Vaqueros close fall practice with a bang, kickoff months away

6 days ago 25

EDINBURG — UTRGV is nine months away from kicking off Division I football in the Rio Grande Valley.

The team’s first fall practice season wrapped up last week, leaving the Vaqueros 276 days from Thanksgiving to continue to get bigger, stronger and faster in preparation for the first game in program history against Sul Ross State on Aug. 30, 2025, at Robert & Janet Vackar Stadium in Edinburg.

“It’s flown by. Today, the final practice, the final week of the FCS regular season, we’re way better than we were in August, I’ll tell you that,” UTRGV head coach Travis Bush said. “So many of them have developed, especially in the weight room. They were hitting it hard four days a week in the weight room with no games. Guys have increased their vertical jumps three to four inches. Hats off to our strength staff, Coach (Don) Sommer and Coach Reese (Vogel), they’ve done a phenomenal job. It was a good semester in the classroom, but really you can see these guys develop in a lot of ways on and off the field through this fall, kind of turning from young men into men.”

The Vaqueros concluded fall practice with an Orange vs. White intrasquad scrimmage last Thursday. The competitiveness and intensity gave a preview of what’s to come in August when UTRGV collides against another team for the first time.

“It’s been a lot of hard work, and it’s been great going against our offense,” Orange Team freshman safety Kayden Cooper said. “Our offense has some talented dudes over there. It’s just a great atmosphere, real competitive. Competitiveness drives us all offensively and defensively.”

With the roster split in two, there was no shortage of jawing back and forth and hard hitting as both teams battled for bragging rights on the final day of fall practice.

Orange and White were tied with two minutes remaining to set up a drive navigated by freshman quarterback Aidan Jakobsohn, who helped move the Orange Team to the White Team’s 9-yard line with time for one play remaining.

Freshman kicker Boone Partee stepped in and split the uprights with a 26-yard game-winning field goal to secure a 10-7 victory for the Orange Team.

“Split up into two teams, guys got after it,” Bush said. “Ended up today with a game-winning drive and a walk-off field goal, which is a situation we’ve worked on, so it was good to see the Orange Team manage the clock there with that long drive in a two-minute situation and get the winning field goal there.”

Jakobsohn, a freshman from Ingleside who operated the first-team offense this fall, said the scrimmages are setting the Vaqueros up for the real deal come August 2025.

“It’s good work,” he said. “This is what we’re going to see on Saturdays whenever we play. Shoutout Boone, made the kick, and it’s good work and what we need to be doing leading up to the season.”

“You can see the score is 10-7 at the end, but we don’t win every day. The offense is going to win some days, the defense is going to win some days. Everyday we go back and forth and have to bring the best version of yourself just like coach says,” Orange Team freshman safety Cah’lil Ward said.

By the time the Vaqueros kick off against Sul Ross State on Aug. 30, the team will look a lot different.

The current roster includes 87 players — 73 are true freshmen right out of high school who are redshirting this season. With a 2025 recruiting class that will include freshmen and transfers set to sign this winter, the makeup of the roster is sure to change with experienced upperclassmen entering the program.

“Right now, I guess we’re on the clock for 2025 so the first priority is recruiting. We’re in the middle of the next recruiting class, the focus is going to be bringing in some upperclassmen,” Bush said. “Some of these freshmen are still going to be competing for spots in the spring, but definitely can’t have that many sophomores on the squad, so we got to balance out that roster. It’s going to be the main concern over the next six to seven months of being able to kick off in 2025 with seniors, juniors, sophomores and a new class of freshmen coming in next year.”

SCHEDULE UPDATES

UTRGV has three games scheduled for its inaugural season in 2025, with one more nonconference opponent to be announced. The Southland Conference is likely to release the 2025 conference schedule some time in December, which will reveal the Vaqueros’ remaining opponents for their first year competing in the 10-team league.

The Vaqueros will open the 2025 season against Sul Ross State on Aug. 30 at Robert & Janet Vackar Stadium in Edinburg. UTRGV is scheduled to play host to North American University on Sept. 13 and Texas Wesleyan on Sept. 20. North American, located in Stafford, and Texas Wesleyan, located in Fort Worth, are both NAIA schools.

Vackar Stadium in Edinburg and Sams Memorial Stadium in Brownsville are both undergoing renovations with hopes to be finished in time for kickoff in August, which will allow the Vaqueros to play games in both the Upper and Lower Valley.

Future scheduled games for the Vaqueros include 2027 contests against Texas A&M Kingsville and against Texas State, a road game at Rice in 2028 and a road game against Texas State in 2030.