Texas State regroups as Bobcats look for more offensive success

Texas State was back on the gridiron this week, following the Bobcats home opening win over the Jackson State Tigers, 77-34.

Despite the historic offensive output, Head Coach G.J. Kinne emphasized that the Bobcats have plenty to work on.

“On both sides of the ball and on special teams, there are things we can clean up and do a better job of,” Kinne said. “We left a couple of touchdowns out there on offense. Defensively, they have to just do their job. That’s what we tell them everyday. ‘Do your job, one play at a time and good things will happen.’” The bounce win was a showcase of the much improved offense the Bobcats have exhibited over the past three games, averaging 44 points per game–more than double last year’s team average at 20.6, now under the leadership of both Kinne and offensive coordinator Mack Leftwich.

One of the keys of the offense’s success was the ability to out muscle their opponents.

“Obviously, anytime you score 77 points, a lot of things went right,” Leftwich said. “But I was proud of the guys because we challenged them all week to be the most physical unit on the field, which I think they accomplished.”

During the game, the Bobcats in the second half were able to play both units of the second team to close out Jackson State.

The opportunity for the backups to play meaningful snaps and get a fair evaluation of their efforts was a plus for Kinne.

“It was nice to see,” Kinne said. “Obviously, the first two weeks we were not able to do that with both the games and the opponents that we were playing. I challenged them all week to jump on them early so your guys can play, because who knows what this thing looks like if we don’t go out there and jump on them early. So, it was great to see a lot of guys play and get a lot of evaluation on a bunch of guys.”

For Leftwich, the second team’s ability to continue the momentum the first team had built up during the first half was a positive.

“When the twos went in there, the standard didn’t drop,” Leftwich said. “They kept scoring and doing their job. Malik looked great running around, D-Good [Damarius Good] had a 100-yard game which is awesome to see. So, yeah I’m proud of those guys, that when they got their chance and their number got called up at the end of the game, they lived up to the standard.”

On the ground, the Bobcats churned up 399 yards and eight rushing touchdowns with quarterback Malik Hornsby leading the team with 10 carries for 133 yards and two touchdowns.

Despite the unbalanced attack in regards to more of an even number of passing to rushing touchdowns, with 25 passing attempts to 41 rushing attempts, Leftwich said he was still proud of the Bobcats for responding to the challenge set by the coaching staff.

“A little bit of that is situational within the game,” Leftwich said. “We were up by a lot, so naturally we started running it a little bit more in the second half. We try to balance going 50/50 ratio. But like I said, there was a big emphasis on being physical and when we handed the ball off, we needed to be better than UTSA. Those guys responded to the challenge really well.”

Texas State returns to play this Saturday as the Bobcats host the Nevada Wolfpack. cmcwilliams@sanmarcosrecord.com Twitter: @ColtonBMc