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2019 Reviews: UTSA

Frank Wilson was fired. We wrote about him twice over the last couple of seasons. Once when we were seeing signs that things were not in good shape. Again, when things had not improved after another coordinator change. We had hope after one game, when the offense had then had two good offensive games in a row (last year vs UNT and opener vs UIW). It was fool’s gold, however.

The local media guys did not think Frank Wilson was the reason that UTSA was losing, but that is also fairly typical of the local tv sports anchors. “If he only had a healthy QB”, they tweet, as if that is not the entire job of a modern football coach. The game is about finding a QB and then finding someone who can back him up and then making sure it does not get ruined beyond there.

Don Harris brought up the UNT situation, where Seth Littrell hit a home run by signing the best statistical QB in NT history in his first class and playing him in every game that he has coached where he was not injured. That is the job, and why Littrell is still employed and Wilson is not.

None of that means that Wilson is a bad person. You can be a great person and a bad football coach.

By nearly every account Frank Wilson was the former, and that probably bought him a little more time than was deserved. He went 6-6 with Larry Coker’s guys and only managed on bowl game (a loss) with that talent — NFL talent! He was lauded for his ability to recruit but those highly ranked guys underperformed on the offensive end since about mid-2017. Two coordinator changes did not save him the gig and putting all the eggs in the Frank Harris basket was always a risk.

This season was a slog, as the offense was dreadful again, and the defense slipped because of graduations, defections, and probably despair. It is hard to muster the energy to compete on the defensive side when there is little hope for the offense to help you at all. I would not be surprised to see a renewed vigor on defense from this squad next season when they have a little enthusiasm in the program.

Belief and motivation are such a huge part of any organization that when the first signs of trouble came, the clock was ticking on Wilson. Adding to all that pressure was the fact that UTSA has lost momentum from the start up season. When UTSA football was a novelty and fans could come to the Dome and see their hometown team take on those big schools from big conferences, it was fun.

After a few letdowns, going to a game to see UTSA beat up on a small school was not always a guarantee. This whole thing is about entertainment, after all and UTSA Football was not fun anymore. The entire season was leading toward this end and it is a shame that it took a whole other one before the inevitable was done.

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