Conference Realignment
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few days, you already know that UTSA is heading to Conference USA in the 2013 season after just a year in the WAC. In the following days after the Board of Regents agenda was released, news broke that CUSA was eying several other schools as well, including UTSA’s 2012 WAC conference mate Louisiana Tech, the Sun Belt’s North Texas and Florida International, along with recent startups Old Dominion and Charlotte. CUSA officials are reportedly planning a press release this Friday morning, followed by press conferences on campus at each of the new schools.
The six additions bring the total count up to 14 for the 2013 season with a very appealing geographical split between the two divisions. ODU and Charlotte are rumored to wait until 2015 before officially playing football in CUSA, so the league will likely continue scheduling as they have previously, with eight conference games for each team, playing all five opponents from the same division and three cross-divisional opponents. It has yet to be seen how a potential CUSA/MWC scheduling agreement would affect each of their conference schedules, or if it will simply facilitate the scheduling of out-of-conference games between the two leagues.
Speaking of the Mountain West, they plan on making some additions of their own, further depleting the WAC by adding Utah State and San Jose State. All of these moves leave the WAC with only three football playing members, and it looks like Texas State will be knocking that number down to two as they have an announcement set for later today where they will announce their move to the Sun Belt.
So where does that leave the two remaining members of the WAC, Idaho and New Mexico State? It seems likely that they could be forced to either drop down to FCS or go independent in football, but there’s always a chance that the Mountain West could expand to 12 by adding them, or the Sun Belt (where they both played football from 2001 to 2005) would be willing to take them back, despite the obvious geographic disparity.
Baseball
As if fast-tracking into Conference USA wasn’t enough good news for the week, the UTSA baseball team earned what was perhaps their most historic win in team history last Tuesday night, knocking off the nation’s #1 Baylor Bears by a final score of 4-1, ending the Bears’ 24-game winning streak. It marked the first time in UTSA athletics history that a team, in any sport, knocked off the top team in the nation.
However, the Roadrunners continued to struggle in conference play, dropping two of three to Central Arkansas over the weekend and retaining their last-place spot in the Southland Conference standings. The team also fell to Houston on Tuesday night, 8-3.
The good news is that UTSA returns home this weekend to face Nicholls, who currently occupy the spot just above UTSA in the standings with a one game advantage over the ‘Runners. This would be a great opportunity to spark a late season run into the postseason as UTSA sits just three games shy of 7th/8th place Stephen F. Austin and and Northwestern State.
Marching Band
The Spirit of San Antonio (SOSA) is giving UTSA fans an opportunity to influence which shows the band will perform at halftime of UTSA’s football games in 2012. Click here to vote for the shows you would like to see SOSA perform next season.
Softball
The UTSA softball team dropped both games in their Tuesday doubleheader at Texas State before splitting the weekend series with Nicholls and getting run-ruled by Houston on Tuesday, 10-0, after five innings.
The team closes out the regular season this weekend at Stephen F. Austin, hoping to build some momentum heading into tournament play. The Southland Conference Tournament begins on May 10 in San Antonio.
Tennis
The men’s tennis team entered the Southland Conference Tournament this weekend as the #4 seed, but strong performances by Martin Ayala and Yannick Junger helped propel the team to victories over #1 A&M-Corpus Christi and #2 Nicholls, earning the Roadrunners a berth in the NCAA Tournament for the third time in program history.
The team will travel to Berkeley to face #14 California in their first-round matchup on May 12.
The women’s tennis team wasn’t so fortunate in their conference tournament, falling to #46 Stephen F. Austin in the first round to end their season.
Golf
The Southland Conference champion UTSA women’s golf team is headed to Columbus, Ohio for the NCAA Central Regional, which will take place from May 10-12. The top eight schools out of 24 (16 of which are in the top 50 in the nation) will advance to the NCAA Championship.
Although the men’s golf team finished the Southland Conference Tournament in eighth place, UTSA fans do have something to be proud of as sophomore Ryan Werre (last year’s Southland Freshman of the Year) finished in a tie for seventh place, earning him second-team All-Southland Conference honors.
