A decade-plus NFL career that started with a top-10 draft selection and included Pro Bowl trips and Super Bowl hardware. A natural slide into a tell-it-like-is TV career. A pivot to coaching high school football. And then, a stunning move straight from high school to a Division I head coaching appointment.
"I think it's a little unfair because Deion was such a better player than me," Dilfer says with a chuckle. "I feel bad that he got looped in to being the same as me."
"And we do it differently. I'm not nearly as outspoken as him, I'm just transparent. I think people mistake me for being overly bold and arrogant when I'm really just being transparent. I'm really just pulling the veil off."
To be fair, that's exactly the type of thing Deion would say.
"Where I think we're kindred spirits is that we don't need to do this. I think there's power when you don't need to do something. The Man doesn't dictate your perspective, so to speak. We are going to do it they way we feel, and it's going to be different. We're not worried about the next job. I'm not interviewing for something else, coaching at UAB."
Dilfer did not volunteer his portfolio with me, but SporTrac lists his career earnings at $27.05 million across 14 NFL seasons, plus his near-decade as an NFL analyst during ESPN's golden years.
Dilfer has also spoken openly about how he did not go seeking the UAB job. Had it been up to him, Dilfer says, he'd still be at Lipscomb Academy; it was his wife, Cassandra, who pushed him to take a meeting with UAD AD Mark Ingram. "I think that's one of the things Mark liked about me. 'Why are you here? I'm coaching high school football and I'm going to be a grandpa. That's my life plan.'"
"I have three analysts and two GAs right now that will be head coaches. They're big time. I would agree they're doing it the 'right way.' I believe in the existing model, but I don't believe it's the only model."
Dilfer described Brian Griese, a longtime ESPN college football and NFL analyst who became the San Francisco 49ers quarterbacks coach last season, as "probably the best quarterbacks coach in the NFL." Dan Orlovsky, Tim Hasselbeck and Mark Schlereth were mentioned as analysts who could successfully trade an earpiece and a lapel mic for a headset. (The Indianapolis Colts tried to do what Jackson State and UAB did with Jeff Saturday last season, but the move didn't stick.) Marshall Faulk, however, would not make a great coach in Dilfer's opinion because, as the fastest player in NFL history to 17,000 scrimmage yards, he didn't have "the common player's experience."
"I think there's some very distinct qualities that you have to have," he said. "You have to have been a good player, have gone through massive adversity. You have to have then been an analyst for global football, you have to look at it look at it from 30,000 feet. You can't be the guy on TV that only talks about wide receivers. I think you have to talk about it, study it, you have to have close connections with coaches in the game to understand the challenges and the dynamics of coaching. If you've done those two things then yeah, I think you have an advantage when you go coach."
You're likely wondering how a certain someone fits this criteria. Despite being the only human being to ever play in the Super Bowl and the World Series, Sanders had the "common player's experience" after first experience a turf toe injury in 1998 and playing another seven seasons afterward.
"He was a cripple, and yet he was still the best corner in football. He was no longer relying on length, speed, athleticism," Dilfer said. "He was relying on scheme adjustments, craft, nuance. He's able to teach that as a head coach. He's able to teach his coaches that. That's really what we all do as coaches, we coach our coaches."
But what about the other side of the equation? Deion winning at Colorado is one thing, but if he and Dilfer win at their respective jobs, it will open up other opportunities for a group I'll call insta-coaches. Guys who use their star power as players and coaches, their skills as communicators and, yes, the security of their riches to cut the line to the sacred number of FBS head coaching jobs. Climbing the GA-position coach-coordinator mountain to one of the 133 FBS head coaching jobs is already difficult enough. If Colorado and UAB win this season and beyond, the mountain-climbing coaches won't just have to compete with other mountain climbers, they'll have to race against guys that took a chair lift to the summit.
Does Dilfer care? Should he? Is that his problem? Is that even a problem at all?
"Our kids need good humans," he said. "They need men that have failed in life, that have picked themselves up, that can relate to them, connect with them and nurture them as they go through challenges. The challenges of being a college athlete right now are immense, way more so than what we dealt with. Football needs more men that care about the kid instead of the job."