UTSA picked up a commitment from Butler CC defensive tackle Vontrell Williams. The Roadrunners need DTs that can come in and play right away and he's just that.

I'm doing an interview in the afternoon but a name to watch moving close to National Signing Day is JUCO OG/OT Ebrahem Salem. I've attached his profile and will post quotes when I get them.

Salem

Football season is basically over for me, and am in need of a TV Show to binge on.

My #1 rec right now is Peaky Blinders. BBC show that is exclusive to Netflix in America. Post WW1 street gangs fighting over the gambling business in and around London. Awesome show. Tom Hardy is in the 2nd season and is fantastic.

With national signing day around the corner expect names that you have never heard of to start popping up. A name to keep an eye on is Lyndon B. Johnson athlete Avery Jackson (5-10, 165). He has been in contact with coach Neathery in the past couple of weeks. Coach Neathery is supposed to pay a visit to Jackson either today or tomorrow. I do not think Neathery would pay a visit to someone this late in the cycle if there were not a good chance there is an offer. Jackson could also be a backup plan if the main guy there want commits elsewhere. Jackson tells me "they want to offer, but haven't made any guarantees or anything so we'll see."

UTSA projects Jackson as a corner. Coaches also want Jackson to take an official visit on the 23rd. He does not have any offers right now so I would expect Jackson to commit on the spot if given an offer. When you watch his hudl you can see Jackson is a very explosive player. If coach Pop has given the ok to offer Jackson people should not worry about the lack of offers. Pop has proven to recruit the right guys for the program.

[Hudl]

I found the following answers that Brown gave to questions posed to him to be pretty informative. They are stated at the bottom of today's edition of Hickey's newsletter (in the final thoughts section):

http://www.goutsa.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_LANG=C&ATCLID=209284955&DB_OEM_ID=13100


How can you compete in 2015 after graduating 36 seniors?

"This is nothing new to us. We had very few seniors and went 8-4 in 2012 and 7-5 in 2013. We faced more of a challenge with inexperience and numbers those two seasons than we will next season.

"We will be younger in 2015 but will have a chance to be more talented. We have been recruiting to a Division I school for three years now."

How can you replace 36 seniors when the NCAA only allows 25 new scholarships each year?

"We will have transfers, grayshirts and early enrollees on campus for the second semester. These do not count against the 25 new scholarships for next year. We plan to sign a full class of 25 scholarship players on Feb. 4 who will enroll this summer."

How many returning starters and lettermen will you have next season?

"We'll have four returning starters and 17 returning lettermen on offense. And we'll have four returning starters and 15 returning lettermen on defense."

Did you have many redshirted players this past season who will be playing in 2015?

"Jalen Rhodes (RB/Rowlett, Texas) originally committed to Texas Tech and then signed here. He was injured last season but will be ready this spring. Kevin Strong (DT/Cleveland, Texas) and Stanley Dye (CB/Orange Park, Fla.) are both really good players who redshirted as freshmen last year. Also, Austin Jupe (S/San Antonio East Central HS) transferred here last fall from Baylor and can play this season."

Were there any injured players who missed 2014 who will be ready this spring?

"Blake Bogenschutz (QB/Carthage, Texas) played in a few games but got his freshman eligibility back through a medical redshirt, similar to what happened with Stanley Dye. Cody Cole (OG/Fort Myers, Fla.), David Anzaldua (OT/Edinburg, Texas) and Justyn Eddins (DE/Newhall, Calif.) missed last season due to injuries. All four of these players should be ready for spring practice in March."

How have you been received on the recruiting trail this year?

"Great! The nationally televised weeknight games against Houston, Arizona and Southern Miss gave us tremendous credibility. The different uniforms and helmet combinations also are a big sale.

"We are beating mid-major Division I programs and competing with the Power Five conferences for players.

"We have a lot to sell - San Antonio, the Alamodome, The River Walk, Conference USA, Larry Coker - and local coaches appreciate that we're competing with local players."

What is your assessment of the 2015 schedule?

"For the fans, our non-conference schedule is one of the best in the country. It doesn't get much better than Arizona (10-4 in 2014), Kansas State (9-4), Oklahoma State (7-6) and Colorado State (10-3), who all played in bowl games this year.

"Since the beginning of our program, we have not been afraid to see how we stack up against the best competition in the country. We don't mind being the underdogs. In fact we play better that way.

"That's the level we aspire to get to, so we can see how we're stacking up."

Why should fans be excited about the 2015 Roadrunners football season?

"We'll have a lot of young players and transfers who are more equipped to play in Conference USA and against top-flight non-conference opponents.

"We have a good, young quarterback coming back in Blake Bogenschutz. He reminds us a lot of Eric Soza. Plus, Austin Robinson was thrown into the fire last season, but he gained a lot of valuable experience in the process.

"And we're recruiting as good, or better, than our competition in Conference USA. We have a lot of good players."

Wow. Thank god Downtown San Antonio was enough to overcome the crappy Alamodome to get us another Final Four. These stadiums are getting more intense every year.

http://www.atlantafalcons.com/media-lounge/videos/Fly-Through-New-Atlanta-Stadium-/b6be5e8d-a1a9-46ca-b810-45ed1d38b387

Defensive tackle Anthony Lee is no longer on the team. Makes the numbers at defensive tackle even thinner for 2015. He was a member of the 2013 class.

Has there been any news on possible hires for our vacant coaching spots?

Here is my best guess of how the two-deep looks like this spring.

Offense

Thank you for questions.

