College football head coaches have been known to employ a number of methods to motivate their teams.
But following UTSA’s 36-10 victory over Florida Atlantic, Roadrunners head coach Jeff Traylor may have taken his tactics too far.
According to UTSA Insiders’ JJ Perez, the UTSA staff put rat traps with cheese inside players’ lockers this week to send a message of “don’t eat the cheese” — or in other words, ignore the outside noise. An unidentified Roadrunners player, however, proceeded to put his loaded trap on Traylor’s podium, which led to a painful result.
“I put my hand there and it looks like my pinky got smashed by a hammer,” Traylor said. “It would have killed a lesser man, but I’m OK.”
Here’s @CoachTraylor answering @theJJPerez about a player putting a loaded rat trap on his podium: “it looks like my pinky got smashed by a hammer. It woulda killed a lesser man.” https://t.co/rrT8GRBdfb pic.twitter.com/emQ5LSX1ml
— Dave Wilson (@dwil) October 23, 2023
Traylor has used the cheese metaphor for years as his own version of Nick Saban’s “rat poison.” One would imagine that there would have been better ways for the 55-year-old head coach to get his message across, but after such a dominant win, perhaps he was desperate.
At this point, it’s tough to argue with Traylor’s results — injured pinky finger or not. Through his first four seasons at UTSA, the former Arkansas assistant has tallied a 34-13 record and two Conference USA titles. Laying claim to a 4-3 record overall and a 3-0 record in conference play, the Roadrunners enter their upcoming matchup against East Carolina tied for first place in the AAC.
