UAB held a scrimmage early Friday morning at Legion Field. It was closed to the media and the public, and statistics were not provided. Head coach Bill Clark was pleased with the preparation and organization, since players had to get dressed and taped at 5 a.m. for a 6 a.m. team meeting and then the scrimmage.

Clark said the team worked its kicking game into the scrimmage and then did situational work, such as third downs, 2-minute drill and coming from out of the goal line.

"I thought our receivers caught the ball well," Clark said. "We went up and made some plays. I thought we had some defensive backs in good position and our receivers made the plays.

"Offensively, we probably put the ball a few times. We're wanting zero. I know Coach (Bryant) Vincent and I had already talked about that coming off the field, the urgency of ball protection and ball security."

Clark has not watched scrimmage film, but was happy with kicker Ty Long and punter Hunter Mullins - two steady forces from the last two years. Long hit a 52-yard field goal.

The defense couldn't hit the quarterbacks, but were allowed to tackle running backs for the first time this spring. Clark said that could have caused some hesitancy.

"We tell them, defensively, that's no excuse," Clark said. "We've got to take this defense that was (ranked) 100-something in all these categories to the defense we want. That's not going to happen overnight but I saw improvement."

UAB had Conference USA officials at the scrimmage and Clark said one complimented him on the team's energy.

"He said, 'Coach, that's the energy you want to see,'" Clark said. "I said, 'Right, it's not where I wanted it but there was a lot of excitement.'

"I'm never where I want to be. We've got so much to worry about, so much to get better at, tempo, volume of reps, but I feel good."