What began during COVID has grown into an eighth-grade All-Star showcase giving the Rio Grande Valley an early look at its future football talent. Before they’re making plays under the Friday night lights, some of the Valley’s future stars are already competing against each other. For six years, NexGen has brought together some of the 956’s top eighth-grade football players. Former participants have become All-State athletes, earned college opportunities, and made names for t

Photo Credit: UTRGV Football Monday Receipts is where we take what was said during the week, match it against what actually showed up Saturday, and see which receipts still spend. 52-7 looks like everything got fixed. Monday Receipts says hold up. UTRGV absolutely deserves its dap for what happened at Northwestern State. The Vaqueros responded after Lamar, got back to .500 and handled a winless team exactly how they were supposed to handle it. Now let’s look underneath the sc

By Roy Rivas | DITV Ruby has no trouble picking her son out on a football field. He is usually the big one driving somebody backward. And she is absolutely the mom enjoying it. “Oh, yep, the one that dropped your kid. Yep, that was mine,” she said, laughing about the social media videos of proud mothers watching their sons play on the line. Ask her about that same boy at home, and the scouting report changes quickly. “Honestly, he’s a big teddy bear.” Meet Robert Sanchez. Big

Monday Receipts is where we take the quotes from the week, match them against what showed up on Saturday, and see which ones still spend. Coming into Year Two, I thought UTRGV was a top-third Southland team with a real shot to fight for a playoff spot. Nine games later, they are 4-5, 2-4 in conference and sitting seventh. That is not top-third football. That is where we are. Lamar did not create that reality. They just made it impossible to dress it up. Now we get to the rece

Photo Credit: UTRGV Football DITV OPINION PIECE Monday Receipts is where we take the quotes from the week, match them against what showed up on Saturday, and see which ones still spend. Last Monday we asked one thing: Can the standard travel? Arkansas answered. Not pretty, not easy, not clean. Just 30-27 in overtime, the first road dub of the year, the first OT win in program history, and Broderick Taylor — Turbo — hitting the edge like everybody had somewhere else to be. Tha

The gunslinger returned, Tha Goods made history, and Broderick Taylor delivered a walk-off that gave the 956 plenty to celebrate. Some wins look good on paper. Others just hit different. Saturday night in Conway, UTRGV delivered one of those games the 956 will be talking about for a long time. The gunslinger was back. The running game had some juice. Tha Goods was collecting tackles like overdue rent. And Broderick Taylor decided everybody had been in Arkansas long enough. On

DITV Opponent Files | UTRGV vs. Central Arkansas Five straight losses. A 2–5 record. Nearly 31 points surrendered per game. If you’re shopping for an easy win, Central Arkansas looks pretty good in the window. Just make sure you check what’s under the hood. These same Bears opened the season by knocking off No. 22 UT Martin, 36–24. Last Saturday, they rolled into No. 2 Tarleton State and dropped 35 points, tying the game at 28 in the third quarter before falling 49–35. That’s

DITV | UTRGV FOOTBALL | OPINION & ANALYSIS Garret Rangel is healthy again, but Travis Bush faces a bigger challenge: establishing the offensive consistency UTRGV has been searching for. “He’s fresh, he’s healthy, excited to get him back.” That’s what UTRGV head coach Travis Bush said this week about quarterback Garret Rangel. Bush also indicated the staff can build its game plan around the fifth-year transfer. That’s great news. But it brings us back to a question that’s foll

Photo Credit: UTRGV Football Winning fills stadiums. Relationships keep people coming back when the winning gets harder. And if Saturday in San Antonio proved anything, it’s that the Valley isn’t going anywhere. UTRGV fans made the four-hour trip to watch their Vaqueros take on UIW. They showed up in force, brought the energy, and made their presence felt inside another team’s stadium. DITV was right there with them. The scoreboard read 41–16. The support told a different sto

Monday Receipts is simple: keep the quote, watch the football, come back Monday and see what still spends. One week UTRGV put No. 25 Southeastern Louisiana in a box and held them to three points. The next week Southeastern turned around and knocked off No. 8/10 Lamar 34-31. So that receipt aged beautifully: the Vaqueros did not beat some pretend ranked team. SLU can ball. UTRGV just made them look regular for a night. Then came San Antonio. UIW 41, UTRGV 16. Another road trip

