Bill Clark has had opportunities to take another coaching job since UAB shut down its football program, he told AL.com Thursday, but he's decided not to coach during the 2015 season for two main reasons.

He'll become fully vested in the state retirement system within a year, and he sees "a glimmer of hope" that the UAB program may be revived.

If UAB football is reinstated this year, Clark said, there's "a definite possibility" he would return as head coach, "but it would have to be done correctly."

Clark, a long-time high school and college football coach in Alabama, called it "a big deal" to become fully vested in the Retirement Systems of Alabama. He said he'll reach the RSA's 25-year threshold this year. UAB continues to pay him for the final two years of his original three-year contract.

Clark said staying in the state was one of the reasons "it made so much sense" to take his first Football Bowl Subdivision head coaching job at UAB a year ago.

"My heart is still at UAB," Clark said. "I love those people."

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That helps explain why he didn't go after other coaching opportunities in the last two months. He said he was contacted about other coaching jobs for next season, some as a head coach and some as an assistant, "but I didn't pursue any jobs and get turned down."

He said he preferred not to speak about specific jobs, but he said the rumors that he might join the coaching staffs at Alabama, Auburn or LSU "was more speculation."

"My heart is in being a head coach," he said.

Clark said he was hurt professionally and personally when UAB President Ray Watts announced Dec. 2 that the school was discontinuing its football program, effective immediately. The Blazers had finished 6-6 to get bowl-eligible for the first time since 2004, and Clark was named Conference USA coach of the year.

"I'm just now starting to recover from losing our players and coaches," he said. "It was heading in the right direction."

The recent announcement that UAB has put together an Athletics Assessment Task Force to take another look at the decision to eliminate football has given Clark "a glimmer of hope" that the program may be reinstated.

"There's a glimmer of hope for me and a lot of folks," he said. "I love Birmingham and I love the state of Alabama, but a lot of things would have to happen, and it would have to be done correctly."

Clark's plans for the rest of the year include staying close to the game he loves. He spoke to the Spanish Fort High School football banquet Wednesday night, and he'll be speaking at coaching clinics in Atlanta, Chicago and Orlando in the coming weeks.

He said he's gotten invitations to visit spring practice at a number of schools, such as Oregon, and he also may visit some NFL teams.

"I'll try to go and learn," he said. "It'll be fun."

Clark also may put together a camp or two of his own this summer "to give back" to the game.

When next season begins, he hopes to do some television work as an analyst, perhaps on the SEC Network.

"Not sure how that'll work out," he said, "but I want to stay connected to the game."