Uncertainty, perhaps, is the universal certainty right now in college athletics.
Conference realignments. Name, Image and Likeness deals, as well as college athletics’ free agency – the NCAA Transfer Portal -- turning upside down the suddenly antiquated notion of building, developing and maintaining a core roster of stability.
College athletics look vastly different now than a year ago; 2021 different than 2020; 2023 promising the biggest change yet.
Deep in Texas, miles from the international border with Mexico, Chasse Conque sees each of these potential obstacles and is undaunted.
He’s the athletics director at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, and he’s launching multiple new NCAA sports – most notably a program to compete in Football Championship Subdivision play.
It’s been just a couple of weeks since UTRGV’s announcement of the school’s formal approval to add football, women’s aquatics, band and cheer programs.
“I’m really proud of the people that have come along with us on this journey,” Conque, midway through his fourth year atop Vaqueros athletics, told FootballScoop. “We knew the potential here was great. And I got asked a lot when left I (Arkansas) Little Rock, why? To be at this moment.
“This is something we always knew had the potential, but to see it come to fruition and do it with the outstanding people here, like our president Dr. Guy Bailey, there’s not a better veteran leader, a better CEO in higher education than Guy Baily. His value that he has on college athletics and what it can do for our university is unmatched. To see everybody wanting the same thing and being so focused, entrenched in our community is special. For me personally, this is not an opportunity that many get. To be able to do what I love to do, take care of entire athletics department and to have 16 sports and going to 18 is special.”
UTRGV is here, moving forward in the launch of the program by securing facilities, committing to an all-new on-campus training center, because its students voted at more than 61% approval for adding football, among the other programs.
Because Conque, who notes UTRGV’s tuition advantage program that affords Texas students under certain income lines to attend school virtually at no cost, constantly canvasses the region, barnstorming on behalf of the Vaqueros for audiences of five or 500.
He’s taking his “Rally the Valley” catchphrase and living it each day.
“Going back to August ‘19, I said that at my press conference and may have tweeted ‘Rally the Valley’ that night,” Conque said. “It’s really stuck, and we started to build our message around it.
#RallyTheValley ✌🏼🏊♂️📣🎶🏈✌🏼 pic.twitter.com/QXCvvanlhf
— Chasse Conque (@ChasseConque) November 11, 2021
“We have 2-million people plus that we serve in this region. We need to be in the communities we serve, and they need to see our student athletes. South Padre Island is right here in the Valley. We’re playing basketball classics now, we had Texas Tech down here for a doubleheader and we’re going to play basketball at three venues here throughout the valley, do camps and competitions in the Mid-Valley. So our message from the beginning is that we had to show the community we were serious. They were going to see us in their hometown.”
The Vaqueros on the football field are likely to be featured in multiple spots in the Lone Star State. They are slated for membership in the Western Athletic Conference and poised to play a number of games at HEB Stadium in Edinburg, the gleaming new state-of-the-art venue for the region’s professional soccer team.
Playing at the Football Championship Subdivision level, UTRGV is targeting a full conference schedule for its debut 2025 season.
Conque already is deep in the interview process; there are a number of candidates speaking with UTRGV for their second and third times, per industry sources.
The program is being positioned for immediate success. Conque and his staff are lining up a football budget for the Vaqueros that’s reflecting salaries at or near the top of their impending rivals.
“We wanted to put ourselves in position to be at the top of the league,” Conque said of the program’s immediate salary competitiveness. “We were able to do a lot of comps, do our research, and we all have different ways of skinning a cat; as we budgeted, we wanted to be at the top of our peers in the WAC or the ASUN.
“We’re going to be competitive in salaries, be competitive in operational investment, with the facility we discussed, we’re going to be very, very competitive there. We’re not just wanting to roll the ball out there and say we have a football program. We’re committed to doing it at a high level and the right way and giving our program a chance early for success.”
Connecting to the community already embracing this yet-to-play program is mandatory as Conque seeks the program’s first-ever head coach.
The Vaqueros will hire their head coach and a couple of assistants in 2023; they’ll start signing players the following year, preparing for a practice season in 2024 that’s prelude to the ’25 lid-lifter.
“Our football coach is going to be undefeated in our community and the honeymoon phase is going to be extended a couple years,” Conque said of the program’s runway to its formal launch. “We want to take advantage of that momentum. We have to continue to build those meaningful relationships.”