Remember the Alamo City: Why San Antonio is the College Football Capital of Texas in 2021

November 24, 2021 – San Antonio, Texas

Article By: Jonathan Guajardo - Editor, San Antonio Sentinel

If anything can be said about championship quality football teams, it’s that they must possess proficiency in all aspects of their gameplay. They must be adept at offense, durable at defense, and sprightly at special teams. Any deficiency in these areas will surely show and detract from the program’s overall value when facing a championship-caliber opponent. The same can be said about a city’s football blueprint. While people often think of Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth, and Austin as large metropolitan areas that also double as hubs of winning college football programs in Texas, San Antonio can now make a claim that they’re the premier city in Texas for college football across multiple levels of NCAA competition. While these other major Texas cities can potentially boast of one of their program’s college football prowess, there aren’t many that can make the claim that they’re competitive and fielding championship quality teams across multiple levels of the game. 

To illustrate this point, one needs to look no further than up IH-10 in Houston. Although the Houston Cougars Football team proved itself as a force to be reckoned with in Division I FBS football this season with their 8-0 AAC record and #19 national ranking, the same cannot be said for their other FBS and FCS counterparts. Rice University currently sits at 3-8 overall and second to last in the Conference-USA West Division standings.

FCS Program, Houston Baptist University, also saw their share of disappointment this season, finishing winless with a record of 0-11 against their Southland Conference opponents. Houston’s other prominent FCS program, Texas Southern University, hasn’t fared much better, currently sitting at 2-6 and fifth-place in their Division in the SWAC. 

Moving up to North Texas, the Dallas-Fort Worth area has historically been known as a hotbed of college football talent, with SMU and TCU routinely taking the reins of the area’s football landscape. However this year, even after a hot start, SMU sits at 4th in the American Athletic Conference, posting a 4-3 conference record and sitting smack behind the East Carolina Pirates.

Also, unfortunately for the Horned Frog faithful, TCU is currently dealing with their own 3-5 record and a number seven spot in the Big XII standings. Even if we’re to crane our necks to include Denton’s North Texas Mean Green, we’d find a team with arguably one of the more beautiful stadiums in college football, but one which still sits at third in the Conference-USA West Division and 5-6 overall on the year.

The DFW area’s non-FBS teams also show some room for growth with Texas Wesleyan University’s relatively new Division III football program posting an 8-2 overall record and a 7-2 record to finish third in the Sooner Athletic Conference. While this Wesleyan team shows much promise, it is clear that the Dallas-Fort Worth area isn’t evenly matched across multiple levels of CFB play. 

Situated up I-35 in Austin, the Texas Longhorn’s lackluster season continues to trickle along as they trudge through the remainder of their Big XII schedule, dragging with them a dispiriting 4-7 record including recent losses to West Virginia and Kansas. For Austinites, the buck stops there because of the lack of any other college football teams in the city.

Unfortunately, when it comes to the college football landscape in Texas, many fans tend to gloss over the Alamo City in favor of teams from other metro areas such as Austin, Houston, Dallas, or Fort Worth. While the San Antonio area produced many talented players and high school teams over the years, only recently did it begin to receive recognition as a major player in college football due to the recent dominance of several of its local college football programs such as UTSA, UIW, and Trinity University. 

The #15 University of Texas at San Antonio Roadrunners currently exist as San Antonio’s only Division I-FBS program. After a few building years following the birth of their program as an FBS Independent in 2011, they find themselves trending upwards in Conference-USA as they work towards a potential conference championship and bowl game.

After exercising their dominance over the rest of their conference opponents this year, their latest win over the University of Alabama-Birmingham (7-4, 5-2) secured them a Conference-USA West title in front of 35,147 fans in a raucous game in the Alamodome. Now, they head to Denton to face the aforementioned North Texas Mean Green and later will host the Conference-USA Championship game on December 3rd against either Western Kentucky or Marshall University. 

If you want more college football action, there’s no better place to look than the city’s opulent 78209 zip code at the University of the Incarnate Word, home of the #13 (FCS) UIW Cardinals. Having established their football program in 2009 as a member of NCAA Division II, the Cardinals faced some building years as well, when they competed in the Lone Star Conference.

Fast forward twelve years and the still relatively young UIW football program continues to grow by leaps and bounds. From their transition to FCS Division I athletics in 2013, to joining the Southland Conference in 2014, to winning a share of the Southland Conference Championship in 2018,  to beating FBS opponent Texas State in San Marcos and competing in an FCS playoff game, UIW continually proves itself as a worthy CFB contender. Now, for the first time in program history, the Cardinals sit at #13 in the NCAA Stats Perform Top 25 rankings, own an outright Southland Conference Championship, and will host an FCS Playoff game against a talented Stephen F. Austin (8-3) team at Benson Stadium this Saturday at 2 p.m.

If these two Division I programs aren’t enough for the Alamo City to flex its football muscles on other Texas metropolitan areas, just consider the fact that San Antonio’s lone Division III football program, Trinity University counts 21 conference championships in its gilded resume, including recent wins in 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2007, 2011, and 2019. The Tigers also finished their 2021 season 9-1 overall and 7-0 in conference play. Despite losing to Mary Hardin-Baylor 13-3 in the first round of the Division III football playoffs, they still secured a Southern Athletic Association Conference Championship to add to their already stacked trophy case.

Again, while many may pass over San Antonio when thinking of college football destinations, the caliber of its football programs cannot be denied and shouldn’t be underestimated. UTSA, UIW, and Trinity place the city as one of the winningest metropolitan areas this season, as well as a hotbed of college football talent and passion. Regardless of how the season ends for UTSA and UIW, the 210 has much to be proud of from our local teams. If the 2021 season shows any indication of the future of college football in the city, San Antonians certainly have a lot to look forward to, and it’s best that the rest of Texas starts to take notice of SA’s place in the college football landscape and remembers the Alamo City!