Shorthanded Roadrunners stick with core philosophy
On Dec. 10, 2019, newly hired UTSA football coach Jeff Traylor held his first meeting with about 60 of his new players.
During the course of almost 18 minutes, Traylor outlined the five culture pillars he hoped would define the Roadrunners program: integrity, passion, selflessness, perfect effort, and mental and physical toughness. He asked his players to “trust the process” and introduced his “Triangle of Toughness,” emphasizing special teams, running the football and physicality on defense.
Those tenets have been revisited repeatedly through the year, with the Roadrunners choosing to highlight one core aspect of their culture each week.
But as UTSA began preparing to meet No. 19 Louisiana-Lafayette in the First Responder Bowl at 2:30 p.m. Saturday in Dallas, Traylor broke the cycle for the first time this season, selecting “Trust the Triangle” as the team’s mantra of the week.
Through a year of unprecedented challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Roadrunners believe their culture has lifted them to a 7-4 record and the second bowl berth in program history. A win in the First Responder Bowl, set for a national network telecast on ABC, would mark UTSA’s first postseason victory and tie the program record for wins in a year.
Even as a 14-point underdog, and even with Traylor and potentially a portion of the UTSA roster unavailable because of positive COVID-19 tests, the Roadrunners’ focus is sticking to the ideology that pushed them this far.
“We want to be true to who we are Saturday, whatever the score is, however the score turns out,” Traylor said. “We have to be true to our culture, show up, and play the way we play football.”
Some adopted the new approach from Traylor’s first meeting, with quarterback Frank Harris among those who “helped transform our culture,” Traylor said.
Others started to come around during the summer, as the program navigated COVID-related budget cuts and Traylor and his staff built relationships with the players through FaceTime and Zoom meetings.
Offensive tackle Spencer Burford said the belief in Traylor’s culture took hold once the team stepped on the field. UTSA won its
first three games and played within one score in road losses to UAB and nationally ranked BYU.
“As the season went on, guys saw the improvement on the team, and everybody was benefiting,” Burford said. “Everybody started to fully buy in to the system that we had, and the sky was the limit from there. We've just taken off.”
At times, Harris worried a bowl opportunity would never come. He was a senior at Clemens when UTSA reached the New Mexico Bowl in 2016, and only four players from that team are still on the Roadrunners' roster.
During Harris' redshirt year in 2017, UTSA went 6-5 but was not invited to a bowl. The Roadrunners went 3-9 in 2018 and 4-7 in 2019, rarely looking like a team that was on the cusp of bowl eligibility.
Harris said Traylor's arrival swung the program's fortunes.
“Just being a part of this team, it's a great feeling,” Harris said. “The camaraderie, everything about this team is just different. I've loved everything about it, and I can't wait to go to battle Saturday with my brothers one last time, and leave everything out on the field.”
Another one of Traylor's mantras has been a question: “Opportunity or adversity?”
Though he described the season as a “beatdown,” he asked the Roadrunners to treat each obstacle as a chance to be resilient.
Earlier this month, the Roadrunners faced the pos
sibility of advancing to the Conference USA championship matchup, only to see UAB win its final game and claim the top spot in the West Division. Then, UTSA believed it would be playing in the Frisco Bowl on Dec. 19, only to have SMU pull out of the game because of COVID-19 issues. UTSA landed in the First Responder Bowl but didn't learn its opponent until Sunday.
The Roadrunners enter the game with offensive coordinator Barry Lunney Jr. acting as head coach in Traylor's place, and with the team likely to be affected by the 15 positive tests among students in the athletic department that have been reported by Dec. 17.
Through the challenges, the Roadrunners remained locked on the idea that the “triangle will travel.”
“We're going to take those things and go and ride with them until the wheels fall off,” said safety Rashad Wisdom, a Judson High product.
UTSA is committed to playing in the bowl game if at all possible, Traylor said, remembering when the pandemic cast doubt over summer workouts and fall camp practices.
Traylor has spoken since the day he was hired about making UTSA into a destination program, even as the Roadrunners were projected to be one of the NCAA's worst teams this year, land
ing zero players on the preseason All-Conference USA list.
Now standing as Conference USA's Offensive Player of the Year, running back Sincere McCormick said the First Responder Bowl is a chance to show that UTSA is on a new path, sporting a new culture.
“It drove a fire in every single person. We looked around like, ‘OK, we're going to do something. We're going to make y'all know our name,' ” said McCormick, a Judson High product. “We're going to show y'all. UTSA is a big program and one of the programs you should not mess with.”