AGGIES

Aggies' next challenge: red-hot Blazers

Suzanne Halliburton
shalliburton@statesman.com
Texas A&M tailback Trayveon Williams is leading the SEC with 115.9 rushing yards a game. But the Aggies are about to play surging Alabama-Birmingham, which fields one of the top defenses in the country. [DAVID J. PHILLIP/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS]

COLLEGE STATION — Jimbo Fisher wasn't trying to be hyperbolic. He wasn't providing the perfunctory fake praise of Alabama-Birmingham because the team is next on Texas A&M's schedule.

"They're like an SEC team," Fisher said Monday.

SEC team, really?

Maybe that's not an exaggeration. The Blazers are 9-1 and the owners of an eight-game winning streak. They already have earned a spot in the Conference USA championship game. And they fought their way into the national rankings this week, premiering at No. 25 in the Coaches Poll. It's only the second time in program history that the Blazers have been ranked.

They've got a ferocious defense that's leading the country with 38 sacks. And their star running back ranks fifth nationally in scoring touchdowns.

SEC teams typically schedule a gimme game in mid-November. It allows them to relax for a week. A&M fullback Cullen Gillaspia described these sorts of mid-November contests as a way to boost their bowl prestige.

But not this one, Gillaspia said. "This game is going to be a dogfight."

The UAB program was resurrected in 2017, three years after the school president killed it in a much-criticized move to save money. After millions of dollars were raised, the school announced in 2015 that the football team would be revived, but not until 2017. Since the Blazers restarted play, they're 17-6 overall and 13-2 in conference.

Fisher said it makes sense that UAB would be a quality team. He said the school is positioned in football's mecca. 

Fisher would know far better than most. He almost became the head coach of the Blazers back in 2007.

UAB coach Watson Brown, Mack Brown's older brother, resigned in December 2006. He was two years removed from leading the Blazers to their first bowl game.

UAB tried to promote Pat Sullivan, the team's offensive coordinator and the former Auburn quarterback who won the Heisman in 1971. But the University of Alabama System Board of Trustees, which has responsibility over the Birmingham campus, nixed the move.

Then UAB targeted Fisher, the LSU offensive coordinator under Les Miles. Fisher had agreed to a contract worth $600,000 annually — half the money would be paid by boosters — and the school was chartering a jet to fetch him from Baton Rouge for an introductory press conference. But the Alabama trustees also stopped that hire, saying Fisher's contract was too expensive.

However, there was talk that the trustees blocked the move because they wanted to keep him available for Nick Saban, who was hired by the Crimson Tide in January 2007. Fisher had been Saban's offensive coordinator at LSU for five seasons.

In hindsight, the football universe directed Fisher on the right path. Rather than taking over his own program at UAB, he left LSU to work for Bobby Bowden as Florida State's offensive coordinator. Fisher became head coach of the Seminoles in 2010 and led them to a national title in 2013. He's 10 games into his first season at A&M. 

Bill Clark is the coach at UAB. He was a dominating high school coach in Alabama. In his first year with Jacksonville State in 2013, he led the team to the FCS quarterfinals. Clark was hired by UAB in 2014 and directed the Blazers to a 6-6 record. He stayed through the two-year football hiatus.

Although Fisher likens UAB to an SEC team, oddsmakers have established the Aggies as a two-touchdown favorite. It will serve as A&M's official senior day, although the Aggies still have another home game.

"They are a very good football team," A&M tailback Kwame Etwi said. "You cannot take them lightly. Their record says it all."