UTSA

The founding story is still the most important fact about UTSA, because no other program has it. San Antonio — the seventh-largest city in the country, without an FBS team until 2011 — willed a football program into existence inside the Alamodome, an NFL-grade indoor stadium that was already there waiting for the team to catch up to it. Larry Coker coached the first game. 56,000 people showed up. Jeff Traylor took what Coker started and turned it into something real: back-to-back seasons of 12-2 and 11-3, a Conference USA title, a top-25 ranking, and the single most credible "new program" story in FBS history.

The 2025 season went 7-6 (4-4 AAC), and UTSA had to beat FIU 57-20 in the First Responder Bowl to get there. Traylor returns for 2026, and Owen McCown is back at quarterback, so this isn't a coaching reset or a personnel emergency. It is, however, a real question about whether the program that peaked at 12-2 has built enough infrastructure to sustain that level — or whether the 2021-2022 run was the ceiling rather than the floor. UTSA reaffirmed its American Athletic Conference commitment amid conference realignment chatter, which means the Roadrunners' path runs through the league they're in, not through a bigger one.

The 2026 question is whether Traylor can rebuild the margin — from 7-6 back toward double digits — in a league that has gotten more competitive around them. The Alamodome is larger than any program of this age needs. The city is there. What's unresolved is whether the team can climb back to the level that made San Antonio believe the ceiling was higher.