UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT SAN ANTONIO FOOTBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 26, 2026

Jeff Traylor

Press Conference

UTSA - 59, Colorado State - 45

Q. Jeff, kind of a wobbly one here today. What was the message to your guys in the locker room after?

JEFF TRAYLOR: We just reviewed the craziness of the game. Obviously our kickoff team did not start it off correctly. We got the ball in the middle of the field. You could tell, still return. We had two guys avoid the boundary, and we missed a tackle.

Great job by our return team getting it to us right back. We missed a field goal, play action pass first play of the game. We had an MA in the back. Ten guys did their job, one guy didn't. It's a touchdown, you've got it 14-0.

Offensively, about as good as we could have played in the first half.

Then the second half came out and their offense got going, and we couldn't stop them. But man, what a great return by our return team, by Mekhi, put us back to 42-28.

Our defense could not get them off the field. Quarterback played a heck of a game. Their tailback is a really good player. So that was very frustrating, obviously, as you can imagine.

Great job by our hands team. Clutch kick by Petro. Great job by our offense just keeping the ball in very balanced, threw for 300, rushed for about 250.

Very disciplined tonight except for two plays that just about killed us. We wouldn't have had to kick a field goal if we hadn't got a 15-yarder. We had a drive kill on a 15-yarder, and then we had an ejection for unsportsmanlike conduct, which is extremely disappointing for 15. Other than that, we only had three penalties. So that was impressive.

A good team win, a lot to teach from. 3-1 coming through nonconference, but we're excited. So I know I summed it up. There was a lot of talking there, but that's pretty much all of it.

Q. Jeff, what does it say about the resiliency of your team, obviously that 14-0 deficit before the game even started. What does it say for your team to be able to rally from that?

JEFF TRAYLOR: I think you all could feel the momentum in the game. We had none, and that's always hard. Then when they made it 35-28, you were feeling like, uh-oh, and then we had a great field return by Mekhi to get us back to 42-28.

Probably nobody felt good until Joel picked the ball off on the sideline, to be honest with you. So huge win.

Q. Jeff, do you have to say something to get your guys settled down when it goes to 14-0 that quickly, or what was the atmosphere like on the sideline?

JEFF TRAYLOR: No. You work the plan you worked all week. You just keep calling them, keep shooting. Obviously you're talking to strength staff. You're talking to your younger coaches on the sideline that might not have as many calls to make to make sure our guys are up and not getting down, all those kind of things, your second layer of your staff.

Coach K does a great job. Our strength staff and all of our young coaches do a good job of working those sidelines to make sure there's no lips out. I've got my general manager; that's his whole job back there. Mike and Parker report to me anybody I need to go deal with on the sideline, and we had none of that.

We've got a lot of receivers, they all want the ball, right, but they block their freakin' tails off. It's not like everything is love, peace, and hair grease over there on the sideline, but we just keep working the plan.

Q. What did it mean for the offense to get rolling in the second half after some of the struggles last week?

JEFF TRAYLOR: They executed very well, but probably one of the plays of the game was Owen McCown rolling out to his left and making the Hail Mary pass down there to A.J. and A.J. making one of the best catches you'll see in a very clutch situation. It was very similar to Texas State when Owen just said, we're going to win, and he did it again.

Q. Was there any type of worry coming into this game after the performance that defense had against Texas that something like this could happen defensively?

JEFF TRAYLOR: That's a great point. I don't want any of you all to tell my offense how good they played this week. Be like Luca and just pick us apart I'm teasing. Greg does a great job, you all know. I'm just having fun.

But I think our defense got a little bigheaded in my opinion. They went over to Texas and did a great job, and they deserved all their flowers.

But what I learned about my team, they're happy for each other in there right now, but you can tell our defense is disappointed. I guarantee you, when you all speak to Darion, that's the first thing he's going to say, you know we've got to get a lot better.

