UAB began its football program in the early 1990s, and Jim Hilyer was the first head coach of the Blazers, coaching from 1991-1994. Beginning with the first NCAA sanctioned Division III football team in 1991, UAB quickly moved up the ranks of the collegiate football divisions at a rate which few had foreseen, and in 1995, coach Watson Brown took over as head coach and held the position through the end of the 2006 season, when he left for Tennessee Tech. The school's coaching searched focused on LSU assistant coach Jimbo Fisher, after Brown's resignation, and on December 17, 2006 former Alabama player and Georgia offensive coordinator Neil Callaway was named head coach. He led the Blazers to the school's worst season (2-10), dropping the program's all-time record under .500 for the first time in school history. In 1996 UAB made the move to Division I-A, now FBS, football, and made the jump to Conference USA in 1999, and they achieved a monumental victory by beating LSU in Baton Rouge in 2000. In 2004, they reached another milestone earning their first bowl trip in school history, the Hawaii Bowl, and the football program continues to make large strides both in on the field success and in attendance.