SAN ANTONIO – University of the Incarnate Word football head coach Clint Killough will be calling the plays for the Cardinals this upcoming season after his offensive coordinator of two years, Conner McQueen, joined Pete Carroll’s staff with the Raiders as an offensive quality control coach.
However, before UIW fans get to see Killough’s play calling, the third-year head coach needs to decide who will be the team’s starting quarterback in 2025.
Killough, G.J. Kinne’s predecessor, has three talented options to evaluate over the next month before the Cardinals make their debut on Aug. 23 in a nationally televised affair against rival Nicholls.
The program brought in two transfers this summer: redshirt freshman Deyon Batiste from Wyoming and redshirt freshman E.J. Colton from Purdue. Both are players that Killough speaks very highly of.
This third option is an outlier of the group, but actually possesses the most experience.
Southside High School alum Richard Torres is gunning to become a starter for the first time in his collegiate career. In the times Torres has stepped in at QB1, he’s impressed.
In 2023, Torres stepped in for an injured Zach Calzada and threw for 161 yards and three touchdowns in the second half, leading the way for 28 unanswered points, earning him FCS national freshman of the week.
“Richie’s been told ‘no’ quite a bit over the last three to four years,” Killough said. “He has been the backup for us for two years and has had a little bit of action and has had some tremendous success, which probably made it a little bit harder telling him no.
“I was just as confident in him last year as I was Zach (Calzada), in terms of leading our football team and winning games. It’s just, at the end of the day, sometimes you gotta make tough decisions. But he’s a great human being. I’m really glad that he’s on our football team.”
Torres faced adversity before even stepping onto a college gridiron. During his senior season at Southside, Torres suffered a knee injury that impacted his freshman season at Nebraska.
“College has been a long, long time for me,” Torres said. “I’ve been in it for almost four years now. I’m just taking it day by day and stepping up, and when my number’s called, I like to be ready and prepared.”
But now, Torres has an opportunity of a lifetime in front of him with a competitive edge as the only quarterback on the roster to be recruited by Killough during his first season as head coach.
“It’s home for me, I like it,” Torres said of why he landed at UIW after Nebraska. “When I was leaving Nebraska, they were the only school to call me. I was like, I’m not going to hesitate on this — let’s go back home and let’s do this thing.”
“He’s a savvy vet that can operate at a really high level, gives us the ability to push the ball down the field, and get us into good situations,” Killough said of Torres.
Torres recalls his first visit to UIW with Killough and McQueen.
“They were just really excited to even have me on the visit,” shared Torres. “They picked me up in a Jeep decked out in decals, and we just went on a cruise.”
“From there, I was like this young, energetic coaching staff is really something I would like to surround myself with,” Torres realized. “I feel like I wasn’t really around my family when I was in Nebraska. I love home. San Antonio is my home. I feel like I can just really lay low here and just be myself.”
Torres is happy with how he’s stepped up as a leader of the team now in the second week of practices; however, the signal caller is working toward limiting mistakes.
Killough is keeping the position battle open, saying that as he comes to a decision on who will be QB1, he’s looking for execution in what he is calling a “fairly heated battle.”
It’s been well documented that UIW has seen some elite quarterbacks come through the football program, most notably the No. 1 overall pick in the 2025 NFL Draft, Cam Ward.
Killough said the key to recruiting a quarterback the UIW way is identifying the “it” factor and building the offense around them.
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