Can UTSA rebound after such a comprehensive collapse?

Frank Wilson should once again field a sterling defense in 2019. But at some point, his Roadrunners have to score points.

Bill C’s annual preview series of every FBS team in college football continues. Catch up here!

This is my ninth year of writing this preview series for SB Nation, which means I’ve written right at around 1,000 previews at this point. After a while, you start to find that you’re putting teams into certain boxes and using certain terms as crutches. You’ve got the Hard Jobs (and there are always plenty of those as we work our way through the Sun Belt, MAC, and Conference USA). You’ve got the Year Zero situations. You’ve got the surprise underachievers and the ahead-of-schedule overachievers and the a-year-away-from-shining builders. I see a lot more patterns than I did when I started at this.

I can still be caught off-guard sometimes, though. That’s a good thing — wouldn’t want to get bored. But I can honestly say that Frank Wilson’s three-year UTSA tenure fits into no box. That would make sense, I guess, because Wilson himself doesn’t either.

Wilson was a dominant high school coach at a young age. In 2002, at age 29, he was named a Nike National Coach of the Year finalist. That suggests a certain level of tactical organization and ability to motivate. Within a couple of years, though, he had taken a left turn and had become an ace recruiter, a charismatic hired gun, for coaches like Ed Orgeron at Ole Miss, Lane Kiffin at Tennessee, and, for six seasons, Les Miles at LSU.

Wilson took the UTSA job in December of 2015, signed seven three-star prospects for his makeshift 2016 class, then signed 14 in 2017 and 16 in 2018. Considering what he was inheriting — UTSA had slipped from seven wins to four to three in Larry Coker’s final two seasons — it was easy to try to put him in a P.J. Fleck-like, “strip the depth chart down to the studs, then build anew with better prospects” box. Only, he doubled the Roadrunners’ win total in his very first year, then held steady with six more wins in year two.

At that point, it was easy to see him as a rising star. He was winning more games than expected, and his recruiting hadn’t even really kicked in! He had the tactical chops and the ability to attract talent, a rare combination.

Then UTSA went 3-9 in 2018. And it wasn’t a “young players start slowly, then begin to develop and improve” 3-9. It wasn’t a “one unit briefly collapses, then starts to rebound” 3-9. It was a rousing thud of a 3-9, a “should have been 2-10” 3-9. UTSA’s offense went from bad to second-worst in FBS. The defense, which had soared to 34th in Def. S&P+ in 2017, crashed to 103rd.

There were injuries and youth, sure. The quarterback position and receiving corps were revolving doors, and with what UTSA had to replace heading into 2018 — nearly the entire starting offense and a good chunk of the defensive two-deep — regression was imminent. I titled last year’s preview “UTSA starts over again,” after all.

But there’s regression, and there’s this. You want to get better as the year goes on, but after a 3-3 start, the Roadrunners lost their next five games by an average score of 36-6 before playing well in a season-ending loss to North Texas.

Worse, they don’t head into 2019 with as many rising stars as you’d hope to see after good recruiting and a youth movement. There’s some reason for hope on defense, but UTSA still has to replace last year’s top two havoc producers.

This wasn’t a reset, it was a collapse. There are still plenty of former three-star prospects in the chamber, plus some intriguing JUCOs like former LSU quarterback Lowell Narcisse. But after earning tons of benefit-of-the-doubt in his first two seasons, Wilson spent all of it in 2018. And I have no idea where things go from here.

Offense

What do you get when you combine an almost completely new starting lineup with an aging new offensive coordinator who hasn’t actually coordinated a good offense in quite some time? You get an offensive radar chart that looks like an imploded star.

Wilson had originally hired Frank Scelfo as his first OC; Scelfo inherited an offense that had averaged a 118 ranking in Off. S&P+ in the two years before his arrival, and his two UTSA offense averaged a 113 ranking. He was relieved of his duties and replaced with ... Al Borges.

The nicest thing I could say about the 63-year old former Michigan and Auburn offensive coordinator in last year’s preview was that, “when he has a bell cow, he knows how to use him.” I noted that in running back Jalen Rhodes, he might have someone capable of taking on a large load and thriving.

Rhodes did not thrive, averaging six carries per game and 3.7 yards per carry. B.J. Daniels averaged 7.3 and 3.7, respectively. With no run game of which to speak, Borges had to turn UTSA into a pass-first attack; the Roadrunners had neither the quarterbacks nor the receiving targets to pull that off.

Photo by Jennifer Stewart/Getty Images

So now Borges is gone, as are Rhodes, at least one of the many QBs who got a chance in the lineup (then-senior D.J. Gillins), and No. 1 target Greg Campbell Jr., who produced an extremely replaceable 11.3 yards per catch and 7 yards per target. The offense won’t miss any of those folks all that much, but that doesn’t automatically mean their replacements will do any better.

Wilson went younger this time, promoting receivers coach Jeff Kastl to the OC job. Kastl was Chad Henne’s backup at Michigan when the Wolverines nearly made the BCS title game in 2006, and he served time as a GA or analyst at Auburn, Michigan, and LSU (where he met Wilson). He certainly didn’t do much as receivers coach and passing game coordinator last year, but we’ll see what he can do with full rein.

He’ll have plenty of former star recruits itching to make an impression and plenty of unproven options within each unit.

