Blazers

Protective Stadium seats 47,100 in downtown Birmingham, and the Blazers moved there as tenants alongside the rest of the city's football scene. Founded in 1991 as a Division III independent, the team was shut down after the 2014 season, sat out 2015 and 2016 entirely, and came back in 2017.

What followed the return is the part worth telling. In 2018 UAB won the Conference USA Championship, beating Middle Tennessee 27–25, then closed the year by taking the Cheribundi Boca Raton Bowl over Northern Illinois. The conference title came again in 2020, a 22–13 win against Marshall, and the bowl habit continued into the Independence Bowl against BYU in 2021 and the Bahamas Bowl against Miami (Ohio) in 2022.

The name itself came from students, chosen by a campus vote in January 1978 on the idea that the teams would blaze a trail through college athletics, and the dragon mascot, Blaze, joined in 1996 to give the nickname a face. Among the players who moved through the program, Roddy White stands out: a receiver from 2001 to 2004 who went on to eleven NFL seasons with the Atlanta Falcons and four Pro Bowl selections.