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UAB coach Bill Clark reacts during his team's win over North Texas on Oct. 11, 2014, at Legion Field in Birmingham, Alabama. (Hal Yeager/hyeager@al.com)

Some former UAB football players are concerned that the results of a study that's part of a university-wide strategic plan could lead to the elimination of the school's football program.

Former player Justin Craft, a partner and senior vice president of Nowlin and Associates, a Birmingham financial planning firm, has met with UAB President Ray Watts and written a letter to Watts to voice those concerns.

Craft said he met with Watts last Friday in Craft's capacity as a member of the new UAB Football Foundation, a private organization of local business leaders and UAB supporters, to discuss how they could help the program and to raise some specific issues that had been brought to their attention.

Two of those issues: New coach Bill Clark's original contract is for three years only when most college head coaches have deals that run for a minimum of four or five years, and UAB has no non-conference football games scheduled beyond 2016.

At that meeting, which also included UAB Athletics Director Brian Mackin, State Sen. Jabo Waggoner and State Rep. Jack Williams, Watts shared some details about the current study, Craft said.

Those details included:

The study was commissioned by the administration, not by the athletics department, as part of a comprehensive strategic plan for the entire university. It's being conducted by Bill Carr and Associates, a search firm that's worked with UAB on recent coaching hires, including the one that landed Clark. The study is scheduled to be completed in 8-to-12 weeks.

Did Watts tell the group that the study could lead to an administrative decision to drop football?

"I did not get a definitive answer on that, but it was definitely a strong thought after coming out of that meeting that that could be a possibility." Craft said.

"They're going to make strategic decisions in the athletic department based on the research in this study," Craft said. "What was said to us (by Dr. Watts) is that it's hard to be all things to all people and good at everything, and that from this study there may be specific focuses within the athletic department."

Watts could not be reached immediately for comment.

The news about the study and its potential aftermath comes at a time when Clark has reinvigorated the UAB program. After winning just five games in two years under former head coach Garrick McGee, who left in January to rejoin his mentor Bobby Petrino as offensive coordinator at Louisville, the Blazers are 5-4 in their first season under Clark. They are one win away from becoming bowl eligible.

Since moving to the Football Bowl Subdivision in 1996, UAB has played in one bowl game, the 2004 Hawaii Bowl.

Attendance also has increased under Clark. The Blazers are fifth in 13-team Conference USA with an average of 23,309 fans per home game, an increase of more than 130 percent from last season.

"I can't imagine that our president and our leadership would want to do away with the one asset that's responsible at so many other programs for growing enrollment and growing student pride and student involvement," Craft said.

Craft and other former UAB football players have written a letter to Watts "to seek your leadership, support and direction in building a truly comprehensive undergraduate education experience at UAB. Clearly, one of the best ways to achieve this is through a robust athletic program which includes college football."

Other former UAB players - including former NFL players Izell Reese and Brian Thomas and current Atlanta Falcon Roddy White - also have their names attached to the letter.

"As you are aware," the letter says, "to lose football is to lose conference affiliation and to lose conference affiliation means that basketball and the rest of our outstanding sports programs would be relegated to the lower echelons of the NCAA. These thoughts are unacceptable, and we know that your leadership will not allow such drastic and unbeneficial decisions to be made."