• At QB, senior Cordale Grundy, junior Bryce Rivers, redshirt freshman Jordan Weeks, former LSU backup Lowell Narcisse, and incoming freshman Suddin Sapien could all be in the mix. Grundy got the most playing time last year, and Rivers looked the best, albeit in a small sample: he was 20-for-32 for 269 yards, one TD, and one INT in the near-upset of North Texas.
• At RB, he’s got Daniels as the returning leader, but other names are intriguing. Sophomore Brendan Brady rushed 11 times for 89 yards against UNT, senior Deven Boston was a mid-three-star JUCO recruit who missed last season with injury, and another couple of three-star freshmen (Sincere McCormick and Ronnie Jackson) come to town this fall.
• At WR, there are plenty of star recruits who need to cash in on that potential. Tykee Ogle-Kellogg averaged a team-leading 12.8 yards per catch but with a dreadful 38 percent catch rate. Fellow sophomores Tariq Woolen and Sheldon Jones combined for a 50 percent catch rate and 9.3 yards per catch. Less heralded veterans like Blaze Moorhead and Kirk Johnson Jr. are still around, too. No one has proven much of anything.
• At OL, seven players return with starting experience (65 career starts). Wilson added a couple of JUCO transfers to the mix as well; they’ll have plenty of opportunities to earn starting roles.

Photo by Jennifer Stewart/Getty Images

Lofty recruiting rankings mean you’ll always be considered to have potential. Therefore this offense has plenty of it. But Kastl has absolutely nothing proven to lean on and has to hope that last year’s ineptness has turned this group into a weathered, chip-on-shoulder group that rises together. Hard to count on that, though.

Defense

Here’s my positive spin for describing UTSA’s defensive collapse: at least only one part of the defense collapsed!

The Roadrunners’ defensive run game remained solid in 2018, ranking 61st in Rushing S&P+, allowing four or more yards on just 43 percent of non-sack carries (23rd) and stuffing ball carriers at or behind the line 22 percent of the time (37th). Granted, a lot of those stuffs came from seniors who aren’t around anymore — linebackers Josiah Tauaefa and Les Maruo, weakside safety Darryl Godfrey, tackle Kevin Strong Jr.— but not all of them. The Roadrunners got contributions from quite a few linemen, and Strong’s is potentially the only departure.

So there’s that!

Scott Sewell-USA TODAY Sports

For that matter, the Roadrunners also got a pretty sterling contribution from cornerback Cassius Grady, who got burned here and there but managed to combine 3.5 tackles for loss with four interceptions and five breakups.

Still, even with Grady and a decent pass rush, UTSA’s pass defense disintegrated. The Roadrunners allowed a 65 percent completion rate (125th) and ranked 124th in Passing S&P+. Defensive coordinator Jason Rollins lined his corners up tight on the line of scrimmage and tried to get aggressive (five DBs made at least 3.5 TFLs each, which you don’t see often), but outside of Grady, they didn’t make enough plays to offset the ones they were giving up.

Experience should be Rollins’ friend, though. Losing Tauaefa and Maruo (a.k.a. the LBs who saw nearly every snap of the season) hurts, but the front and back of the defense boast plenty of veterans.

Up front, Lorenzo Dantzler leads a deep set of defensive ends — he and DeQuarius Henry combined for 13.5 TFLs and 7.5 sacks, and senior Jarrod Carter-McLin is solid against the run — and while losing Strong hurts, senior tackle King Newton is a keeper.

In the back, the Roadrunners have to replace Godfrey and free safety C.J. Levine, but Carl Austin III returns after missing 2018 with injury, and his 2017 production was extremely similar to Levine’s. And every cornerback returns, for better or worse.

This defense will be heavy on juniors and seniors who were in last year’s rotation, and they add former Virginia linebacker Dominic Sheppard, former Arizona cornerback Antonio Parks, and a pair of three-star JUCOs (linebacker Trevor Harmanson and safety SaVion Harris) as well. This will be a seasoned and solid unit.

Special Teams

UTSA had its second straight awesome special teams unit in 2018 (22nd in Special Teams S&P+), and one-half of the reasons for that success returns.

The Roadrunners were 18th in field goal efficiency and 25th in punt efficiency; place-kicker Jared Sackett (9-for-14 on field goals longer than 40 yards) is back, but punter Yannis Routsas (40.4 average with almost no returnable kicks) isn’t. Return man Matt Guidry is solid, too, so this should be a solid unit again.

2019 outlook

I just don’t know.

The UTSA defense should be pretty good again in 2019, boasting a combination of experience and upside that few in Conference USA can match. The corners did indeed get burned a lot, but they have quantity on their side — if the veterans don’t work out, there are quite a few three-star youngsters waiting for a chance. And the line could be disruptive enough to help them out. I don’t have many worries there.

Or at least, I don’t have as many worries as on offense. It’s just a giant pile of rubble. High-upside rubble, sure, but this unit has almost no proven entities to lean on. All that strong recruiting produced almost nothing of note.

There’s still time, though. Kastl’s offense will boast a lot of sophomores with potential, and while that probably only means so much for 2019, there’s still time to build continuity and something of a track record.

S&P+ is bearish. It’s probably underselling the defense a bit, and D alone could earn a few wins against a schedule that features five opponents projected worse than 100th. But it’s not forecasting much from a team that so thoroughly bottomed out last year.

Wilson surprised me (for good reasons) not too long ago, and he could again. He better, at least.

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All 2019 preview data to date.