Guided by vision and forethought, UTRGV Vaqueros football earned their hype

This is part two of our feature on UTRGV’s new football program. Check out part one here.

In deep South Texas, morning practices at the beginning of football season are generally a good idea due to the cooler temperatures. But on this particular Tuesday morning, the highs are heading to the 100s and by 9 a.m., the temperature reach the mid-90s.

Virtually everyone outside on the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley football practice field is drenched in sweat.

Although the Texas heat is known to be unbearable across the state, the Valley heat, in particular, is unrelenting.

Redshirt freshman and Vaqueros wide receiver #14, Tony Diaz, experienced practicing in these temperatures for the first time last year. After he completed his team’s first conditioning test, the heat had him questioning his life choices.

“ I was like, oh my God, do I still wanna play football? Like, it was crazy,” Diaz laughs. “After that, I went to the locker room and took my ice bath. I was texting my family members, my friends like, ‘yo, I dunno what I just did, but I’m dying.’”

Red Shirt junior, defensive back #4, Marcus “MJ” Heard Jr., is used to the heat now. But he and the rest of his teammates really felt it on that first day of conditioning in 2024.

He remembers the team’s initial shock at the temperatures.

“ It was dead silent. Like no one’s talking. Everybody was too tired to talk and trying not to pass out,” he said. “ It was a ‘Welcome to the Valley’ moment, I should say.”

Both Diaz and Heard Jr. agree, however, that come game time, the players need to put the heat out of their minds.

“Coach Bush always says ‘it’s just right.’ Like, don’t matter how hot, don’t matter how cold it is, ‘it is just right,’” Diaz said.

It’s no doubt this pearl of wisdom comes from the years of football Head Coach Travis Bush has under his belt.

Vaqueros Head Coach Travis Bush was hesitant to take up his position at first. It ended up being an opportunity he couldn’t pass up. Kristen Cabrera/Texas Standard

Bush grew up with football front and center while in the Valley. His mom is from Mercedes and his dad, Bruce Bush, is a legendary high school football coach inducted into the RGV Sports Hall of Fame.

Travis moved to Alice and then to Corpus Christi playing high school football and then graduated. At the college level, playing football took him to Southwest Texas State University, before it was known as Texas State.

But coaching football? That took him all over Texas – like to the University of Texas at San Antonio in 2011 during the Roadrunner’s own inaugural football season. Bush even spent a season in the NFL, coaching on the staff of the Buffalo Bills.

But, there was one opportunity – a tradition, really – he couldn’t let pass.

“ It was my turn,” Bush said, referring to how his father coached Bush’s own high school football team.

“ I got two boys, so it was my turn to want to coach my boys. So, I got into high school coaching in 2016 and w as dead set to retire as a high school coach until, you know, Chasse Conque called.”

UTRGV Athletic Director Chasse Conque says Bush’s connections to the Valley were a plus, but his experience at UTSA during their football founding year was invaluable.

“He  got to see firsthand all the opportunities, but also all the challenges, that starting a program from scratch presents,” Conque said. “So he could speak in really intimate details about what it was like to build that first roster, what those first few recruiting classes look like, how you keep the young men motivated in that practice year. And what has to happen in the community.”

Learning these lessons initially made Bush hesitate at the new opportunity.

“Not many people know this, but when the first call I got about this job came in, my first instinct was, ‘I do not wanna do this again,’” Bush said. “You know, it was hard. It was a really hard situation.”

However, this didn’t deter him for too long as he began to better know the university administration.

“Getting to know the plan and the legwork that had already been done by Chasse and our administration, you could tell this thing’s gonna be set up a lot better,” he said. “It’s gonna be set up to be successful. It’s gonna be set up to allow you to do the things you need to do right off the bat. So then it really became intriguing” 

Looking back at almost 1,000 days at UTRGV, Bush remembers the excitement of building the team, planning recruitment and buying into the vision of Vaqueros football.

“To see everything just falling into place… It’s just been a surreal process,” he says.

A big part of that process included finding the student athletes. But how does someone ask potential recruits to join a team that didn’t exist yet?

For Defensive Back “MJ” Heard Jr., it certainly presented a few issues.

“Honestly, when they first approached me about the opportunity, I thought it was fake. I thought it was like a scam,” Heard Jr. said. “ It was like, a text and I was a little skeptical. I’m looking it up and I’m only just seeing track stuff. I don’t see a uniform, I don’t see like a stadium.”

Heard Jr. is originally from Bryan and transferred to UTRGV from Davidson College in North Carolina. The coaching team singled him out as one of the team’s emerging leaders.

“ Seeing, on my visit, cranes on campus… It’s a big thing,” he said. “Like, anytime you see cranes on campus, you know they’re moving upward. And I just trusted their vision.”

Wide receiver Tony Diaz was coming off of a rough senior year at San Marcos High School in San Marcos.

“ It wasn’t good at all,” he said. “I mean, I was debating if I should still play football and everything.”

But it was the folks assembled by Coach Bush that gave Diaz what he needed before he was even signed on.

“ The coaching staff, when I came down on my visit, they just made me feel like home,” he said.

Diaz gives special credit to one coach in particular – McAllen native Gunnar Henderson

“My coach, Coach Gunnar, he’s actually from the Valley. And he recently just got promoted to receiver head coach. So, Coach Bush definitely picked the right guy for that for sure,” Diaz said.

Henderson takes his role as coach and mentor seriously.

“ So all those guys, you know, spiritual life, social life, and then probably most importantly, academics… I’m kind of the guy who makes sure these guys are all progressing in all three phases, along with becoming a better athlete, better football player,” Henderson said. “There’s a lot of different hats I’ve gotta wear, but this is the job that I’ve dreamed of.”

Assembling talented coaching staff and relaying the vision of the team and its future were key recruitment tactics for Bush. But theres one other important component to signing players: The fans.

“The fact that they can come here and play for sold-out crowds every week? That was really beneficial in some of the recruits choosing us over other places,” Bush said. 

It’s what ultimately swayed Heard Jr. and Diaz’s decision to play ball for the Vaqueros.

“Obviously I didn’t know what it was gonna be like with the fans,” Heard Jr. said. “And the environment was gonna be this crazy? So that was for sure a piece that pulled me in.”

“And the crazy thing is we haven’t even done nothing yet and they, the fans, already going crazy. Asking for signatures… It’s crazy,” Diaz said. “So just imagine us winning a game? Just imagine how that’s gonna be like?”

“Me and Tony discussed this before,” Heard Jr. said. “But they supported us through practice seasons, sold-out practices. They’re excited here. And we gotta hold our end of the bargain up – and that’s what we’ve been practicing and working on.”

“That’s what we’re gonna do for sure,” Diaz said.

The 7 p.m. CT kickoff against Sul Ross State is on Saturday at the Robert & Janet Vackar Stadium, in Edinburg, TX. That inaugural Vaqueros game will be also be broadcast on ESPN+.

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