Jeff Traylor signs contract extension with UTSA, pulls out of Texas Tech search

Texas Tech’s next coach won’t be UTSA’s Jeff Traylor.

Traylor, 53, has pulled out of the running for the Red Raiders’ vacant coaching job and instead has signed a contract extension with UTSA. The deal was announced by the school Sunday.

The contract extension for Traylor, in his second season as the Roadrunners’ coach, is for 10 years and worth about $28 million. Houston’s Dana Holgorsen ($4 million) and Cincinnati’s Luke Fickell ($3.4 million) are the nation’s two highest-paid Group of 5 coaches this season, the USA Today coaching salary database shows.

The new contract at UTSA will include a $700,000 raise for Traylor’s staff. UTSA also will add at least five new positions to the football department.

Led by Traylor, UTSA (8-0) is one of six remaining undefeated FBS teams and ranked No. 16 in this week’s AP poll. Traylor, who inherited a program that was a combined 7-16 under Frank Wilson in 2018 and ’19, guided the Roadrunners to a 7-5 record last season and to the second bowl appearance in school history.

In October, it was announced that UTSA would be leaving Conference USA and moving to the AAC; it is one of five C-USA schools making the move, along with North Texas, UAB, Charlotte, FAU and Rice.

UTSA, which plays its home games in the Alamodome, is in its 10^th season of football. The program began in 2011 as an FCS independent under Larry Coker. UTSA was in the now-defunct Western Athletic Conference in 2012, then moved to C-USA in 2013. Coker stepped down after the 2015 season, and Wilson lasted four years. Traylor was hired off Arkansas’ staff, where he had been the running backs coach for two seasons under Chad Morris.

Traylor is a former longtime Texas high school coach; he was at Gilmer (Texas) High from 2000-14, served as Texas’ tight ends coach in 2015-16, then moved to SMU in 2017 as running backs coach under Morris before going with him to Arkansas.