Photo Credit: UIW Football DITV | UTRGV Football Fam, that 2–4 record is telling one story. The football is telling another. UIW just went toe-to-toe with No. 5 Stephen F. Austin and No. 10 Lamar, losing those games by a combined five points. Against SFA, a penalty wiped out a successful two-point conversion. Against Lamar, a late fumble ended a comeback bid. The Cardinals aren’t getting pushed around. They’re competing with some of the Southland’s best, but haven’t figured o

DITV | Valley Made Player Profile By the time Rey Martinez opened his Bible at night, he had already put in a full day chasing quarterbacks and a dream. His parents describe summers that started with school practice, continued in the gym with his Tío Rudy, and finished with training alongside Adonis Cruz at ACT Athletics. Even on holidays, Rey found time for workouts and film. Rey credits Adonis with helping him keep learning the game and gives his high school coaches their f

DITV PRESENTS | PLAYER OF THE GAME | VOL. 01 The game tells us who showed out. DITV tells you who they are. TJ Neal spent his high school days in Kansas trying to make defensive backs look silly. Now he’s in the 956 returning the favor. Funny how football works. Back at Wichita South, UTRGV’s No. 2 was an All-State quarterback and safety. Calling plays, reading defenses, finding passing windows and putting points on the board. Now? My guy is out here repossessing footballs. S

Photo Credit: UTRGV Football Monday Receipts is simple: keep the quote, watch the football, come back Monday and see what still spends. Saturday had real football juice. A ranked team walked into The Vack, got dragged into a four-quarter fight, and spent most of the night trying to find clean answers that never really came. UTRGV beat No. 25 Southeastern 13-3, forced three interceptions, kept Aidan clean, won the biggest moments and closed the game with a drive that finally f

Here’s what scares me about Southeastern: they don’t seem married to one way of winning. They started 0–2, then found three completely different ways to get right. Against North Alabama, Southeastern trailed by 11 before ripping off 23 straight points and winning 30–25. Then the Lions went to ULM and walked out with a 38–35 win — their first over an FBS opponent since the program returned in 2003. A week later, they flipped the whole script and ran for 300 yards while hanging

Monday Receipts is simple: keep the quote, watch the football, come back Monday and see what still spends. UTRGV changed the road routine before Commerce. Practice got moved around. Travel changed. The message was about getting comfortable being uncomfortable and bringing the same edge away from The Vack. Then Commerce happened. UTRGV lost 20-17 on a 51-yard field goal as time expired. The Vaqueros were better late than early, again, and that matters because the concern now i

UTRGV’s 2027 class already has something cooking. Eleven commits. A quarterback producing. A 220-pound back. Big bodies up front. Edge juice. Defensive versatility. Texas high-school dudes getting real Friday-night work. That is the base. Now go raise the ceiling. UTRGV does not need more names just to make the commit graphic look fuller. Keep the 11 together, then go hunt the dudes who can actually change the class. That is where the three-star kid matters. The receiver who

Vela handed the offense to the dude quarterbacks were supposed to avoid. That is a cold way to start a senior season. Caidyn Hoover spent last year taking possessions away. Now he gets to decide what happens with them—and he still clocks in at safety. Ten interceptions in 2025 had already given Hoover a name worth remembering. Five came in his first varsity game against Edinburg North. Most players would gladly spend their senior year building on that. Vela handed him the key

East Texas A&M is 1-4. Cool. That ain’t the part that scares me. What scares me is the version that showed up against McNeese. Down 27-10, the Lions could’ve packed it up. Instead, Eric Rodriguez came off the bench throwing heat, East Texas A&M finished with 475 yards and suddenly McNeese was holding onto a 27-24 game. That right there is the team I’m scouting. What scares me first? Micah Simpson in space. Simpson has 29 catches for 391 yards and already put 168 on Mercer. Bu

Photo Credit: UTRGV Athletics Monday Receipts is simple: keep the quote, watch the football, come back Monday and see what still spends. Bye weeks don’t give you new film. They tell you what the coaches hated enough about the old film to change. UTRGV spent the week looking inward. Personnel moved. Tendencies got checked. The road routine got touched. Coaches challenged coaches. Cool. Now Commerce gets the update. RECEIPT 1 — “WE CHALLENGED OURSELVES AS A COACHING STAFF. I DO