UAB hires Todd Grantham as next defensive coordinator

UAB is set to hire Todd Grantham as its next defensive coordinator, according to On3’s Pete Nakos. Grantham was most recently the DC at Oklahoma State this past season.

In addition to Stillwater, Grantham has also made stops as a defensive coordinator at Georgia (2010-13), Louisville (2014-16), Mississippi State (2017) and Florida (2018-21). He joins the staff of first-year coach Alex Mortensen, who took over as the full-time head coach this month after serving in an interim role.

It wasn’t exactly a year to remember for Grantham in his lone season at Oklahoma State in 2025. The Cowboys ranked 125th in scoring defense and 117th in total defense as they finished with a 1-11 record.

At Georgia, Grantham had one of his best seasons in 2011 when the Bulldogs finished fifth nationally in total defense and second in the SEC with 34 sacks. However, they would only get worse each of the following three seasons. He left at the end of the 2013 season to join Louisville.

From there, he later joined Dan Mullen at Mississippi State and then followed Mullen to Florida when he became the Gators’ head coach. However, when Mullen was fired following the 2021 season, Grantham was not retained. He went on to serve as a defensive line coach for the New Orleans Saints for two seasons in 2023 and 2024.

Grantham also spent one season as a defensive analyst at Alabama under Nick Saban in 2022. He began his coaching career in 1990 at his alma mater of Virginia Tech, serving as a defensive ends coach.

UAB is coming off of a 4-8 season that resulted the firing of coach Trent Dilfer. The Blazers were one of the worst defenses in the country, ranking 135th out of 136 FBS teams in scoring defense as well as 120th in total defense.

Now it will fall upon Todd Grantham to fix those deficiencies in the Blazers defense. His experience should certainly inspire confidence, but the results will need to be a lot better than what we saw this past season at OSU.

UAB has not had a winning season in the past three years, and Grantham will look to be part of changing that. We’ll see what his defense looks like as he gets ready to begin this next chapter of his career.