Gut Punch

It was another rough week this week for the UT Arlington volleyball squad, made even worse against in-state conference foes that once again resulted in a two-game losing week. The losses pretty much seal UTA's fate in the fifth position based on who is left on the schedule.

UTA hosted Tarleton State on Thursday and lost in five sets. Looking over the rosters, it made sense why Tarleton has had measurable success compared to last year, and their Division I stint as a whole. First-year head coach Jazmyne Johnson revamped the roster, though I was severely disappointed in her and the whole Texan team post-match, more on that in a moment.

The Texans have three returning players who have never enrolled anywhere else, one junior and two seniors. They have two freshmen on the roster. There are two transfers from the Junior College ranks who enrolled at TSU last year. There are ten, yes ten, players who were on a different campus last year within the NCAA, nine Division I players and one Division II. Even in the portal era, that is a high turnover for a volleyball roster.

2025/26 Starts

I was walking into work today and I realized I didn't do a preseason post to the upcoming men's and women's basketball teams. Truth is, no one has any clue how the season will shake up. I have seen pundits, insiders and other experts have wildly different polls. So I'll give the Western Athletic Conference's opinion only and basically leave it at that.

I have seen these knowledgeable people have UT Arlington as high as number one on the men's side and as low as number six out of seven possible teams. With such a high turnover in roster, it is essentially a rebuild every year for most teams. I don't know the impact that has on support. On the one hand, UTA fans knew the Mavericks were going to be really good in the mid teens. Fans showed up. On the other, if you don't know and the team is rough, do you still go to games early? I don't know. It's just an academic argument.

But as it is, for the men, the WAC coaches poll is as follows:

UTA FB History: Vol. 9 Gm. 8 - Close but Still Optimistic

I rail on the 1970's a lot here on the Maverick Rambler. And it certainly is earned. So many avoidable errors led to the demise of the football program. But 1975 has a soft spot in my heart. It was the second time since 1972 that the fans felt like the team could compete at the highest level. 

The points scored differential was within 70, with only the 1972 season able to say that halfway through the decade. Two of the seven losses were within a touchdown. Another two were within two touchdowns. Every win but one was by ten or more points. There was only one blowout, a 54-7 loss to undefeated Arkansas State. There was a borderline blowout in a 37-8 loss to Louisiana Tech that was on the edge, but the combined score of 121-29 in the previous three games against the Bulldogs showed the gap was narrowing to one of the Southland Conference's best programs.

Halfway through the decade and it was only the second time in the frame that UT Arlington fans felt maybe next year actually meant something.

When this year's edition of This Day in UTA Football History last peaked in on the '75 Mavericks, the Mavs had just got a .500 record for the second time in the decade, but turnovers, penalties erasing touchdowns, special teams' miscues, etc. were costly in a 28-24 loss. 

Streaking the Other Way

Two UT Arlington volleyball posts in a row will reference a win. Last week, the team defeated the Utah Tech Trailblazers. This week will also reference a win. That hasn't happened since September 19th's volleyball entry. It also comes at a time that it was desperately needed. One match before the halfway mark in Western Athletic Conference play, the Mavericks were in a tie for last place. Now, they are knocking on the door of third place.

It was another one-match week as the Mavericks hosted California Baptist. The Lancers defeated the Mavs in Riverside California more than a week prior and after UTA beat Utah Tech, the previously unbeaten conference leader, the CBU rematch was highly anticipated.

The first set left no doubt that the high UTA was riding was still in effect. The Mavs won the opener to the match by 11 points. There wasn't any large-scale run that contributed to the margin. Rather it was quite a bit of consistent, multi-points efforts that kept the lead growing at a steady pace. The Mavs hit a spectacular .522 compared to CBU's .16.

New(ish) Conference Rivals

The news has been out for several weeks now, so this is more a reactionary post. Rumors were that a couple of other schools would be following the lone announcement, but since the October 10th news only the Little Rock Trojans are officially set to become the ninth member of the soon-to-be United Athletic Conference. I won't wait any longer and truth be told, the Trojans are worthy of their own entry.

This will only be a post to offer my perspective and some points. The first being, I wonder if there should be concern that rumors were swirling of three schools, but only one has made the commitment. Either way, I've alluded to this before, but I'm happy to share the conference distribution with fewer schools.

Second, it was very good to see a conference that the UT Arlington Athletic Department is a part of expand with a member school that is an existing member of Division I. For the Western Athletic Conference in its current geographic footprint to expand, the infill likely would have been Division II schools transitioning to DI. California Baptist, Grand Canyon, Tarleton State and Utah Tech all followed that pattern. While there have been some successes at these schools to varying degrees, I want all schools to have their sports programs compete now and who have a history of competing.

UTA FB History: Vol. 9 Gm. 7 - Starting Conference

The last time the 1969 UT Arlington Rebels made an appearance on this series, they lost to New Mexico State in the home opener and second game of the year. The theme of that entry was the solid attendance the team attracted in the decade that followed and the struggles for UTA's home stadiums in coming years.

After a 15-game home winning streak ended in the last game of the 1968 season, it turned into a home losing streak in the link game. Previously, the longest home losing streak was four, set in 1963. The first home game of 1964 was a tie, making it a five-game streak with no wins. It would be five true loses at the fourth home game of the year.

After the NMSU game, UTA went on the road again, though it was one of the shorter road trips in program history to Commerce, Texas where they beat the East Texas State Lions, 38-28. One more road game followed a week later in Lake Charles, Louisiana, a 13-7 Rebel victory. It was the last game of six against the McNeese State as non-conference opponents.

Not Officially in Last Place

Sports can be a crazy thing. Outside of middle school and even some high school settings, the old adage of anyone can be beaten on any given day rings true. Just when you think you have a team figured out, something wacky comes along and throws a wrench in the machine.

Coming into Saturday's volleyball matches the Western Athletic Conference had exactly one of its seven teams in the top 100 of the RPI in the NCAA. That was 5-0, 14-3 overall Utah Tech. Sitting in the mid-200's (out of 348 Division I programs) UT Arlington was headed south, losing four in a row and eight of the last nine. UT, on the other hand, was heading in the other direction, having won six in a row and nine of its last ten.

The only thing that appeared in the Mavericks favor, at least from a superficial standpoint, was the match was scheduled at home in College Park Center. However, UTA was 2-2 in CPC going into the match while the Trailblazers were an impressive 5-1 in true road matches to that point. It had the ingredients for a 3-0 loss in the recipe book.

Only it didn't happen that way.