UTSA Roadrunners College Football Preview 2021: Keys To The Season
UTSA Roadrunners Biggest Key: Offense
The passing game needs to be more consistent. The running attack will be the main mode of transportation, but it would be nice if the Roadrunners could rely on all of the parts working week in and week out.
There wasn’t anything happening through the air against UAB, and then everything sharpened up against BYU. Frank Harris hit 79% of his throws against North Texas, but hit just 38% of his passes earlier in the year against Army.
Overall Harris and the passing game were fine, but the team completed fewer than 50% of its throws three times and had way too many games where there weren’t any downfield plays.
UTSA Roadrunners Biggest Key: Defense
Load up and keep stopping the run. UTSA was a rock against the run for years, but the 2019 defense allowed over five yards per carry and never seemed able to get control of games.
The 2020 defense struggled against Army and Louisiana, but both of those teams are outliers. The defensive front was great at generating pressure in the backfield, there’s enough size to hold up, and the Roadrunners have safeties who can hit.
They were 5-0 last year and 8-0 over the last two seasons when allowing fewer than 125 rushing yards
UTSA Roadrunners Key Player To A Successful Season
DT Jaylon Haynes, Sr.
The Roadrunners need a big season out of the quarterbacks, but it’s a deep group with plenty of options. RB Sincere McCormick has to stay healthy, and a few more receiver weapons have to rise up.
However, the defense mostly needs its veteran 6-2, 290-pound anchor to be the one everything can work around. He came up with 40 tackles with two sacks and 12.5 tackles for loss in 2019, but he was only able to go in nine games last year and yet still came up with four sacks. If he’s an all-star, this might be the best D in Conference USA.
UTSA Roadrunners Key Game To The 2021 Season
UAB, November 20
Is UTSA really ready to win the Conference USA West? The rest of the schedule isn’t all that bad, and that includes key late season games against Southern Miss and UAB at home.
The Roadrunners lost 21-13 to the Blazers last year after dropping the 2019 game 35-3 – those were the only two times the two have played.
2020 UTSA Roadrunners Fun Stats
– UTSA Scoring: 1st Quarter 29 – 2nd Quarter 125
– Fumbles: Opponents 20 (lost 8) – UTSA 10 (lost 4)
– Average Yards Per Carry: UTSA 5.2 – Opponents 4.3