They're good kids. I've been saying that all year. There's going to be a lot of games like this one. Hold on. Y'all's hair is going to look like mine before the season is up.

Q. What goes into finding a middle ground there as far as the performance against Texas and tonight?

JEFF TRAYLOR: It's not like that, though. It's just not. When you go back and watch it -- look, you also have to give No. 1 credit. He's a really, really good back, that quarterback. We could not get him down. A lot of those plays they made, that kid was just scrambling out of there just making plays. You also have to give them credit for some of those play calls. Jim Mora is a great coach. That was a good football team. We act like because Hauss wasn't out there, who's a great quarterback too -- this is college football.

I explained this to the media through the week, when you know your guy's out, like they knew he was out, they made a plan for him. When you're in the middle of the game, it's harder to play your backup quarterback than it is when the beginning of the week you know he's your guy. So I thought they had an unbelievable plan.

We just couldn't make a play, and they kept making plays, to be very honest with you. We busted on the first play action pass; that's a bad ball. But 0 is a really good player. The plays that guy made -- now, they did a good job of getting him on us when we were bringing pressure, and they threw it up to him, and the guy went up and made plays.

Q. How did the early morning start affect your team's readiness and preparation in this game?

JEFF TRAYLOR: I wasn't going to fall for that. It's very well-documented, our -- I never say it right. Dr. Campos always gets onto me. I always call it an indoor, but it's not. An overhead. Still not quite done right yet.

So we get up, when we're out there, and it's dark. I get to work at 5:30 in the morning. My receivers are on the field at 6:00. We take the field at 7:00 in the morning. We're a morning team. We ought to be the best dadgum team in the country at 11:00. We're done by 11:00 every day. 11:00 is when I go talk to you guys in the media. All of y'all should be the first ones saying we shouldn't be worried about this morning thing at all. That's how we beat the heat. We get out there before it gets too dadgum hot, right? I thought that should be to our advantage.

Now, when we were down 14-0, I'm like Jiminy cricket, that's not -- it's not working too well for us right now. I just wasn't going to -- I wasn't going to fall for that this week. I really challenged my guys, the mindset of that. We do this all the time. We played at 11:00 twice now, and we beat a really good Memphis team, and we beat this team, and we won a bowl game at 11:00. We're very prepared for an 11:00 kick. We're a morning team.

When I was a head coach at Gilmer all those years ago, and we still don't have our indoor yet. They're still waiting in Gilmer; 26 years later, they're still waiting for that dadgum thing. And those guys get up, guess what, 5:00 a.m. Same schedule I had. I've been doing the same straight schedule for 22 straight years. In Texas, you've got to beat the heat. If you don't have an indoor or an overhead, you can't beat the heat. I call BS on all of that. We should not let that be a reason.

Q. You had six different players score offensive touchdowns in this game. What does it say about the versatility and the amount of weapons you guys have on offense?

JEFF TRAYLOR: It's a nightmare handling all those personalities. They all want the ball, and they all deserve it, and there's only one ball. There's only one ball. It's a nightmare. I explain it to them.

Most of the guys I recruit are quarterbacks. They're all quarterbacks. They all played quarterback. I explain to all of them, all right, there's only one ball. The only time you get the ball all the time is when you're the quarterback. Well, you're not the quarterback.

So it's a nightmare, but it's a joy to your point because there's so many good players on our team. And they do -- as much as they want the ball, they block for each other incredibly well. All three running backs scored, I believe. It's pretty impressive.

Q. You've talked about having an older and more mature team this year. How much does that show itself when there's kind of a wild game like this but you guys keep finding a way to hang in there and not get rattled?

JEFF TRAYLOR: Especially so early in the year with what we've been through already. UTRGV came in here, and their fan base, they were ready to play. At Texas State, I don't think y'all were feeling too good when it was 17-7 at halftime, probably weren't feeling too good when it was 3rd and 26, and probably weren't feeling real good when it's 4th and 6. And then at night we play a few times here, and you're like, oh, my goodness.

