The setup
- UTSA closed 2025 at 6-6 — bowl-eligible math on the last Saturday of November, and then Army walked into the Alamodome and walked out 27-24.
- Home splits told the season: 4-2 at the Alamodome, 2-4 on the road, and two 50-burger losses (55-17 at North Texas, 55-23 at USF) hanging in the middle of the ledger.
- The offense hung 48 or more four times. The defense is where 2026 gets decided.
Last season
Six and six. That’s the 2025 line for the UTSA Roadrunners — bowl-eligible math on the last Saturday of November, and then Army 27, UTSA 24 at home to close it. The postseason invite that felt automatic ended up somewhere else. That’s the whole season in one sentence, but it doesn’t do the arc justice.
The opener was a body-blow in College Station: Texas A&M 42, UTSA 24. A week later the I-35 rivalry with Texas State at the Alamodome didn’t go any better — 43-36 in a shootout that exposed the secondary early. 0-2, in your own building against an in-state neighbor, on the front end of every schedule you’ll ever play.
Then the Roadrunners actually settled in. Incarnate Word got run 48-20. The trip to Fort Collins turned into the season’s most nervy win: 17-16 at Colorado State, gutted out on the road. Rice showed up at the Alamodome and left with a 61-13 souvenir. That was the peak — playing at home, playing fast, offense operating in rhythm.
The middle of the schedule is where the year slipped. Temple got them 27-21 on the road, which is fine — road games happen. But North Texas turned it into a track meet, 55-17, the kind of afternoon that leaks into the film room for a month. Two weeks later USF pulled the same trick: 55-23. When a defense surrenders 55 once, it’s a bad matchup. Twice, it’s a pattern.
Credit where it’s due: they didn’t fold. Tulane (48-26), Charlotte on the road (28-7), and East Carolina (58-24) all got handled. That closed a five-game November stretch at 3-1 and set up the finale with everything to play for. Then Army walked into the Alamodome — the option, the clock-drain, the physicality — and left 27-24. The invite went elsewhere.
| Date | Opponent | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Aug 30 | at Texas A&M | L 24-42 |
| Sep 6 | Texas State | L 36-43 |
| Sep 13 | Incarnate Word | W 48-20 |
| Sep 21 | at Colorado State | W 17-16 |
| Oct 4 | at Temple | L 21-27 |
| Oct 11 | Rice | W 61-13 |
| Oct 18 | at North Texas | L 17-55 |
| Oct 30 | Tulane | W 48-26 |
| Nov 7 | at USF | L 23-55 |
| Nov 15 | at Charlotte | W 28-7 |
| Nov 22 | East Carolina | W 58-24 |
| Nov 29 | Army | L 24-27 |
This season
Here’s where opinion takes over — the 2026 slate hasn’t firmed up in our system yet, so we’re skipping the “circle this date” gimmick until the games load. What we can say: UTSA lives in the American Athletic Conference, plays home games at the Alamodome in San Antonio, and returns to a league that’s meaner top-to-bottom than it was three years ago. The path to a bowl in the AAC now goes through a real weekly gauntlet.
Our read: the ceiling for this program is still an eight-to-nine-win season, and the floor is exactly what 2025 was — six wins, a home loss that costs a bowl, an offseason of “we were right there.” The delta between those two outcomes is the defense. Specifically, whether the run fits and middle-of-the-field coverage that got shredded in Denton and Tampa show up any better in the fall. If they do, this is a nine-win team. If they don’t, it’s another 6-6.
The Alamodome should be the hardest place to leave with a road win in this conference. In 2025 it wasn’t. That’s the thing to fix first.
Offensively there’s less to worry about. The Roadrunners hung 48 or more four times last year — Incarnate Word, Rice, Tulane, East Carolina — and the operating tempo is real. Points aren’t the problem in San Antonio. Getting off the field on third-and-6 is.
Our take
Homer energy, clearly labeled. Take what you want from it.
Bold call one: 8-4 regular season. The schedule breaks better than 2025 did, the offense doesn’t slip, and the defense trims exactly one of those 50-burger blowouts off the ledger.
Bold call two: UTSA wins the rematch, whatever service academy shows up on the November calendar. The Army loss was the kind of lesson that actually gets applied.
Bold call three: The Alamodome finishes with one — and only one — home loss. That alone flips this from a 6-6 team to a top-half AAC team.
For the wider college-football temperature, our piece on the CFP-era discourse pairs well with this one. The Roadrunners are set up to be better than 2025. Whether they actually are is a defensive question — and one we’ll answer week by week on The Sideline. Make your picks in the meantime.