In the midst of everything that was happening, Ryder Burton never even got to hold the trophy.
This was Oct. 19, 2025, and UAB had just pulled off one of the biggest upsets of the college football season. The Blazers — with Alex Mortensen in his first game ever as a head coach at any level and Burton making his first career collegiate start at quarterback — had just beaten a Memphis team that at that point was the favorite to reach the College Football Playoff from the Group of Six.
Their 31-24 win meant the 94-pound "Battle for the Bones" trophy was staying in Birmingham for the first time since the Memphis-UAB rivalry restarted in 2023.
"It is a heavy trophy," Mortensen said at American Conference media days in late July.
That's probably true
in more ways than one.
That Memphis team had a few players who transferred from UAB to Memphis, including safety Chris Bracy and linebacker Everett Roussaw Jr. The Blazers had "circles on the report" for those guys, Burton said.
"We respect Memphis as a program," Burton said. "They play really hard. They're a very talented football team. Last year they had three or four guys that played with us the previous year . . . Just guys that we were ready to get after a little bit."
Burton said he believes he sometimes gets too much credit for UAB's performance in the game. But it's tough to understate what he did — 20-for-27, 251 yards, three touchdowns and an interception.
UAB finished the season 4-8, but Mortensen did enough to earn the full-time job heading into 2026. Ditto for Burton, who had been Jalen Kitna's backup but now enters the 2026 season as UAB's expected starter. While most preseason projections have the Blazers near the bottom of the conference, there's no question that their trip to Memphis on Oct. 10 will have a little extra juice because of what happened last season.
And this year it'll be the opposite in terms of player movement — the Blazers have three players who were with the Tigers last season.
Memphis has a new coach in Charles Huff and a mostly new roster. Huff and Mortensen actually have a relationship because both were at Alabama in 2019-20. And while Huff wasn't at Memphis in 2025, he said he'll make sure the team understands the history of the rivalry ahead of the game this season.
"I do know the importance of the rivalry," Huff said. "And as we get closer to that game, we'll do some things during the week to make sure even though in a transfer portal-heavy world, all the kids in that team room understand the importance of that game to so many people. Some of them may not know about the rivalry yet."
Memphis is 7-11 all-time against UAB. There are few players from the Memphis side who played in the game who will still be there this fall. Burton doesn't think that'll affect the intensity, though.
"Coach Huff's going to have those boys ready to roll," he said. "He's instilling a program where it doesn't matter who they're playing on any given Saturday, they're still going to be ready to roll. But obviously there's still going to be some kids that remember what happened last year. I mean, it was point-blank settled, they were going to have 'College GameDay' if they beat us. So I'm sure there's a lot of hard feelings there. And I don't think I'd have it any other way."
Reach sports writer Jonah Dylan at jonah.dylan@commercialappeal.com or on X @thejonahdylan.
This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Why UAB is expecting 'hard feelings' ahead of Memphis football rivalry game in 2026
