ATLANTA — When the football program at the University of Alabama, Birmingham, was shut down and boarded up last December, the issue that preoccupied many people nationally was the cost of major-college football and the politics that can surround any decision related to the most popular sport on campus.
Almost unnoticed in the debate among fans, bureaucrats and educators was a robust roster of U.A.B. players — runners, tacklers, receivers — who sat in stunned silence when they were told the program was being eliminated.
“We knew what we had, we had ballplayers,” tight end Gerald Everett said. “We were building a dream team at U.A.B., and had momentum. When they told us it was shutting down, we sat there in disbelief because it was just a couple of days after we had clinched a bowl berth. It was disappointing we couldn’t keep it going.”
The players, however, did keep it going. Elsewhere.
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About 50 U.A.B. players restarted their careers at other colleges this fall. Many were starters for the Blazers who stepped in to plug holes, lend experience and add depth to their new teams.
Everett, a 6-foot-4 tight end with 4.6 speed in the 40-yard dash, transferred to South Alabama, where he leads the Jaguars with 18 receptions through four games. Safety Bobby Baker and linebacker Alonzo McGee wound up at Georgia State; Baker intercepted two passes and recovered three fumbles in a season-opening loss to Charlotte, and McGee is one of the team’s top tacklers.
Other former Blazers are making bigger splashes. Running back Jordan Howard chose Indiana, where he leads the nation in rushing with 675 yards in four games. And Jake Ganus, a 6-2, 237-pound inside linebacker, transferred to Georgia, where he will call the defensive signals for the eighth-ranked Bulldogs (4-0) when they host No. 13 Alabama (3-1) on Saturday.
“Look around at what guys are doing,” Everett said. “You can see now what kind of players we had.”
Howard, for example, had any number of midmajor and high-major programs reach out, and he was ambitious rather than intimidated by the prospect of stepping up a level into a major conference like the Big Ten. An Alabama native, he picked Indiana, where he is averaging 6.1 yards per carry for an unbeaten Hoosiers team (4-0) that will face its biggest test of the season on Saturday when it hosts top-ranked Ohio State.
“Some schools were telling me that it didn’t matter what level I played at after U.A.B., that I could still make it to the N.F.L., but I felt like I wanted a bigger challenge, like the Big Ten,” Howard said. “I wanted to prove I was as good as I thought I was.”
Howard said Indiana’s strength and conditioning program has helped him gain 70 pounds on his bench press from his days at U.A.B. But he also said the fact that the Hoosiers’ offense fit his style, since it was similar to what U.A.B. ran, was a factor in his decision on a new program.
Ganus said he felt some derision when he decided to transfer to Georgia — and the SEC — from Conference USA. Once a 175-pound quarterback from Chelsea, Ala., Ganus had not been recruited by the so-called Power 5 conference programs out of high school. So he built himself into a sturdy safety, and then a linebacker, in three seasons at U.A.B.
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“When I got here in the spring people probably thought, oh, he’s just a charity case,” Ganus said. He smiled wide as he thought back to his arrival in Athens, and about the concerns that he was merely a plucky kid from a smaller program who would get squashed in the big, bad SEC.
“People said, ‘Oh, maybe you’ll get a chance to play some special teams,’ ” he said.
Instead, Ganus, now a 235-pound inside linebacker, is a starter who ranks third on the Bulldogs in tackles.
Everett was one of 11 U.A.B. players who transferred to South Alabama. Receivers Josh Magee and D.J. Vinson, who joined him there, have combined for 20 receptions, and Cameron Blankenship, a 6-foot-5, 305-pounder who was a three-year letter winner at U.A.B., has started every game at right guard.
Like Howard at Indiana, Everett said finding the right fit guided his thinking as he decided where to transfer.
“This is very similar to the culture we had at U.A.B.: coaches are tough on you, they demand a lot,” Everett said. “I didn’t have a problem fitting in with that.”
While they have gone their separate ways athletically, the former teammates say they keep up with one another through Twitter (#Blazers) and text messages. And while they will not return to U.A.B., football will.
U.A.B. decided this summer to bring back its program. Bill Clark, who was the coach when the program disbanded, was given a five-year contract, and he and his coaches are recruiting a new team that will resume play for the 2017 season.
In the meantime, the most memorable performance on or off the field may have been provided by Ganus, who took a knee at midfield at Sanford Stadium after Georgia’s 52-20 win over South Carolina on Sept. 19 and proposed to his high school sweetheart, Peyton Thomas. Ganus shared photos of the moment on his Instagram account, and video of the moment became a viral hit in the South.
The decision, he said, was an easy one.
“I knew what she was going to say,” Ganus said.
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