UTSA will play its 12th season of football in 2022 after winning 12 games in 2021. The Roadrunners enter this season with the excitement around the city at its highest point since the inaugural game. What does the 2022 season hold for the Roadrunners
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A week from now the UTSA Roadrunners will begin their 12th season of football when they welcome the Houston Cougars to the Alamodome. This year's season opener will fall on the 11th anniversary of the Inaugural game played on Sept. 3, 2011.
It's probably been since the leadup to that inaugural game that there has been this much excitement in the city of San Antonio about the Roadrunner football team. A lot of that has to do with last season.
There was a lot of history made by the Roadrunners in 2021. They won their second ever game over a power five opponent when they beat Illinois. They overcame the largest deficit in program history when they came back from down 21-0 at Memphis to beat the Tigers 31-28.
Those two wins were part of the best start in program history as UTSA started 11-0 in 2021 and went has high as 15th in the national rankings. UTSA won off the field as well. In October they accepted an invitation to the American Athletic Conference and at the end of that month signed Jeff Traylor to a contract extension that kept him from departing for the high plains of Lubbock and the Texas Tech coaching job.
UTSA won their first division title in November with a last second win over UAB in a raucous Alamodome. Two weeks later the Roadrunners beat Western Kentucky to win their first conference championship in program history.
One piece of history eluded the Roadrunners in 2021. That was a bowl victory. UTSA lost to San Diego State in the Frisco Bowl and had to settle for a 12-2 finish to the 2021 season.
Now the Roadrunners enter 2022 looking to repeat as conference champions and finally get that first bowl win. First they will have to navigate a regular season full of tough opponents.
A new year and a tougher schedule
UTSA's season opener is the first of three games against strong non-conference opponents to start the season. After hosting Houston, UTSA will travel to West Point to take on Army before a first-time meeting with the Texas Longhorns in Austin. The Roadrunners non-conference schedule will finish with another school from Houston when they host Texas Southern on Sept. 24.
The Roadrunners will open conference play against Middle Tennessee in Murfreesboro on Sept. 30. A week later, on Oct. 8, UTSA will open the home portion of the conference schedule when they welcome WKU back to the Alamodome for the first time since the conference championship game last December. UTSA will play their second Friday night game of the season on Oct. 14 when they travel to FIU before closing out their October schedule with a home game against North Texas on Oct. 22.
In November the Roadrunners will travel to Birmingham on the first Saturday of the month to face UAB. A week later UTSA will be back home for a visit from Louisiana Tech. On Nov. 19, UTSA will travel to Houston to play the Rice Owls before closing the regular season at home against UTEP. If UTSA makes the conference championship game in 2022 it would be played on December 2.
THE RETURN OF FRANK HARRIS AND THE RECEIVING TRINITY
UTSA's offense in 2022 might look a little different from last season. For one thing the Roadrunners will have to find a new running back after the graduation of Sincere McCormick. Brendan Brady returns and there is a wealth of running back talent that UTSA might set up a running back committee in 2022.
The Roadrunner offense does have enough weapons back that there might not be too much of a drop off from 2021. Frank Harris is back as the Roadrunners quarterback and so too is the triumvirate of receivers, Zakhari Franklin, Josh Cephus and DeCorian Clark.
Also returning is Oscar Cardenas, who caught the winning touchdown against UAB last season that lifted UTSA to the conference championship game.
On the offensive line the Roadrunners will have to replace a few key players, notably Spencer Burford who is now making a name for himself with the San Francisco 49ers. So far in fall camp the returning veterans on the O-line and the new faces have combined to give Roadrunners fans hope that the line will be ok this season.
NEW FACES ON DEFENSE
The Roadrunners will have a lot of newness on defense replacing those who graduated last season. Notable new faces include Nicktroy Fortune from West Virginia and Joe Evans from LSU. They will be joined by returnees such as Rashad Wisdom and Jamal Ligon.
The defense was one of the strengths of the Roadrunners last season and while the schedule is tougher this year than last the possibility is there for UTSA's defense to keep the level of success high in 2022.
How the new players and returning players gel will go a long way to how good the Roadrunner defense is this year but the talent on the defense is good enough that the Roadrunners could be in for another good year on defense.
A NEW ERA ON SPECIAL TEAMS
It will feel like 2017 for UTSA fans as Jared Sackett is back as the Roadrunners kicker. He will take the place of Hunter Duplessis who left UTSA as the first kicker to make 50 field goals in his career.
The Roadrunners will have the Aussie Boot back as Lucas Dean returns to handle the punting duties for UTSA. In his career Dean has a 43 yard per punt average and one in three of his punts end up downed inside the opponent's 20. Last season Dean set a career mark with a 73-yard punt.
It will be tough for UTSA to replace the productivity of Duplessis but if Sackett can reclaim his 2017 magic the Roadrunners should be ok when it comes down to field goals. As long as they have Dean the Roadrunners will not have to worry about the punt game.
