UTSA now 5-0 in I-35 rivalry

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The I-35 Rivalry Trophy presented by H-E-B will stay where it has always been. Held lovingly by the UTSA Roadrunners inside Bexar County.

UTSA made sure that the trophy would not be heading up the road to Hays County with the Texas State Bobcats by winning 20-13 in front of 49,342 fans in the Alamodome on Saturday afternoon. It was the second largest crowd in UTSA program history. More on that below.

This game had something for everyone. Including a gutsy performance from UTSA quarterback Frank Harris who overcame a toe injury right before halftime to come back and lead the Roadrunners to the win.

"I think it meant a lot to us just to show we're capable of going out and playing great opponents. Like Texas State, they're a great team," Harris said. "If we won last week, I don't know if we would have come out with a victory this week. We learned from that mistake versus Houston, and it just showed today."

Like a prize fighter, Harris took the best the Bobcats could throw at him and threw his punches back in the form of 26 completions on 37 passing attempts for 214 yards and one touchdown.

"I really didn't want to put him back out there, and he just -- you know, I talked to my medical staff," UTSA head coach Jeff Traylor said. He was fine as far as future -- any further injury. The kid is just unbelievable."

The 214 yards from Harris moves him to within 221 yards of 10,000 for his career. He could reach that this Friday against Army.

Harris wasn't the only Roadrunner to have an injury in the win. Starting right tackle Makai Hart left with a leg injury late in the second quarter. After the game Traylor admitted it didn't look good for Hart.

"I hate to speculate, but I would guess six to eight weeks," Traylor said. "Tough day for Makai, and the whole time he's just bawling, telling us he was sorry the entire time. He's as tough a kid as I've ever coached."

UTSA's defense continued its strong start to the season. The Roadrunners limited the Bobcats to 31 yards rushing on 29 carries and 211 yards passing. Texas State quarterback TJ Finley completed 16 of his 30 pass attempts for 211 yards.

Roadrunner linebacker Trey Moore led UTSA with three sacks of Finley, moving his total this year to four sacks through two games.

"It's huge. Obviously starting off the season, we didn't get the job done," Moore said. I had a lot of looks earlier in the half, in the first half, but the quarterback gets the ball out or they scramble or something happens. It's really just continuing to fight and get the quarterback."

The Roadrunner special teams came through with two 40+ yard field goals from Chase Allen. The first came at the 3:01 mark of the first quarter to put UTSA up 3-0 and the second put the Roadrunners up 20-13 with 5:47 left in the game.

UTSA led 10-0 early in the second quarter when Rocko Griffin broke off a 20-yard touchdown run.

Texas State came back to tie the score at 10-10 with 10 unanswered points in the second quarter, including a 42-yard field goal with 16 seconds left in the second quarter.

The Roadrunners retook the lead with 3:14 left in the third quarter when Frank Harris threw a 20-yard touchdown pass to Willie McCoy. Early in the fourth quarter it appeared the Roadrunners would be driving for a double digit lead when the Bobcats forced running back Kevorian Barnes to fumble. Despite the fumble Barnes still finished with his second straight 100-yard game to start the season. Barnes racked up 103 yards on 26 carries.

Texas State recovered the fumble but the Roadrunner defense limited them to a field goal that cut the score to 17-13 with 10:37 left in the fourth quarter.

UTSA would add its final field goal of the night less than five minutes later. The Bobcats went three and out on their next posession and the Roadrunners were able to run the clock out on victory number five.

For five years and a day the 42,071 who attended UTSA v. Baylor in the Alamodome on Sept. 8, 2018 stood as the second largest crowd in the Alamodome in UTSA football history.

Sept. 9, 2023 against Texas State took its place as the second largest crowd in program history as 49,342 attended the fifth installment of the I-35 rivalry series and the third game between the two played in the Alamodome.

"I'm on record as saying I'm just falling in love with this place," Traylor said. "I've said it before at the parade, I can remember the Battle of Flowers. I don't know, people say half a million people at that parade, I don't know. But I know 85 percent of them are Birds Up, man. This town got a fever."

There was a strong contingent of Bobcat fans who made the 50 mile drive down from San Marcos but throughout the day it was easy to see that it was a predominately pro-Roadrunner crowd in the Alamodome. The highest spike on the decibel counter came when Rocko Griffin scored in the second quarter.

"We love getting as many fans out as we can. We love doing that consistently from game to game," Moore said. "No matter how much hype there is around a game, we want fans there consistently."

Saturday knocked the 2018 Baylor game from number two by 7,271 fans. It was just 7,402 fans away from breaking the program record of 56,743 set in the inaugural game back on September 3, 2011.

Falling out of the top 10 crowds list was the 31,956 attendance for UTSA vs UTEP on October 25, 2014. The new number 10 game is the 32,369 that saw UTSA beat Minot State on November 19, 2011.

With Saturday's attendance, five of the top 10 crowds in program history have come in the Jeff Traylor era. There have been two games reach the top 10 largest crowds in both 2021 and 2022. It's possible that UTSA has another game move into the top 10 this season. The last two years one of those two games was the Conference USA Championship game. If UTSA hosts the American Conference championship game this year it will likely be a new entrant into the top 10.

Before that can happen there will be five more home games this season for UTSA to draw at least 32,400. The next candidate comes in six days when Army visits for a Friday night game.

"That just shows that we could have that crowd each and every week, and they definitely were a factor. They had a couple of false starts, which is credit to the crowd," Harris said. "We love the love and support. We feed off of them. Hopefully they come next week when we play Army as well."

Most of the 49,342 who showed up to the Alamodome on Saturday went home happy. Their Roadrunners had bounced back from the season opening loss to Houston by beating the I-35 rivals and keeping the trophy in Bexar County.

Their Roadrunners are 1-1 for the second season in a row. They have a short week to prepare for a chance to get to 2-1.

FORUMS: UTSA Boulevard | Roadrunner Way