Travis Bush witnessed the benefits of a new football program firsthand as the first-ever offensive coordinator at UTSA back in 2011. 

He remembers walking onto the field in the Alamodome ahead of pregame warmups for that Sept. 3 contest with Northwestern State and rushing back into the tunnel to warn his offense that there were already 50,000 people in the stands waiting to explode. 

He can still feel the goosebumps he experienced when he took some time to soak in the moment by taking his headset off and listening to the roar of the crowd inside the dome during the opening kickoff. 

And he still smiles when he walks down memory lane of that first drive, even though his first play call was a jet sweep that ended with a five-yard loss. Bush wanted to keep it simple because he knew the team would be nervous, but the dome was so loud that no one could hear the snap count. The drive ended with a touchdown run by quarterback Eric Soza, however. 

When he’s gone back to the UTSA campus, he can’t believe it is the same school he left for Houston after that inaugural season. The new buildings. The improved dorms and campus life. The growing enrollment. The number of students repping UTSA gear rather than those of Texas or Texas A&M. 

When he sees the evolution at UTSA, he sees the future at UTRGV.  

“That’s kind of the beauty of where we’re at,” Bush said of his new university. “UTSA is the perfect example of what bringing a football program to a university in Texas can do and we can’t wait to see what happens for us in 15 years at UTRGV.”

The lessons Bush learned, and the people he met, as the offensive coordinator in San Antonio helped his new school – UTRGV – hit the ground running as an FCS program in 2025. Bush’s story comes full circle on Saturday when UTSA hosts UTRGV in the Vaqueros first game against an FBS program. 

All UTRGV athletic director Chase Conque had in 2022 was a cardboard box that contained a helmet he bought from Academy that was branded with a UTRGV sticker from the university bookstore, a few renderings of the potential stadium and football facilities, and a belief that the Rio Grande Valley was finally ready for major college football. 

This wasn’t the first time the dream of football at UTRGV was broached. It was a dream for many for decades. But timing is everything, and Conque knew he’d need to build momentum inside the athletic offices before he could stretch his vision to the students and to the community. The biggest challenge was convincing people to believe. He spoke to every head coach on campus with a simple message: Football will help everyone win. 

See, Bush isn’t the only leader at UTRGV who got a front-row seat to how football transformed UTSA. Conque first met Bush in his parents' living room when Bush came to Little Rock, Ark., to recruit his youngest brother – Zach – to play quarterback for the Roadrunners. Conque’s wife was pregnant with twins at the time and Bush might’ve broken a recruiting violation by bringing a pair of Roadrunner onesies. 

“He recruited the whole family,” Conque said of Bush. “We had breakfast the next morning before he took a flight out of Little Rock, and now I look back on that time and think how wild it is that he and I are getting to do this together.” 

Conque had a long list of potential head coaches at UTRGV. But he kept coming back to Bush’s experience as a coordinator for a brand-new football program and his ties to the Valley. Bush’s wife is from McAllen. His mom is from Mercedes. His dad is in the UTRGV sports hall of fame. One morning, after going down a wormhole the night before as the stress mounted to pick a coach, Conque looked at his wife and said, “It has to be Travis Bush.”

The UTSA experience not only helped Bush and Conque know what to do, it taught them what not to do. The Roadrunners didn’t have on-campus facilities when the program entered the practice year required in 2010. The staff was off campus a few miles away. The practice facility was at the Dub Farris Athletic Complex four miles away on Loop 1604. 

UTRGV learned from those shortcomings and had the facilities worked out before any football players arrived on campus for the practice season in 2024. 

“Having the ability now to look back at the things we struggled with starting the UTSA program out, whether it was facilities and budgets and things like that, helped us know we needed to set those things up the way we wanted from the get-go,” Bush acknowledged. 

The college football landscape has changed dramatically since UTSA started a football program over 15 years ago. Namely, the transfer portal is a reality. The Roadrunners knew that the roster in the inaugural season would be mostly made up of redshirt freshmen and true freshmen. 

It was like starting a high school from scratch. Head coach Larry Coker and staff treated 2010 like a real season. They reported in August, held two-a-days, and practiced each week of the season to prepare the young bodies for the next year. 

UTRGV had an advantage. Bush and his staff didn’t start practicing in 2024 until after Labor Day. The Vaqueros held 36 practices total and the main goal was identifying talent for the future, not necessarily preparing those players for the 2025 season. Half the players on that practice team were cut to make way for older players from the portal that the program added after the 2024 season ended. 

“We wanted development that first year, like a true redshirt year, but we knew that we would have the ability to bring in some reinforcements before the first game,” Bush said. 

The formula worked to perfection. UTRGV’s nine wins were the most in a debut season in the FCS ranks since Division I split into two levels in 1978. The previous record was seven by South Alabama in 2009. The only three losses were on the road to Southeastern Louisiana, Lamar, and SFA. All three of those programs reached the FCS playoffs. 

The total game attendance in Year 1 was 87,774 fans, which ranked 11th in the FCS. In the inaugural game against Sul Ross State in August of last year, there were 12,726 fans in the stands and people at UTRGV believe over 20,000 people were on-site if the tailgate areas are included. They estimate an economic impact on the local economy at $144 million.

The success has made Bush a star in the Rio Grande Valley.  

“We laugh about it because you’d think I was Nick Saban down there,” he said. “Like, I can’t go to the H-E-B without somebody wanting to take a picture, it’s crazy. But that’s just how they are. They love it. They’re eating it up. They’re treating our guys like rockstars and it’s a fun time to be in the Valley.” 

Most college football fans in the Valley adopted the Roadrunners 15 years ago when UTSA started football. San Antonio is the second-largest alumni base outside of the Valley for UTRGV. There were nearly 9,000 ticket requests from Vaquero supporters by the start of July. 

UTRGV is playing with house money. A good showing at UTSA only adds to the momentum. Bush and Conque know the setting well, and they’re excited to watch their players, and their fan base, experience another first. 

“Once the ball kicks, we know it is a David vs. Goliath type challenge, but it’s going to be pretty special to see our young men compete on that stage and hopefully have a lot of fun while doing it,” Conque said.