These guys just keep working. They keep doing their jobs. They're fun to coach. We've got a lot to get better at, people. They're not very good. We've got a lot to work on, but we're freakin' 3-1, working on it. It's a whole lot better to coach football at 3-1. And we played a really good team tough, and they're a good team, really good team.

Q. Much better performance from the offensive line today. Just tell me what you saw out of your group today.

JEFF TRAYLOR: We protected well. I thought Owen went to pocket a couple times where he didn't need to. We ran the ball well. Screen game was good. We were really good up front. I haven't graded it obviously. We're starting -- I've said to you all a long time, we're going to keep getting better because we're getting healthier. We're still not all the way healthy, but we're getting closer.

We've still got some guys y'all haven't seen yet. They're good players, but they're hurt, and they're going to come back at some point.

Q. What does it exactly mean to be 3-1 at this point in the season? It's been a few years since you guys have started this hot.

JEFF TRAYLOR: I didn't think our crowd would be great today. The morning I thought was going to be tough on us. But the ones that were here were fantastic. They were more than fantastic. Our audio people were fantastic. They got two warnings because they were being too loud. Our band is fantastic. The fans that were here were fantastic.

We've got our little gig down here as well to kind of be as good as we can be when our crowd isn't as good as it was. I told our guys, if we can get this one and go on the road and get Rice, which won't be easy, as we know the last time we were over there. This will look a lot different on a Thursday night on national TV versus South Florida. That's where our marketing team and our ticket people have got to be ready to roll. That's got to be -- I told my guys today, if you can play great in front of 15 to 20, which I didn't know what it was going to be, but I figured it would be around that number, you won't play in front of 15 or 20 maybe again the rest of the year.

So we have a real opportunity, I think, if we can go get this next one. I think everybody's starting to go, oh, that's a pretty tough schedule the guys played, and they're 3-1. I think you can like our kids. When you watch us play, they're easy to like. I've had some teams here I'm not sure if they're easy to like. I won't name them.

Q. Your team surrendered 45 points today. What are some key defensive improvements that you want to see after this game?

JEFF TRAYLOR: Well, the 7 on the kickoff, you can't put on them. A lot of those guys are defensive kids. The same people going the wrong way missing tackles. So that's still football. I bet when we look at it, like some of those jump cats one made, we had a guy trying to come inside in the wrong gap. I bet you're going to see missed tackles and a lot of scrambles and throws and catches that were pretty impressive.

I don't think we got like dominated up front. I don't think we got like physically imposed upon. It's going to be probably like the Texas State game where there's going to be some gaps we didn't stay in, some missed tackles.

I think they did a really good job coaching. Coach Mora's won a lot of games for a long time, in both leagues, NFL, and he's a good football coach. Man, I hope he looks as good as he looks when I'm dadgum -- he looks great, man. He looks like he's 40 years old. I'm embarrassed. Wonder where he falls on the most handsome list. You got to check that out, Greg. Luca has been my inside scoop on that. He's been letting me know.

There had better be a special article about that. I need it. I'm very insecure.

Q. How do you look to limit these explosive plays earlier in the game?

JEFF TRAYLOR: P and 10 is the very first 1st down of the drive. We gave up the post on a play action pass, and they hit us on outside zone. The wheel route down the sideline was a heck of a call against our defense. They had us in a bad mismatch. Sometimes those guys, they get paid to coach too. That's three of them I can think of right now. You'd have to bring up what the specific other ones were.

We've got to be better. The first one is just unexcusable. That's unexcusable. What are your eyes doing on -- now, that tailback's really good, and they did a great job of selling outside zone. It's a very NFL play. You can watch the Rams, the Vikings. That's a hard play fake and post over, I believe it was. They got us. You'll see it when you watch your video. Got to be better. I wish I had a better answer for you.

Appreciate you all. God bless. Birds up.