Mailbag

Season 3 started on Friday. Hell yeah, things are hitting the fan again. I love it.

I'm not used to the Cowboys being in an important game. I can't feel my face.

A couple of weeks ago I caught up with Kendall Jackson a dual-threat quarterback from Iowa Central C.C. I exchanged some texts with him this evening. He tells me that he is considering walk-on offers from UTSA and Texas. I asked him what school he preferred right now and to my surprise he said UTSA. I asked him why? "Honestly UTSA is less political. D1 is all politics. Especially big schools like Texas." He went on to say " I would love to join the Roadrunner family." I asked if he could give me a percentage of him joining UTSA in the fall he said 65%.

[Hudl]

According to FootballScoop.com, UTSA offensive line coach Jim Marshall and wide receiver coach Marquis Mosley will not be returning to the UTSA staff next season. I can now confirm that report.

This post was edited on 1/4 11:59 AM by Mike Craven

Twitter is a wonderful thing right? Clemson offensive lineman #birdsup" Coach Brown recently started following Region. He is a 5th year senior at Clemson. Do not know the details, but if he would be able to transfer if he graduated from Clemson. He is majoring in tourism management. UTSA offers a program in tourism management.

Maybe I'm crazy, but its worth putting it out there.

The five guys that really need to step up this spring and into the season. There are more that could easily have been added to this list.

Step on up

Gameday!

Anyone plan on making it out to the Convo today? Tip off for today's game is at 2pm.

Bulldogs served UTEP with their first conference loss on Thursday night with a final score of 58-45. LaTech held it down on defense and allowed just 12 second half points from the Miners. LaTech, in my opinion, is probably one of the most athletic teams in the conference. Their extremely quick, efficient and specialize in fast-break transition dunks.

UTSA will have to play a near perfect game on both ends of the floor.We can't be caught sleeping on defense because LaTech is quick to expose you. Offensively, UTSA needs to stay tough mentally and continue to look for the high percentage shot. We played LaTech well last year at home. Looking forward to how this year's squad competes.

Go Runners!

Send them my way.

What guys does UTSA really need to contribute as RS freshman this coming season? I'll be writing a piece on this but was curious of y'all's thoughts first.

This post was edited on 1/8 4:06 PM by Mike Craven

Sup Fellas!

I hope everyone had a great holiday break. I didn't get a chance to catch our win against UNT. My little human came down with the Flu so I had to go into full dad mode. Good recovery win from that horrible game against Rice.

UTSA has a tough two game home stretch this week. First up is Southern Miss on Thursday with a tip off time at 7pm. Saturday we go up against La Tech, 2pm tip off. I hope some of y'all can make it out. We'll need every bit of crowd noise we can get.

Southern Miss is coming off an 83-70 loss to La Tech on Saturday. You got to dig down a little further because that score is a bit deceiving. S Miss shot the ball and controlled the tempo in that game exceptionally well. They hit 63% of their shots from the field, 53% from beyond the arc and 78% from the charity stripe. What I would give for us to have percentages like that. Downfall to their game was that they gave up a crazy 55 pts on turnovers and second chance opps.

S Miss: A couple of guys to watch for are CUSA Player of the Week - #13 Chip Armelin (G), #02 Matt Bingaya (F) and #21 Norville Carey (F). Armelin is averaging 26 pts and 5 rebounds per game. He shot 64% from the field and went 3-6 from the 3 against La Tech. Bingaya is also another player who is a consistent contributor on the floor. He had 18pts against La Tech and shot well from outside. Look for Carey to move early in transition and try to establish good position inside or catch a lob for an early dunk in the possession. He played well against LSU and had a couple of strong moves inside for buckets against La Tech.

UTSA: Hopefully UTSA studied some of that film from the SMiss/LaTech game and noted that that need to capitalize on second chance points and forced turnovers. S Miss ranks near the bottom of Off/Deff Rebounding and averaging 15.3 TOs a game. If they are going to continue to be reckless with the ball let's keep our hands active and look for quick transition buckets. Box out when the ball is up on defense and take quality shots so that we have good opportunities on the offensive boards. In regards to scoring, we have the size advantage so feeding the bigs inside needs to happen often. Making some FT would be nice. We're #4 in FT% in CUSA but this is mainly because of Kaj. We need our guards to stop leaving points at the line. It's an easy defensive strategy for the opponent if they know we can't hit our FTs. I sent a wish list to Santa asking for some quality shooting from outside. Maybe he'll come through and bless this team in the next couple of games.

Game prediction…76-64 S Miss. Just keeping it real, y'all.

This post was edited on 1/6 11:29 PM by Pist0lPet3

It's almost Christmas for us recruiting nuts! It's going to be a wild month for us. We have a few kids that I expect to take hard looks at other programs (Godfrey already is), and we'll be in a battle to hold on to them.

Like last season, expect the staff to work until the bitter end to get the right kids to sign. We still need guys on both lines, and some secondary help. It's going to be fun once the silent period ends next week.

UTSA will be in a dog-fight to keep Godfrey committed.

Godfrey

The newest commit is Southwest Mississippi C.C. tight end Kelvin Williams. Huge pickup for Roadrunners. UTSA needed a TE to come in and contribute right away in 2015.

Count Snow in the group of offensive line commits not phased by news of Marshall no longer on staff. Replied "no sir" when asked if losing Marshall would have any impact on his commitment to UTSA.

East View OL commit Zach Pare says he is still "solid" on his commitment to UTSA despite Roadrunners currently not having OL coach.