State showcases competitive Maroon

TEXAS STATE FOOTBALL

Texas State completed its spring practices with its annual Maroon & Gold Spring Game on Saturday inside Bobcat Stadium.

The Bobcats competed in seven sessions, which featured individual drills and an offense vs. defense scrimmage.

Head coach Everett Withers raved about their last scrimmage on April 7, and he said Saturday’s scrimmage in the Maroon & Gold game was just as good.

“I thought it compared very, very well with last scrimmage,” Withers said. “I thought the energy was good. They competed their butts off with each other. That’s what we’re trying to get. We trying to get the competition between both sides of the ball, guy across from you, to be really big because we want it to be that way every day we go to practice. That’s the only way you get better. Iron has to sharpen iron.”

Texas State’s energy and competitiveness has impressed the coaching staff this spring. The Bobcats brought the same mentality into Saturday’s practice.

“That’s what we came out here to do to have some fire, some energy,” Withers said. “Get some things done, play some situations and we were able to do that. We had one injury (running back Anthony Smith). We just got to check and see how he is, but it didn’t look good. Other than that I thought we got a lot accomplished.”

Defensively, however, rising junior linebacker Bryan London II said they could’ve come out stronger.

“I feel like on defense, we didn’t come out with enough excitement,” London said. “I feel like we executed … We just got to be more sound and like play with more excitement and have fun out there.”

But London said Texas State came out with better excitement and attention to detail throughout the 15 practices this spring compared to last year.

“I feel like guys want to get better,” London said. “Guys are spending extra time talking to the coaches and learning the nuances. I feel like everyone is working more like a professional student athlete like they want to win.”

Offensively, rising junior left tackle Aaron Brewer said that side of the ball has come together well during the spring.

“We grew much more as a whole unit offensive line and the offensive unit in general — The whole team, actually,” Brewer said. “We’ve all gotten better in the spring and grew every practice.”

Texas State now heads into the offseason knowing that it needs have to a strong summer if it wants to improve from its 4-20 record over the last two seasons.

“We just got to continue to gain some momentum,” Withers said. “We’ve got have a great offseason — June and July — for us to have a chance to go compete in the Sun Belt.”