September 10, 2024 • 9 mins
UTSA head coach Jeff Traylor joins The Craig Way Show to talk about Saturday's upcoming game between the Texas Longhorns and the Roadrunners. Traylor discusses UTSA's season so far, including last weeks tough loss to Texas State, and how they're replacing key starters.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, uh, as I mentioned, because I try to
be a man of my word, because that would only
emulate our next guest, because he is truly a man
of his word. He's a longtime friend. I had the
pleasure of calling a state championship game that he coached
in and he is the head coach of the UTSA Roadrunners,
joining us on the hotline as coach Jeff Trailer.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
I appreciate the time. Good sir, how are you today? Oh?
And we've had better days. We're all right.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
I understand that. And that was the question was going
to ask you first, because listen, you had you had
days that were great, great days at Gilmour, and then
you had days where you could look at it and say,
we've had better days here there at Gilmour. And what
what's the most important thing you think for a coach
to tell his players, his team maybe maybe not in
(00:52):
the immediate aftermath, maybe a day or two later or whatever,
about how they, uh, you know, rediscover themselves and get
back to work and put the past behind them good
or bad.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Well, it's something you learned.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
I'm just my nature and my personality is I'm not
somebody that moves around very much so. I was a
younger for fifteen years. So when you stay somewhere fifteen years,
there's a lot of.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Ups and downs in those years.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
You're not always going to have the best team or
the most experienced team. So you're going to get your
teeth kicked in a few times before you get it
all fixed. And you know, I've chosen today in UTSA
and we've been here five years now, and our team,
you know, has had a lot of turnover this last year,
So rebuild is too much of a word, but transition
(01:42):
would be the way I would describe it.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
And this is part of the.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Territory when you're transitioning, trying to get some younger kids
grown up.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Well.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
And like you say, when you've got some younger guys,
I know that makes a difference when you lose a
valuable group of starters as well. How important is it
for the guys that you have, the returning players that
you do have to kind of mentor them. I mean,
you and your coaching staff obviously work very hard with them,
but how important is it for your guys here, your
senior leaders and even some junior leaders to help kind
(02:14):
of shipherd those guys along to say, look, most of
our days around here are good and have been good
here for a few years, so this is this is
not the norm, and try to get them back on track.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Yeah, it's what's what a program is, is what culture is.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
But you know a lot Frank Harris is gone, right,
So this is Owen mccallen's you know, that was his
first road game to ever start for us. He's a
Saltimore and Frank's not here to tell him that, right,
So he's got to kind of go through this. So
what I've tried to encourage Owen about Frank struggled too
when he was young. Frank, we didn't come out there,
and lots of guys that when Frank was young, we
(02:52):
had to kind of go through a little bit of learning. So, ohh,
this is an example of somebody I would mention, uh.
Defensively where I was that was probably the most disappointed Craig.
We have enough guys back on defense. They should have
taken care of us better Saturday, but we didn't.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
We didn't.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
We did not play well defensively either, and obviously we
didn't offensively.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
To get beat that bad.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
But I do have some older heads on defense that
I think can get their stuff fixed. I think offense
is gonna take a little bit of time for us
to get this thing worked out.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
In terms of your running game, I've noticed, uh uh,
you know, you have the Kabrian Barnes and Robert Henry
both listed there in your backfield, and Henry's leading ground gainer.
Where are you in terms of the development of what
you want to see out of your running your running game,
they were.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Really struggling, which is hurting our quarterback play.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
We've not run the ball well yet, and we thought
that was gonna be the strength of our team. Uh,
you know, we've had some injuries. It seems like we
always do on the offensive line when.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
We start the year. It's the dang this thing I've
ever seen in my life.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
We hope to get you know, our right tackle back,
he played about eleventh that week. We hope you can
play more this week. How left goard was out last week.
