UTSA’s Jeff Traylor and donor Bob Mills talk program support in evolving college football landscape.
SAN ANTONIO — UTSA football coach Jeff Traylor spends most of his time coaching, but a close second, he says, is stressing the need for increased financial support to keep his program competitive. He voiced that concern again after UTSA’s win over Tulane at the Alamodome several weeks ago.
“If we don’t invest in this sport, like big time, now,” Traylor said, “I hate to think what is gonna happen to this place.”
Traylor’s comments echo the concerns of 210 City Fans founder and PM Group CEO Bob Wills, whose NIL collective supports UTSA football. Wills said the financial reality of competing at a high level is difficult — and requires broad participation.
“I have 46 kids at that school on my payroll,” Wills said. “Some of them I pay five hundred dollars a month and others I pay three thousand dollars a month. I’m doing my part. I know there are thousands of companies that can do that. If we got fifty of them to give five thousand per month, we’d have a damn good football team.”
Wills also pointed to the university’s commitment, including Traylor’s 10-year, $28 million contract extension, as evidence UTSA is serious about building a Group of Five championship program.
“Every time there is a firing around the country his name is on the list,” Wills said. “They wanna have Jeff Traylor. We’ve got to give him the tools to succeed, and that is money.”
Still, he said UTSA faces a unique challenge. The program is only 15 years old, and San Antonio’s college football loyalties are spread across longstanding programs such as Texas, Texas A&M, Baylor, Texas Tech, TCU and SMU. Those schools benefit from generations of fans and donors who send their money out of the city.
Wills said that makes local investment critical. “Those are universities that have been around for over one hundred years and they’ve got history on their side,” he said.
Asked how UTSA can compete, Wills said the Roadrunners have to be creative and rely on community support.
“We’ve got to scrap,” he said. “We have to be inventive, and we have to have everybody helping out. I don’t care if you’re helping out with one hundred dollars or one thousand dollars or you are a big corporation and you can put up fifty thousand dollars or one hundred thousand dollars — it takes all of us.”
Wills said San Antonio needs more people to step up financially.
“It takes a village,” he said. “There are lots of kids that play for UTSA that would love to continue to play for UTSA. A lot of them are local. If we can take care of the great talent we have playing in San Antonio high school ball and the surrounding areas, we don’t have to see our people go flying away to other cities.”