Bryant Vincent said during his radio show on Monday that he had a 45-minute conversation earlier in the day with the Conference USA officials on Monday about several calls during his team’s 28-24 loss to Rice
“I can tell you this, I’m just going to be real with you,” Vincent said while talking with David Crane on Blazers Sportsline. “I think that the first touchdown, I don’t think they ever scored. But, it is what it is, it doesn’t matter. You still deal with it. You have to overcome adversity, you have to overcome the things that happen. I sent in six plays off that game (on Sunday) and six plays were verified.”
Vincent then detailed a situation on Rice’s final possession when the Owls were running the clock down. Vincent said the Blazers got a third down stop on a play that a penalty was called on the Owls.
“I declined the penalty because it made it fourth down,” Vincent recalled. “If we had accepted it, they would have continued to be able to run the clock. Rule 3-4-3, says (if) the offense commits a penalty under two minutes and you decline the penalty to make it fourth down, the white hat is supposed to come to the head coach and give you the option to stop the clock or to keep it running. I was never given that option and we lost 28 seconds there at the end of the game and that matters.”
At that point, Vincent said, “I’ll stop there.”
Not long after, he started back.
“It was extremely frustrating to me because I’m trying to figure out if we’re going to review a certain number of plays or not,” Vincent said. “I’m asking, ‘Are we going to review it, are we going to review it, are we going to review it,’ and then I got to burn timeouts for somebody to talk to me. That was extremely frustrating.”
Vincent said his team needs to turn the frustration into something positive.
“It doesn’t matter what’s thrown at you,” Vincent said. “You handle it, you overcome it, you stick together, you find a way, because that’s what life is. This book hasn’t been written yet, that’s a chapter in this season. If you’re true to UAB, if you love UAB, there’s a saying that’s been said around here and has been said around here a long time, ‘Ever faithful, ever loyal.’ No matter what we go through, we stay faithful, stay loyal, stay the course, stay together. Unfortunately, we’ve been here before and you don’t get to where you’re at, unless you go through tough times and you have adversity and you step back. I know I’ve said that, but it’s real.”
Earlier in the day, during a press conference that largely focused on this week’s Children’s Harbor game against Middle Tennessee, Vincent talked about his team’s second half struggles to remain composed against Rice.
“I felt like we let our emotions stray away from us in the second half and really got caught up,” Vincent explained. “We’ve got to maintain our focus and we’ve got to work on staying the course and being able to execute the next play. That was a tough one, it was a tough one last year (to Rice). Every loss is a tough loss here because that’s something we’re not used to doing here at UAB and it’s something we’re not going to get accustomed to at UAB.”
The reality is that UAB is 2-2 overall and 0-1 in Conference USA. The Blazers have not been below .500 at any point since the return of football in 2017.
“We’re not backing down from where we’re at, we’re not making excuses where we’re at,” Vincent said on Blazer Sportsline. “We don’t like where we’re at. Nobody’s happy, nobody’s fired up. We’re upset and we’re mad. What are we going to do about it? That’s the key. We can sit here and we can fuss and blame, point fingers, do all that, but that’s not productive. What’s productive is the work we put in daily and the support and the love and that we keep this team fighting for this university and this town. What we do this coming Saturday is the answer for the first step.”
To connect with the author of this story, or to comment, email steve.irvine@1819news.com.
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