Mascot Monday is back and we are racing to make it in under the wire.  Fortunately for use, we will be looking at the University of Texas at San Antonio’s Rowdy the Roadrunner.  In celebration of instituting their very first year of football, I’m gonna do a fly over on Rowdy and see if he can stack up well against veteran mascots right out of the gate.  I’m going to toss in a preview of some of their opponents for the next couple of years as well as talk about the legendary coach that’s taking his shot at building a program from the ground up.

The University of Texas at San Antonio opened doors June 5, 1969 and is the eighth largest school in Texas, which is really big compared to other states.  The Roadrunners have had plenty of other sports, including basketball and baseball, but they decided to make the jump in football in 2008.  I think the hire of Larry Coker helped push out that invitation from the Western Athletic Conference join, which UTSA will do in 2012.  Larry Coker won a BCS National Championship and like many other great coaches who just like to coach, they are turning building new programs up for enjoyment.

So with the football program ramping up at super fast speed, will the Roadrunner that is Rowdy keep up?  Well, in 1977, the two options for a mascot decided on student vote was the armadillo and the roadrunner.  They chose wisely, as most armadillos I see are roadkill on the highways.  As with the mascot choice came, so did the name of Rowdy.  He seems pretty active on Twitter and Facebook but that’s all I can find.  As for the costume, it represents the logo real close and I’m glad to see that they will fit him with a football uniform.

I guess the answer to the previous question is to wait and see.  Football wise the school has the right kind of schedule to start out with: the light schedule.  Things will turn a little more rough in 2013 and 2014.  They will be playing schools like Oklahoma State, Kansas State, Arizona, and Virginia.  That’s a fairly rough schedule for a school’s 3rd year of existence.  Then again, I’m not sure how many seniors will play for their first season, so we could be getting a whole starting unit of experience Junior and Seniors.  The Roadrunners might just be able to compete based on that alone.

So with the tougher competition then I guess things will look up for Rowdy.  He’s not really registering on the radar for mascot studliness.  Give him a couple of years to get some air under his wings and we may see the start of something great.  He’ll have a chance to learn a few cool tricks from Willie the Wildcat and Pistol Pete.  The University of Texas at San Antonio is making a big push in Texas and we’ll see if they can wrangle in the in state kids and help Larry Croker build on his legacy.