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Bryan Ramos | Staff Writer
EDINBURG — The countdown to Year 2 of UTRGV Vaqueros football continues, as does RGVSports.com’s fall camp position room breakdowns leading up to Week 0.
Through spring ball, summer workouts and fall camp, the biggest question surrounding the Vaqueros has been who will take over at quarterback to run the offense.
On the other side of the ball, however, the Vaqueros return both quarterbacks of their defense in linebackers Spencer Rich and Jaiden Haygood, along with a deep room of heavy hitters behind them looking to lead UTRGV in Year 2.
Haygood, a San Antonio native and Converse Judson alumnus, finished his debut season of college football ranked inside the top five in the Southland Conference (SLC) in total tackles, tallying 102 stops, 2.5 tackles for loss, one sack, two pass break ups, one forced fumble, one fumble receiver and one quarterback hit.
The Vaqueros’ linebacker earned Freshman All-American honors from FCS Football Central, Stats Perform and Phil Steele, and finished 11th in voting for the Jerry Rice Award, which honors the top freshman at the FCS level.
“Our defense, we’re flying around,” Haygood said. “We know more plays than last year at this point, so we’re doing more stuff, more adjustments. It’s great what Coach (Brian) Gamble has.”
Rich, the Nashville, TN native set for his sixth year, finished just four tackles shy of Haygood for the team lead, ranking seventh in the SLC in total tackles. He made 98 tackles, three for loss, three fumble recoveries, three quarterback hits and one pass break up.
“We’re really just excited to build off what we had last year on defense. A lot of familiarity, so just trying to be one day better,” Rich said. “We know what we’re doing, we know the communication, we’re just kind of fine-tuning details and here and there and working on technique.”
While Haygood and Rich saw the majority of snaps last year with UTRGV in its nickel defense, the Vaqueros spent spring ball and fall camp working in their base 3-4 hybrid defense, which brings another linebacker onto the field while a corner comes off.
Enter Day 1 member of the Vaqueros, Jackson Waid. The junior linebacker from League City, listed at 6-foot and 230 pounds, has earned an uptick in reps entering this season after finishing last year with 39 tackles, 2.5 tackles for loss, 2.5 pass break ups, one forced fumble and one safety.
“I don’t really gotta tell y’all anything about Spencer Rich and Jaiden Haygood, their actions do all the talking. I’m glad to say that I’m up there with them,” Waid said. “For me, myself personally, the role that I’m filling out for myself, I really didn’t expect to be where I am today, but I’m proud of myself and the team for what we’re doing.”
The second team linebacking corps for the Vaqueros has been made up of junior Trey Bright, Jaxson Maynard and Tulsa/Navarro Junior College transfer Walker Diharce. All three have made plays dating back to spring ball and add serious depth to the second level of UTRGV’s defense.
Bright finished with 28 tackles and 2.5 tackles for loss in 11 games last season, while Maynard saw limited action in addition to serving as the team’s backup long snapper.
Diharce, meanwhile, earned All-American second team honors and was named the Southwestern Junior College Football Conference Defensive Player of the Year at Navarro last season, finishing with 64 tackles, four tackles for loss and two pass break ups across eight games.
Rotating in at linebacker has been juniors Landen Gaskamp and Caleb Warren, sophomore Ty Bush and freshman Dax Hebeisen.
Gaskamp and Warren are both Day 1 members of the Vaqueros, while Bush enters his second season with the program after making the move from punter to linebacker, the position he played at Boerne. Hebeisen, the first-year linebacker from Colleyville Heritage, has also impressed early on during fall camp as a run-stuffer at the second level.
While Haygood and Rich are just two of the nine defensive starters UTRGV returns for 2026, there’s a deep room of head hunters behind them, making the linebacker position a strength on an already stacked Vaqueros defense.
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