We have a new left tackle, a new center, a
new ride tackle. So we just got a lot of
a new right now, new quarterback. And I feel bad
to Robert Gabor and because those kids have had great
(04:17):
careers here and they're.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Really good backs. We just haven't given a lot of
space to run yet.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Visiting with Jeff Trailor, head coach of the UTSA Roadrunners
for a couple more minutes here on sports Radio AM
thirteen hundred The Zone, Jeff, when you prepare a football
team and this is going to be the highest ranked
team you've ever had a team at UTSA face and
when you get them ready to play a game, and
even if you get away from the David and Golias
(04:45):
stories and things like that, what are the things that
you when you look at Texas want your guys to
be able to zero in on and be the best
version of themselves against the Logorns on Saturday.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
Yeah, it's always I know it is gonna sell coach call,
but uh, our two one oh try and with toughness,
our culture, what our expectations.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Are are all we ever grade ourselves against. Uh. This
business is result orient. I understand that.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
Everybody's gonna just make their decisions on wins and losses.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Uh. If you do that in this business, you won't
make it very long. In this business.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
Now, if you don't win enough, you're not gonna make
you long anyway, because they're gonna fire you.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
But I mean in your own mind.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
You're not gonna make it very long if you don't
grade yourself to your own standards.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
So that's what we do every week.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
And obviously, when you play a team that's superior, it's
Texas is to us as far as their their size.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Their strength, their experience, their speed.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
That really comes into play, Like how well does the
video show we played against people that are obviously, you know,
a really great, fantastic football team. I have tremendous respect
for sark and is what he's done.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
He's a great play caller. They played great defense.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
I mean, coach k Is has done a fantastic job
with those guys, and their roster's great developed. They've done
well the transfer port, they've done well developing their players.
So banks is the great job of the special teams. Look,
they're just they're a well old machine. And we're when
we came over there last time, Craig, we were like that.
Our punter was back, our kicker was back, our quarterback
was back, our center was back, our receivers are back.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
You know what I mean, we knew who we were.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
Now we're coming back and we're trying to figure all
that out.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
And you guys definitely know who y'all are well.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
And it's a great point that you made about the
game a couple of years ago and the guys that
you do have that played in that game. Does that
help a little bit going into that kind of environment
knowing you've got some guys who actually played in that
game when you had a seventeen to seven lead in
the second quarter of that contest.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Yeah, we've got a few. There's not as many as
you'd like there to be.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
We've transitioned pretty good.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
But yeah, we've got a few.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
We understand how loud it's going to be and how
big and fast those guys really are. But I also
think y'all are a lot better now. I don't think
the roster is even comparable to the one I played
two years ago. Y'all have improved that much.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
Hey, I got to ask you one other thing, Jeff.
When you come off a game like what happened the
other day and then, uh, you know, coach Metzil had
a tough game against Chapel Hill, and I know they're not
off to the kind of.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Start they wanted to do.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
Do you guys still commiserate about things about how to
get things turned back around.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
Oh, it's more just make sure we both know we're
all good. We've been down this road before.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
I believe it.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
Nobody wants to believe it, and I think that's a
great compliment to our program. But we've had our teeth
kicked in four times there, so this is not the
first time.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
This is the fourth time.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
Now people want to make it tell like it's the
first time ever, but it's just not. And uh, and
believe it or not, the Buckeye started out zero and
two last year, uh, and they finished up.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Winning all their games.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
And the Roadrunner started off tough last year and we
finished up win an eight out of nine. So the
season is not over yet. You just got to keep
chipping away. And it's football tough. It's tough to win,
and tough people do tough things. And then practicing at
to get your teeth.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Embarrassed and showing up and owning it all.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
My kids, this might sound trivial, you know how we
hold our try and left start fourth twuarter, every player
did that school song opposite end of the field. Kids
that have walked in easily to where our locker room was.
We all walked to the other end of the field
and did a school song. Everybody's on time yesterday, everybody
had their notes out, everybody's a practice on time today.
(08:37):
We have a championship culture. We just didn't play very
well Saturday.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Craig, Well, anybody that knows you, anybody that knows football,
and anybody knows what you built at UTSA and forty
and fifteen there in your time there and the first
ever Bowl win for the road Runners, knows what you
have at your disposal, knows that you'll be back, and
I really appreciate you taking the time coming off a
tough weekend. I'll look forward to on the field down
(09:00):
there on Saturday, a couple hours before kick Jeff as always.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Thank you, Craig. You're really really good at your job.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
So grateful for how you've always supported the state of
Texas and Texas high school football coaches and what you
do for the Horns. Man, you're the absolute best. You're
pro and a good friend. God blassing birds up.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
Thank you. I appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
That is Jeff Trailor, head coach of the UTSA Roadrunners,
And like I said, look at the numbers of the
stuff he's done there, and you can't help, but be impressed.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
With what he's done.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
Yeah, tough loss, no question, to Texas State, and we'll
see Eli do this week against the log Horns and
then obviously on on out in American Conference play and
trying to take that next step there in that G
five league. All right, coming up, we're gonna hear more
from andrewmcoopan when we continue on Sports Radio AM thirteen
under the Zone in the iHeartRadio app
All right, uh, as I mentioned, because I try to
be a man of my word, because that would only
emulate our next guest, because he is truly a man
of his word. He's a longtime friend. I had the
pleasure of calling a state championship game that he coached
in and he is the head coach of the UTSA Roadrunners,
joining us on the hotline as coach Jeff Trailer.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
I appreciate the time. Good sir, how are you today? Oh?
