Jeff Traylor’s path out of Gilmer and into Texas football coaching began with one of the hardest calls of his career.
Back in February 2015, Traylor was deep into the life he had built in his East Texas hometown. He had spent 15 years as Gilmer’s head coach, won more than 87 percent of his games, collected 12 district titles, reached five state championship games and brought home state championships in 2004, 2009 and 2014.
His family was rooted there too. One younger brother, Kurt, lived next door and handled the run game and offensive line.
His youngest brother was in town as well, along with his parents. Former players were already in the NFL, with more on the way.
Then Texas came calling.
Two days before the deadline, Charlie Strong, then in his second year leading the Longhorns, offered Traylor the job of tight ends coach and special teams coordinator. Strong wanted an answer within two days, and by the early hours of Friday the 13th, that clock had almost run out. The pressure on Strong to move on from Bruce Chambers, a holdover from the Mack Brown era, created pressure on Traylor too.
“I caught a lot of heck for taking the time to make the decision because I don’t know that people understand how hard a decision it really was,” Traylor recalled to Inside Texas this week, calling the job offer from Texas “a dream.”
At first, he was ready to stay put. He told his wife, Cari, he was going to remain in Gilmer. But she pushed him to see the bigger picture.
“You grew up in Gilmer. You told all your kids that any dream you ever could want, you could do from Gilmer, Texas, and yet here you go.
You’re not going to take this chance,” Cari told him. “You could become a head coach.
You could go there, become a great recruiter. You love to recruit.
You love to talk to kids. You could be a head coach.”
Traylor still wasn’t ready to give in until, around 3 a.m., a song on his phone tipped the scales. “Beyond Me” by Toby Mac came on, and Traylor took it as a sign.
“It’s a song about the Lord picking up somebody out of some warm, comfortable water and moving into something that’s way beyond him,” Traylor said.
The message hit home. The lyrics included, “I’ve got some dreams that are bigger than me/I might be outmatched, outsized, the underdog in the fight of my life/Is it so crazy to believe?“ That was enough to settle it.
“Well, if my wife wants me to do it, and the Lord wants me to do it, I’m not going to argue with my wife and the Lord. That’d be a lose-lose there,” Traylor told his wife.
He took the Texas job and launched the college coaching career that later took him to SMU and Arkansas with Chad Morris before he landed his first head coaching opportunity at UTSA in late 2019.
His run at Texas came during a rough stretch for the program. Strong’s tenure ended after three years and a 16-21 record, but Traylor was one of the bright spots.
His ability to build relationships helped Texas land Devin Duvernay in the 2026 class after the Sachse wide receiver got his release from Baylor following the school’s sexual-assault scandal. It also helped Texas pull off a stunning National Signing Day win for Brandon Jones, the Nacogdoches safety who had been the focus of a TexAgs documentary before heading to College Station.
Traylor was later named Scout’s Big 12 Recruiter of the Year.
“Feel terrible we didn’t win enough games, but I have so much respect for that place and the way they do work there. It was a great great time in my life and I’ll always be grateful for it,” Traylor said.
When Tom Herman replaced Strong, he offered Traylor an off-field role after a 10-minute interview so he could also bring in Corby Meekins, another longtime Texas high school coach, from Houston Westfield.
That move, too, eventually ran its course, but it did not slow Traylor’s rise. Now the UTSA coach is set to return to Austin for a third time, this time leading the Roadrunners, and he does so as a familiar and respected name in Longhorns circles - thanks, in part, to a wise wife and a song that arrived at just the right hour.
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