Neil Callaway is in his third season as UAB's head coach (photo by uabsports.com).

The SMU Mustangs will try to improve to 2-0 on the season Saturday when they take on the UAB Blazers at 3 p.m. (central time) Saturday afternoon at Legion Field in Birmingham, Ala., in a game that can be heard live on KTCK (1310 AM).

The Ponies have won both previous meetings between the teams. In 2006, linebacker Tony Hawkins returned a late interception to seal a 22-9 victory over the Blazers. A year after quarterback Jerad Romo guided his team on an 80-yard drive in just 23 seconds and found wide receiver Bobby Chase in the left side of the end zone with a touchdown pass in the closing seconds to give SMU one of the most dramatic victories in school history, 28-27, at Legion Field.

Both teams enter the game with 1-0 records. SMU knocked off Stephen F. Austin, 31-23, while UAB dumped Rice, 44-24.

OFFENSE

In the Blazers’ win over the Owls, quarterback Joe Webb put on a show, rushing for 194 yards and two touchdowns and passing for 221 and another pair of scores to lead his team to the relatively easy win. The 6-foot-4, 220-pound senior, named to the Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award Watch List, is one of the most dynamic signal-callers in the country. A year ago, he broke the Conference USA record for rushing yards by a quarterback with 1,021, and passed for 2,367 yards, throwing 10 touchdowns and 16 interceptions. His 1,021 rushing yards were the second-highest single-season rushing total in UAB history, and he eclipsed the 100-yard rushing mark in four games as a junior.

Quarterback Joe Webb had 415 yards of total offense last week against Rice (photo by uabsports.com).

Not surprisingly, Webb is the focus of the Mustangs’ defensive plan for Saturday’s C-USA opener.

“He’s kept me up a couple of nights, but that’s because he’s a very good football player,” SMU defensive coordinator Tom Mason joked.

“He’s kind of a Michael Vick-type guy, or (former University of Oregon star and current backup Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback) Dennis Dixon — he’s exactly like Dixon. He had 221 yards passing and 194 rushing against Rice, so that accounts for almost all of their offense. So the ball goes through him right now, and the guy’s really good. You’ve got to put your best guys on him, and hopefully tackle him well. We’ll switch up who’s got him. We’ll put a’backer on him, put a safety on him — things like that. He’s that kind of athlete, so there’s going to be some challenges, schematically, to handle him.”

Strong safety Rock Dennis, the reigning C-USA Defensive Player of the Week, said the challenges Webb presents for the SMU offense are obvious.

“He’s a big quarterback, (and) he’s a real good athlete — he took Rice for (about) 400 yards by himself,” Dennis said. “I wouldn’t say a Michael Vick type … I’d say more of a Vince Young, because he doesn’t seem as fast, but he has a long stride so he covers a lot more ground than you think he is. He just takes charge of the game by himself.

“You’ve got to keep ‘contain,’ always. You can’t let him escape outside the pocket, because he likes to keep plays alive with his feet, and as long as he does that, there’s always going to be options available. He can beat you with his arm, but he also can beat you with his legs, so you’ve got a double-edged sword. So as long as we stay in coverage and isolate someone on him, we’ll be fine.”

Dennis also was quick to caution that as potent as Webb is, he is not the entire UAB offense, and he is more than just a running threat.

“He’ll take shots down the field,” Dennis said. “They love the post routes, the skinny posts and the four ‘verts’ … and they have big receivers. They’re all above six foot, and all our DBs are … not. So it will be a challenge.

Center Jake Seitz is on the watch lists for the Rimington Award (top center) and the Lombardi Award (top lineman) (photo by uabsports.com).

“It’s not a one-man offense. He has good line protection — they do a really good job. Like (sophomore left tackle Matt McCants) — he does a really good job keeping people from going outside, around him. Their receivers are pretty good. They’re tall, so they’ll up and get the ball and make plays.”

McCants is fairly quick for a player of his size (6-7, 295), but the anchor of the UAB line is in the middle, where senior Jake Seitz is among the elite centers in the country, and has been named to the watch lists for the Rimington Trophy (given annually to the nation’s top center) and Lombardi Award (given to the nation’s top lineman). The Blazers’ starting offensive line averages nearly 6-foot-4 and 295 pounds per man.

The Blazers’ base offense features a three-wide receiver set. The Blazers’ primary downfield threat is junior wideout Frantrell Forrest (6-2, 195), who had a team-leading four catches against Rice and needs one reception to reach the 100-catch mark for his career. The other projected starters also are big targets: junior Roddell Carter (6-3, 220) and Mark Ferrell (6-2, 215).

Another key weapon is tight end Jeffrey Anderson, a 6-3, 255-pounder who is a punishing blocker and a gifted receiver, and is on the preseason watch list for the Mackey Award, which is given annually to the nation’s top tight end.

DEFENSE

The base UAB defense is a 4-3, but the Blazers will run a lot of 3-4 alignments, as well. Against Rice last week, UAB limited the Owls to 52.3 percent passing, and held their opponents to just three first-half points.

One of the most dangerous players in the front seven is senior Anthony Barnes (6-3, 255), who is listed as a defensive end but when the Blazers go to the 3-4, he will move to a stand-up linebacker position to take advantage of his pass-rushing skills. Like SMU’s Youri Yenga, Barnes will line up all over the field to attack the opposing offense from a number of different angles.

“Their front seven is a lot bigger than what we saw last week,” SMU center Mitch Enright said. “They have some pretty big tackles and defensive ends, and the thing with (Barnes) is that if they’re in a three-down (three defensive linemen), he’ll act as a linebacker and move around to different spots on the line. That’s the deal with him — we really don’t know where he’s going to line up.

“The thing with (Barnes) … he’s not necessarily better than any of the other players on UAB — they’re all good — it’s just that he happens to be the guy who moves around a lot, so we always have to account for him.

“They’re in more four-down than three-down. They play a lot of 4-2 (four defensive linemen and two linebackers), but they do also play some three-down, so we just have to be prepared for it. Against our offense, we don’t know what they’re going to do. They could completely change up everything for this week, because our offense is unique, but Coach Jones does a great job of getting us prepared for everything.”

Safety Chase Daniel tied for the team lead with six tackles in UAB's season-opening win over Rice (photo by uabsports.com).

Junior linebacker Keon Harris (5-11, 205) took on an expanded role at the end of the 2008 season, and started strong this season when he tied (along with safeties Chase Daniel and Hiram Atwater) for the team lead with six tackles against Rice.

Atwater backs up starter Ferson Stafford at one safety spot, beside Daniel (the team’s biggest defensive back at 6-3, 200), and are joined in the starting lineup by cornerbacks Terrell Springs and Brandon Carlisle. SMU quarterback Bo Levi Mitchell said the pressure he expects UAB to apply with its front seven and the secondary’s tendency to cover the deep pass could leave open some intermediate options in the middle of the field.

“They run a lot of four-deep — we hope they’re going to give us the short stuff and try to cover the deep stuff,” he said. “But they’ve got size and they’ve got speed — they’ve got great athletes out there. So we have to go out and try to out-athlete them, our-run them, out-block them and just try to beat them.”

The Mustangs also could benefit from the secondary’s inclination to play deep if they can spring running back Shawnbrey McNeal through running lanes and into the second level of the UAB defense.

“They’ll go with a lot of zone coverage, but if they come out in man (coverage), we should be able to beat them in man,” Mitchell said. “That’s the thing — if they come out in man, we’re going to try to beat them right there, but if they come out in zone, we’ll keep taking the small stuff and let Shawnbrey do his thing.”