Tarleton set to make history on ESPN2 Saturday

It’s not easy to convince the NCAA to approve a Week 0 contest, which Tarleton’s new vice president for intercollegiate athletics, Steve Uryasz, understands from his previous position as executive deputy athletics director and chief operating officer at West Virginia.

“I diligently tried at my previous institution last year to get a Week 0 game because our head coach wanted a game prior to a big game (in Week 1), but we couldn’t get one because we never had a cause or rationale that made sense to the NCAA,” Uryasz said during a recent interview. “The challenges are that you can’t have two teams from the same conference, and the game has to be unique.”