Sorry, I can’t pull punches. I’ve had only a couple experiences with Dilfer and each time I came away thinking what a narcissist I was dealing with. And his constant public outbursts are an example of a man who blames everyone else and is never held accountable for his actions.
It started with this in 2021 when he was a high school coach at Lipscomb Academy
https://twitter.com/NFL_DovKleiman/status/1431732741909929985
And has escalated to this as a college head coach.
https://twitter.com/awfulannouncing/status/1708200878585655358
And now Dilfer says he’s sorry for the latter.
“I’m regretful about it. I’m a passionate guy… Anybody that’s ever been around me as a player, as a coach, at ESPN… I mean, my kids will tell you this, I am a passionate, passionate person. Sometimes, that passion comes out in ways that I am not proud of. And that’s a moment that I am not proud of. One, I wasn’t just mad at that singular coach. We do have headphones on, so every person—22 people—were getting the message that that was unacceptable.”
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He continued…
“Now, I could’ve done that in a better way, and I’ll learn from it, like I’ve learned from my mistakes in the past. I don”t really get caught up in what people say. I’ve woken up to a lot worse things to that. I’ve been booed out of stadiums. I’ve had people lie about my character multiple times. I don’t get too caught up in that stuff, but I’m very concerned about the 200 people in this building [and] about the people we represent in the city of Birmingham, and that’s not what I want their head coach to be remembered for. Now, I am going to be passionate, and there may be other times that I’m stern, but that one was over-the-top, and I regret it.”
So he learned from the first mistake in high school? Nope. Listen, I’m sure the kid in the high school video mouthed off to him and I’m sure a few of the coaches this past weekend screwed up with personnel groupings that led to a crucial illegal substitution penalty. But this man just can’t keep his cool. Here’s one example. While covering the Elite 11 years and years ago, an event he ruined, as it was well run previously by Bob Johnson, I did my usual top performers after one day. I put a caveat in there that it was a hard evaluation to make because so few passes were being thrown and there was so much emphasis on teaching and chalk talk and also disagreed with the end-of-day rankings. Lo and behold Dilfer somehow got my phone number, called me, and railed me for about an hour about how he was a professional QB and won a Super Bowl. He insisted I sit in on the next chalk talk session the next day to learn how to evaluate QBs properly and so on. I, of course, didn’t listen much to what he said but was astounded at the level of anger and narcissism that spewed through the phone. To the point where I called a few colleagues at ESPN after the event to gauge if this was how Dilfer really was. Opinions were mixed as some defended him and others said he’s tough to deal with.
Through the years I heard more and more about Dilfer run-ins from people and once he became a high school coach and that video went viral, it didn’t shock me. Many of us knew he was unhinged and had a ridiculous temper and now we are seeing it play out in college.
My pre-season Group of Five hire grades included this review of the Dilfer hire by UAB…
Trent Dilfer, UAB — C — He’s obviously got NFL experience but this is an odd hire to me from high school to college. He can’t get out of his own way so this could be a disaster.
A “C” was kinda being nice but I’m a nice guy. He’s 1-4 so far and likely to lose his next three games to start his career at 1-7. Dilfer was a solid QB (but FYI never tell him he’s the worst QB to win a Super Bowl) and he knows more about football and playing QB than I do. But he always thinks he’s the smartest guy in the room and will berate anyone who disagrees with him. And now everyone is starting to see what many of us already knew. Trent Dilfer is a tool.
