NCAAF Top 25 futures: UTSA Roadrunners 'graduate' to AAC
UTSA has won 23 games combined over the last couple of seasons. That is by far the best they have been in their short term at the FBS level, leading to the "move up" from Conference USA to the American Athletic Conference this season. Best of all, they have been able to keep the architect of that success, head coach Jeff Traylor (for now).
The AAC lost Houston, UCF, and Cincinnati this season, to counter that some other CUSA teams have joined the league as well so the Roadrunners should be more than able to be among the better teams in the league in their debut season. In fact, that is expected. The real question is whether they are going to be "AAC good" or just plain good this year.
No. 23 UTSA Roadrunners 2023 Win Total
Over 7.5 -130 / Under 7.5 +105
The lines on UTSA are implying that they are not expected to take the AAC by storm this season. This is a quality program, and they are well coached, so I do not mind giving them the benefit of the doubt and that is the way the market is leaning too. The under has that extra juice but not so much so that it is obviously worth the plunge. This is a transition year, so even though they have continuity on the field and on the sidelines leaning to the under does feel like the safer play.
My guess is that part of the reason for UTSA pessimism is a very difficult schedule. In the non-conference, they have two games against Power 5 opponents and they are both on the road, at Houston in the opener, and a trip to Tennessee. They are also on the road against Tulane to close the season, and the Green Wave are right there with the Roadrunners in terms of preseason rankings in the conference. The rest of the schedule is not too terrible but they are not going to be favored in those tough road games and thus are going to have to be near-perfect in those other games to press that over. That is a lot to ask in a transition season.
One of the big reasons that UTSA should have as smooth a transition as possible this season is because they are bringing a lot of players back (eight starters each on offense and defense). Most important among them is quarterback Frank Harris, who has been a collegian for a long time. He is the preseason, first-team AAC QB and a likely player of the year candidate and Traylor has total confidence in him. They could not hold on to his top receiver, Zakhari Franklin, though, nevertheless, there is a lot of skill returning in support. The defense returns its top playmakers and should be able to have success against competition that is not that much better than what they saw in CUSA.
I like the UTSA story a lot but I am not seeing them winning those aforementioned road games on their schedule and that just leaves them in a tough spot on that over. If you see them getting at least one of those then the over is the better bet. If not, take the under. That is where I am putting my money.
More must-reads: