UTRGV Football set to hit the practice field

2 months ago 65

EDINBURG — The Vaqueros Performance Center, the on-campus home of UTRGV football, is currently under construction with plans to finish in time for the 2025 season, when the Vaqueros kick off Division I Football Championship Series action in the Rio Grande Valley.

The turf practice field outside the Vaqueros Performance Center is ready to roll right now, however, and so are the 75-plus UTRGV football players that make up the first signing class in program history.

Move-in day and meetings begin Sunday for UTRGV’s football student-athletes, followed by more of the same Monday.

On Tuesday, the work begins.

The Vaqueros will hit the turf practice field for conditioning tests and ramp up leading into Sept. 9, the first full-padded practice for UTRGV football.

“It’s definitely still a work in progress, but super excited. We’re two days away from our young men being here, and everything’s kind of falling into place,” UTRGV head coach Travis Bush said. “Practice facility is ready, we walked through the pavilion where we’ll house out in Year 1, so for us, to have this advantage to bring these guys in with these facilities is phenomenal.”

Bush guided the media through a walkthrough tour of the Athletics Pavilion, which will house UTRGV football temporarily in 2024 while construction continues on the VPC. The Athletics Pavilion features locker, meeting, training and weight rooms, and a path leading to two practice fields — one of turf and one of natural grass from the King Ranch that was just laid down and needs time to settle before the Vaqueros can practice on it.

The Athletics Pavilion is lined with motivational phrases including “Win Today,” which Bush and the UTRGV coaching staff use to push stacking wins daily to lead to positive results.

Bush said his time as an assistant at UTSA, when the Roadrunners launched their football program, was much different than the turf and natural grass practice fields and Athletics Pavilion UTRGV football is starting off with.

“We lived this life before (at UTSA), starting a program in the past in the exact same scenario, but we were in a little gym with everything in the same gym,” Bush said. “We had to drive to a high school field several miles away to practice every single day, so to have our own facilities at home and to come out here and practice and see the VPC being built on a daily basis and being able to move into that next year is big time.”

While the current UTRGV football team will begin conditioning tests and work leading up to its first official practice, aspiring college football players will have a chance to earn a spot alongside the current players.

UTRGV football plans to hold walk-on tryouts for current UTRGV students who meet a list of requirements. Bush said the intent is to add multiple players following the Aug. 26 tryouts, and he’s seen players make the most of these kinds of opportunities in the coaching past.

“We got some low numbers at certain positions, so we’re hoping to find some guys that can help. There’s some requirements they have to do, eligibility, age, etc., so if we can take about 10-12, that can help us out then it’s a success,” Bush said. “We did the same thing at UTSA and we had an open tryout, a young man came off the street and tried out, and ended up earning a starting position and a scholarship and he ended up in camp with the Chicago Bears after he graduated, so you never know when someone gets an opportunity. There could be a great story that starts here on Aug. 26, here to tryout, that’s the exciting piece, too.”

Those interested in trying out for the UTRGV football team must meet the following requirements: be a full-time UTRGV student enrolled in a minimum of 12 hours for the fall semester, have an NCAA ID number from the NCAA eligibility center, must have played high school football within the past two years, completed and submitted a physical form, tryout form, participation waiver form, tryout questionnaire and proof of insurance. More information can be found at GoUTRGV.com.

All necessary forms and proof of insurance are due to UTRGV director of football operations and administration John Simmons via email at John.Simmons1@utrgv.edu before 5 p.m. Aug. 21.