And we've had better days. We're all right.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
I understand that. And that was the question was going
to ask you first, because listen, you had you had
days that were great, great days at Gilmour, and then
you had days where you could look at it and say,
we've had better days here there at Gilmour. And what
what's the most important thing you think for a coach
to tell his players, his team maybe maybe not in
(00:52):
the immediate aftermath, maybe a day or two later or whatever,
about how they, uh, you know, rediscover themselves and get
back to work and put the past behind them good
or bad.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Well, it's something you learned.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
I'm just my nature and my personality is I'm not
somebody that moves around very much so. I was a
younger for fifteen years. So when you stay somewhere fifteen years,
there's a lot of.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Ups and downs in those years.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
You're not always going to have the best team or
the most experienced team. So you're going to get your
teeth kicked in a few times before you get it
all fixed. And you know, I've chosen today in UTSA
and we've been here five years now, and our team,
you know, has had a lot of turnover this last year,
So rebuild is too much of a word, but transition
(01:42):
would be the way I would describe it.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
And this is part of the.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Territory when you're transitioning, trying to get some younger kids
grown up.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Well.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
And like you say, when you've got some younger guys,
I know that makes a difference when you lose a
valuable group of starters as well. How important is it
for the guys that you have, the returning players that
you do have to kind of mentor them. I mean,
you and your coaching staff obviously work very hard with them,
but how important is it for your guys here, your
senior leaders and even some junior leaders to help kind
(02:14):
of shipherd those guys along to say, look, most of
our days around here are good and have been good
here for a few years, so this is this is
not the norm, and try to get them back on track.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Yeah, it's what's what a program is, is what culture is.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
But you know a lot Frank Harris is gone, right,
So this is Owen mccallen's you know, that was his
first road game to ever start for us. He's a
Saltimore and Frank's not here to tell him that, right,
So he's got to kind of go through this. So
what I've tried to encourage Owen about Frank struggled too
when he was young. Frank, we didn't come out there,
and lots of guys that when Frank was young, we
(02:52):
had to kind of go through a little bit of learning. So, ohh,
this is an example of somebody I would mention, uh.
Defensively where I was that was probably the most disappointed Craig.
We have enough guys back on defense. They should have
taken care of us better Saturday, but we didn't.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
We didn't.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
We did not play well defensively either, and obviously we
didn't offensively.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
To get beat that bad.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
But I do have some older heads on defense that
I think can get their stuff fixed. I think offense
is gonna take a little bit of time for us
to get this thing worked out.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
In terms of your running game, I've noticed, uh uh,
you know, you have the Kabrian Barnes and Robert Henry
both listed there in your backfield, and Henry's leading ground gainer.
Where are you in terms of the development of what
you want to see out of your running your running game,
they were.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Really struggling, which is hurting our quarterback play.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
We've not run the ball well yet, and we thought
that was gonna be the strength of our team. Uh,
you know, we've had some injuries. It seems like we
always do on the offensive line when.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
We start the year. It's the dang this thing I've
ever seen in my life.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
We hope to get you know, our right tackle back,
he played about eleventh that week. We hope you can
play more this week. How left goard was out last week.
