in 28 games.

  • Yates joins UAB TE Bryce Damous in using his extra eligibility to enter the portal.

  • With Milliner’s withdrawal and Yates’ entry, UAB’s number of portal players remains at 31. A full list can be found at The Banner.

    • The list is missing Yates, Damous, DT Miquon Merriweather, and OL Baron Franks II.

    • The list also includes DB AJ Brown, who withdrew from the portal on Monday.

  • It seems as though RB Isaiah Jacobs, LB Michael Moore, QB Carter Putt, and LB Joker Gill will also be given extra eligibility by the waiver. It is yet unclear what any of them intend to do with it.

    • Gill declared for the NFL Draft before the NCAA waiver was granted, but he is not bound by that decision — Yates also declared for the draft before the NCAA waiver was granted.