[5] After two years competing as a club football team, on March 13, 1991, UAB President Charles McCallum and athletic director Gene Bartow announced that the university would compete in football as an NCAA Division III team beginning in the fall of 1991, with Jim Hilyer serving as the first head coach.

[8] The reclassification was a result of the NCAA prohibiting a school's athletic program from being multi-divisional, and since UAB already competed in Division I in other sports, the move became necessary.

On November 9, 1995, UAB was officially informed by the NCAA that the school had met all requirements for reclassification, and as such the Blazers would enter the 1996 season as an I-A Independent.

[12] Following the transition to I-A, UAB often played a couple of out-of-conference games with college football's traditional powers every year.

[14] UAB then had a deal in place with Jimbo Fisher, then offensive coordinator at LSU,[14] who would eventually go on to be the head coach at Florida State.

[14] Following the scuttling of the deal with Fisher, some sportswriters, including CBSSports.com reporter Gregg Doyel, noted that Alabama was also looking for a new head coach at the time, adding that Fisher had served as offensive coordinator when Alabama's top candidate Nick Saban had been head coach at LSU.

[14] After exhausting many options, UAB finally turned to former Alabama player and Georgia offensive coordinator Neil Callaway, who was named head coach on December 17, 2006.

On November 27, 2011, Callaway was fired as UAB's head coach having compiled a record of 18 wins and 42 losses (18–42) during his five years with the Blazers.

[17] On December 4, 2011, UAB officials announced they had hired Garrick McGee to serve as the fourth head coach in the history of the program.

On January 9, 2014, it was announced that McGee would resign as UAB head coach to join Bobby Petrino as offensive coordinator at Louisville.

On November 30, 2014, a day after the Blazers had become bowl eligible for the first time since 2004, Sports Illustrated reported that UAB was planning to fire athletic director Brian Mackin and end the football program.

On July 21, UAB stated their intention to resume football in time for the 2017 season, while the bowling and rifle programs would be immediately reinstated.

[26][27] Athletic Director Mark Ingram indicated that 2017 was a more reasonable timeline to field a football team, due to the number of players who transferred away from the program following the termination and the NCAA's recruiting rules.

[30] On January 16, 2016, the UAB football team announced its slate of non-conference opponents for when it returned to play in the 2017 season.

[31] On August 29, 2016, UAB broke ground on a $22.5-million football operations center including a $4.2-million covered pavilion practice field with an anticipated completion date of summer 2017.

UAB leads the all-time record 10-5, but Memphis won the last matchup which allowed the Tigers to keep the Bones Trophy.