Following his first press conference as the new head football coach at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Alex Mortensen was asked what his late father — legendary ESPN sports journalist Chris Mortensen — might ask.

“That’s a great question. I don’t know what he would ask me,” the coach said. “He’d probably ask me about a few play calls from some games, and say, ‘What were you thinking right there?’ Yeah, I think my dad would be very encouraging, supportive. But I can’t imagine what he would ask me as a member of the media right now. Who knows?”

The college coaching carousel that spun wildly through the state of Alabama came to a stop this week as the last of the coaching hires were announced.

Samford University selected former Jacksonville State coach John Grass to succeed Chris Hatcher, and Auburn University tabbed former South Florida coach Alex Golesh to replace fired coach Hugh Freeze.

Golesh took the Bulls from 1-11 in 2022 to 7-6 in 2023. The 41-year-old amassed an overall South Florida record of 23-15 in three seasons. That includes 9-3 this season, which is the program’s best since 2017.

Mortensen, an assistant to former Alabama coach Nick Saban as his Crimson Tide won the 2015 national championship, had served as the interim head coach of the Blazers after Trent Dilfer was fired. The new coach’s interim tenure began with a 31-24 upset of No. 22 and previously unbeaten Memphis. UAB went 2-4 in Mortensen’s four games at the helm, closing out the season with a 31-24 win at Tulsa.

“I’ll admit I put on the best front I could,” the 40-year-old said. “I’d get in front of the cameras and come and do a press conference, and was disappointed too, to be frank with you. (I) fought fear, anxiety, all those things.

“But the one thing I will tell you is, when we got to game day and the centers and quarterbacks ran out for warm up and I jogged out of the tunnel, as soon as my feet hit the field, it was all gone,” he said. “It just reminded me how much fun this is to compete and play. I think that moment, really, that moment alone, really helped me a lot.”

Mortensen said it didn’t cross his mind that being interim head coach was an audition for the permanent job.

“I think there was maybe a point early where, maybe after the win, you go, ‘Wow. We have a little momentum here. Maybe there is an opportunity if we have some amount of success,’” he said. “But really it was like 90 to nothing. We could barely see past our nose. And wearing multiple hats (offensive coordinator and head coach) in the middle of the season, it was just really trying to accomplish the next task one day at a time.

“I’ll go back to when it when I first took on that responsibility,” the coach said. “The No. 1 objective was, these seniors have six games left of football. The mindset of our staff was whatever the future holds, let’s make sure we give them the best six games possible. Let’s serve them the best we can and whatever the future holds, it holds.”

UAB President Ray Watts thanked Athletic Director Mark Ingram and the search committee and called Mortenson an “exciting hire in the midst of what will likely be one of the most competitive coaching carousels in the history of athletics.” He called Mortensen a rising star in college football.

“Coach Mortensen embodies the spirit of UAB in our teams,” Watts said. “He has shown how resilient he is and how serious he is about winning. (At the) same time, he’s very serious about the welfare of our student athletes and is the kind of person that players and their parents trust and respect.

“I also look forward to seeing coach Mortensen build our program further and realize the great potential that we know that we have,” the president said. “To that end, the university plans to commit additional resources in athletics to help increase the investments in areas coach Mortensen prioritizes. We have done that quietly behind the scenes every year, but we plan to do more this year.”

Mortensen began his college playing career as a quarterback at the University of Arkansas before transferring to Samford, then returning to Arkansas to finish. He was signed by the Tennessee Titans as an undrafted free agent in 2009.

A day before the UAB press conference, Samford introduced a familiar name to the state’s football community. Grass was at Jacksonville State for eight years, the first as assistant head coach and offensive coordinator and the next seven as head coach. Since ending his Gamecocks tenure in 2021, Grass has been an analyst on the football staff at Clemson.

The coach returned to Clemson following Thursday’s press conference to complete his work with the Tigers before assuming his role at Samford. Athletic Director Martin Newton summed up the Bulldogs’ criteria.

“We wanted somebody with head coaching experience, somebody that had a true, proven track record of wins. We wanted somebody that had deep roots in the state of Alabama and somebody that had relationships in this local community,” he said. “But, most importantly, we wanted somebody that understood, believed and embraced the Christian mission of this university. John Gross is that someone and we’re excited that he’s here.”

Grass said he’s glad to get back to the Football Championship Subdivision, “the purest level of football left out there.”

“I’ve always admired the way Samford ran their business as a university,” he said. “I think it’s one of the few Christian universities across the country that still has Jesus at the front door, and that means something to me.”