Texas Tech football: 5 things to know about UTSA’s Jeff Traylor

He is Texas through and through

During Monday’s press conference to announce the dismissal of Wells, Texas Tech AD Kirby Hocutt emphasized that he wants his next coach to have strong Texas ties.  Well, Traylor certainly checks that box.

As we’ve already discussed, he’s a Texas high school football icon.  But his connection to the Lone Star State runs deeper than that.  In fact, almost every stop along his path has been in Texas.

A native of Gilmer, he attended Stephen F. Austin from 1986-89 where he was a walk-on with the football team.  After that, he began his coaching career as an assistant at Big Sandy High School in east Texas.  He would also spend seven seasons as an assistant at Jacksonville High in Jacksonville, Texas.  Then, he would jump to the job at Gilmer that would propel him to the top of the high school coaching ranks.

In 2015, Traylor would join the staff of the Texas Longhorns as the special teams coordinator and tight ends coach.  In 2017, he then coached at SMU as associate head coach and running backs coach.

Then, after just a year in Dallas, he would spend two years as the associate head coach and running backs coach at Arkansas.  Finally, in 2020 he was named UTSA head coach.

Thus, it is easy to see that he knows the state of Texas about as well as any coach can.  In fact, he’s a true Texas success story by working his way from the high school ranks to being one of the game’s fastest-rising coaching stars.

Meanwhile, Wells was the opposite as he had virtually no ties to Texas when he was hired by the Red Raiders and that was rightfully a concern to many Tech fans when Wells was hired.  Now, Hocutt seems to be determined to land a coach who is well-connected throughout the Lone Star State, and perhaps no coach on Tech’s radar meets that criteria better than Traylor.

However, some are quick to point out that he has no ties to Texas Tech or West Texas.  In fact, none of his coaching stops have come west of I-35.  Thus, his primary area of expertise is East Texas and that’s the area from where he’s mined most of the talent that he’s recruited.

Regardless, he still has enough sway with Texas high school programs to be able to open doors across the state.  And that could be one of the main reasons why he is likely Hocutt’s top choice.