This is why I think UTRGV can be the rare *successful* college football expansion team

Good morning, and thanks for spending part of your day with Extra Points.

I don’t make a ton of on-the-field predictions in this newsletter, but I’ll go ahead and step out on a limb here. I think the UTRGV Vaqueros will be a very good FCS college football team, very soon.

I’m not just saying that because I saw them win, 66-0, over the weekend. It isn’t easy to beat anybody by 60-plus points unless you play an excellent game, but their opponent, Sul Ross State, went 3-8 last year and was competing in Division III just a few years ago. The Lobos were just a teensy bit overmatched physically.

I’m saying it because after spending a few days on campus, talking to multiple administrative leaders and then digging through all my notes back in my office, I think UTRGV has what it takes to do something very unusual in college sports: become a successful college football program after starting from scratch in the 2000s.

Lots of other schools have launched football teams from nothing over the last 25 years. And while many of those schools, like Charlotte, Old Dominion, Florida International and Georgia State, have experienced a few good seasons, sustained success has mostly eluded this group.

There have been exceptions. I’d consider Coastal Carolina a successful football program. Same with UTSA. Kennesaw State was very successful at the FCS level. It can be done.

Here’s why I like UTRGV’s chances:

UTRGV doesn’t need football to survive

One of the biggest reasons smaller colleges, especially in Division II and D-III, start football teams isn’t because they want to chase championships or sell tickets. They start football for enrollment purposes. Launching a football team means your school will likely attract between 80 and 120 more male students who might not have otherwise enrolled, to say nothing of the students who then join the marching band or become equipment managers or decide to consider the university because it has football.

The strategy isn’t as common at the Division I level (although it is done), but an awful lot of mid-majors use athletics, generally, as an enrollment management tool.

That isn’t UTRGV.

“I actually think one of the reasons [football] has worked here is because we didn’t need it for enrollment,” UTRGV president Guy Bailey said. “I think if you're looking at football for enrollment purposes, that means your institution's in trouble. I don't think long term that's going to work.”

UTRGV’s total enrollment is north of 34,000, roughly 86 percent undergraduate students. Unlike almost every other state in the country, Texas is actually producing more college-bound high school students, including in and around the Rio Grande Valley. Between local and state demographics, the growth of the university generally (particularly in health care and scientific research) and the health of UT system, UTRGV is a safe bet to remain a healthy school for the foreseeable future.

That’s not the case for everybody in D-I … even some schools with solid athletic departments.

UTRGV has the financial and physical infrastructure to support football

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