We have a new left tackle, a new center, a
new ride tackle. So we just got a lot of
a new right now, new quarterback. And I feel bad
to Robert Gabor and because those kids have had great
(04:17):
careers here and they're.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Really good backs. We just haven't given a lot of
space to run yet.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Visiting with Jeff Trailor, head coach of the UTSA Roadrunners
for a couple more minutes here on sports Radio AM
thirteen hundred The Zone, Jeff, when you prepare a football
team and this is going to be the highest ranked
team you've ever had a team at UTSA face and
when you get them ready to play a game, and
even if you get away from the David and Golias
(04:45):
stories and things like that, what are the things that
you when you look at Texas want your guys to
be able to zero in on and be the best
version of themselves against the Logorns on Saturday.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
Yeah, it's always I know it is gonna sell coach call,
but uh, our two one oh try and with toughness,
our culture, what our expectations.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Are are all we ever grade ourselves against. Uh. This
business is result orient. I understand that.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
Everybody's gonna just make their decisions on wins and losses.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Uh. If you do that in this business, you won't
make it very long. In this business.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
Now, if you don't win enough, you're not gonna make
you long anyway, because they're gonna fire you.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
But I mean in your own mind.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
You're not gonna make it very long if you don't
grade yourself to your own standards.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
So that's what we do every week.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
And obviously, when you play a team that's superior, it's
Texas is to us as far as their their size.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Their strength, their experience, their speed.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
That really comes into play, Like how well does the
video show we played against people that are obviously, you know,
a really great, fantastic football team. I have tremendous respect
for sark and is what he's done.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
He's a great play caller. They played great defense.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
I mean, coach k Is has done a fantastic job
with those guys, and their roster's great developed. They've done
well the transfer port, they've done well developing their players.
So banks is the great job of the special teams. Look,
they're just they're a well old machine. And we're when
we came over there last time, Craig, we were like that.
Our punter was back, our kicker was back, our quarterback
was back, our center was back, our receivers are back.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
You know what I mean, we knew who we were.
Speaker 3 (06:21):
Now we're coming back and we're trying to figure all
that out.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
And you guys definitely know who y'all are well.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
And it's a great point that you made about the
game a couple of years ago and the guys that
you do have that played in that game. Does that
help a little bit going into that kind of environment
knowing you've got some guys who actually played in that
game when you had a seventeen to seven lead in
the second quarter of that contest.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Yeah, we've got a few. There's not as many as
you'd like there to be.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
We've transitioned pretty good.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
But yeah, we've got a few.
Speaker 3 (06:55):
We understand how loud it's going to be and how
big and fast those guys really are. But I also
think y'all are a lot better now. I don't think
the roster is even comparable to the one I played
two years ago. Y'all have improved that much.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
Hey, I got to ask you one other thing, Jeff.
When you come off a game like what happened the
other day and then, uh, you know, coach Metzil had
a tough game against Chapel Hill, and I know they're not
off to the kind of.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Start they wanted to do.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
Do you guys still commiserate about things about how to
get things turned back around.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
Oh, it's more just make sure we both know we're
all good. We've been down this road before.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
I believe it.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
Nobody wants to believe it, and I think that's a
great compliment to our program. But we've had our teeth
kicked in four times there, so this is not the
first time.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
This is the fourth time.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
Now people want to make it tell like it's the
first time ever, but it's just not. And uh, and
believe it or not, the Buckeye started out zero and
two last year, uh, and they finished up.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Winning all their games.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
And the Roadrunner started off tough last year and we
finished up win an eight out of nine. So the
season is not over yet. You just got to keep
chipping away. And it's football tough. It's tough to win,
and tough people do tough things. And then practicing at
to get your teeth.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Embarrassed and showing up and owning it all.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
My kids, this might sound trivial, you know how we
hold our try and left start fourth twuarter, every player
did that school song opposite end of the field. Kids
that have walked in easily to where our locker room was.
We all walked to the other end of the field
and did a school song. Everybody's on time yesterday, everybody
had their notes out, everybody's a practice on time today.
(08:37):
We have a championship culture. We just didn't play very
well Saturday.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Craig, Well, anybody that knows you, anybody that knows football,
and anybody knows what you built at UTSA and forty
and fifteen there in your time there and the first
ever Bowl win for the road Runners, knows what you
have at your disposal, knows that you'll be back, and
I really appreciate you taking the time coming off a
tough weekend. I'll look forward to on the field down
(09:00):
there on Saturday, a couple hours before kick Jeff as always.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Thank you, Craig. You're really really good at your job.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
So grateful for how you've always supported the state of
Texas and Texas high school football coaches and what you
do for the Horns. Man, you're the absolute best. You're
pro and a good friend. God blassing birds up.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
Thank you. I appreciate that.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
That is Jeff Trailor, head coach of the UTSA Roadrunners,
And like I said, look at the numbers of the
stuff he's done there, and you can't help, but be impressed.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
With what he's done.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
Yeah, tough loss, no question, to Texas State, and we'll
see Eli do this week against the log Horns and
then obviously on on out in American Conference play and
trying to take that next step there in that G
five league. All right, coming up, we're gonna hear more
from andrewmcoopan when we continue on Sports Radio AM thirteen
under the Zone in the iHeartRadio app
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