Head coach Bill Clark will meet with university president Dr. Ray Watts on Monday, and the athletics department plans to march on Watts' office on Tuesday, but it appears the minds of UAB's president and the University of Alabama system have been made up: UAB football is about to be shut down. Word officially from Thayer Evans of Sports Illustrated and Dan Wolken of USA Today on Sunday afternoon that the program will be shut down, and that athletics director Brian Mackin will be fired in the process.
Clark will give it a last-ditch effort to save the program, but he knows the writing is on the wall, and it's written in permanent ink.
In a time when programs are marching into FBS in record numbers, the Blazers will become the first major college program in nearly 20 years to drop football.
According to Wolken, the entire program could be forced to leave Conference USA without football.
"Barring a last-minute reversal in the decision-making process, it's unclear what shutting down football would mean for UAB's athletic future," Wolken writes. "Another person with direct knowledge of Conference USA matters told USA TODAY Sports that the league's commissioner, Britton Banowsky, did not have enough support among school presidents to keep UAB in the league without football."
Sources tell FootballScoop that "there will be challenges and lawsuits." Players will challenge this. Coaches contracts weren't what they were told they would be from the administration. All sorts of issues here. Perhaps the granddaddy of them all though is the potential for an investigation into this process and what that will reveal and could lead to for the Board of Trustees for the University of Alabama system. We will update...
Head coach Bill Clark plans to meet with the University President tomorrow. Clark just offered this up...
Hopefully his meeting can change this course. As always, we'll keep you updated on The Scoop.