Ragin' Dave's Texas State Preview
Texas State Preview
One of those Jekyll and Hyde teams in the SunBelt, also one of those seasons that have become all way too often for the Bobcats. The Bobcats are 2-5 through 7 games with a 29-20 loss to Baylor in San Marcos, a 23-17 win in overtime at CUSA member FIU, a 34-42 loss to Incarnate Word with 24 players out with Covid protocol and a 59-21 loss to EMU with still multiple players out because of Covid. Then a shocking 33-31 victory over USA in San Marcos and then a 31-28 loss to Troy at home. This has become the norm for Texas State over the last few years, they play tons of close games, and they win a couple of head scratchers, but then lose games that you look and say how in the heck did they lose that game. Many people are going to look at the loss to UIW and the bad loss to EMU, but don’t. That is not who Texas State is, those games were both while playing with way too many players out with Covid Protocol. This team can be dangerous.
QB—Feast or Famine, is the best way to describe the Bobcats QB Brady McBride. McBride has 12 TD’s that is the good, McBride has 9 INT’s which is the bad. This is a talented QB group, but this team will go as McBride goes. Behind him is Tyler Vitt who has played allot of football for the Bobcats including being a former starter for them. They also have a transfer from NC State in Ty Evans and Tanner Prewit, a transfer from Arizona State. But again, this is all about McBride, McBride started his career at Memphis before transferring to Texas State. What makes McBride so special is what he can do, but what makes McBride a mess is what he can do. I have said it before and will say it again, McBride is the closest thing I have seen to Johnny Manziel I have ever seen. He is not a big guy at 6’0 200 lbs, but he is elusive. On the season McBride has run for 226 yards (before you remove the 131 yards in sacks) which is almost 4 yards a carry, but after the sacks he is down to 1.8 yards a carry, but it is not about his yards from scrimmage, it is about his ability to avoid tackles from pressure. On the season, McBride has completed right at 60% of his passes for 1507 yards or 215 yards per game. He is so up and down, he has had 3 games this season where he has thrown 3 interceptions, but he has also had multiple multi-TD games as well. He is a guy that you hate to play against, because you really don’t know what you will get week in and week out.
RB—This is a team that is truly RB by committee. Calvin Hill leads the team with 79 carries for 408 yards and a 4.9 ypg average, followed by Brock Sturges who has 62 carries for 251 with 4 TD’s and finally Jahmyl Jeter with 39 carries for 176 yards and 4 TD’s. Hill is a jitter bug at 5’7 188, the other guys are move of the bigger power backs, Sturges is 5’11 200 and Jeter is 6’0 215. And they are young, Hill is listed as a Freshman, Sturges and Jeter are Sophomores. Couple their ability to run the ball with McBrides ability and they truly have 4 guys you need to worry about in the backfield. The only one of these guys who is a real threat receiving the ball out of the backfield is Hill, he has 13 catches on the season for 57 yards, the other two guys combined only have 6 (3 Each) for a total of 36 yards, which is surprising with the way that McBride scrambles you would think he would use his check downs allot more often, but he does not when he scrambles he either runs or chuncks it downfield, hence the hight TD and high INT numbers.
WR/TE—They are a 2 headed monster at WR, Javen Banks and Marcell Barbee, lead the way. Both are big and good, Barbee is 6’2 195 and 6’2 175. On the season Banks has 28 receptions for 427 yards and 4 TD’s while Barbee has 28 catches for 300 yards and 4 TD’s. They drop off after that but do have a few good players on the roster. Drue Jackson is a RS Sophomore transfer from Washington State and Chandler Speights is a RS JR who plays allot and finally Ashlyn Hawkins, who has come on recently for the Bobcats as well as Trevis Graham Jr, both guys hav 10 catches each. At TE they have Jackson Lanam, Seth Caillouel and Micah Hills, Hills and Lanam has combined for only 3 catches on the season for 14 yards, the better of the options at the TE position is Caillouel who has 3 catches for 48 yards, but they don’t throw to the TE much. The key is going to be not allowing McBride to scramble around and then have these big, tall WR’s get behind our DB’s loose down the field.
OL—This team has 3 fist year starters on the OLINE, including RG Kyle Hergel, LG Liam Dobson and Center Silar Robinson, Robdinson is a transfer from Arkansas that did not play much there. Hergel is a transfer from the University North Dakota and Dobson is a transfer from Maine, where he was the 3rd overall player taken in the CFL draft, he is from Toronto. The other two players are veterans, including LT Dalton Cooper a RS Freshman who was a freshman All American by the Athletic and Russell Baker who was an Honorable Mention All SBC player last year. They have some good size on the line as Hergel is 6’2 300, Dobson is 6’3 330, Cooper is 6’6 305, Baker is 6’5 310 and Robinson is 6’4 306. The big issue for them is the fact that they have so many new pieces that they are trying to figure out some chemistry on the OLINE.
DL—They play a 3-3-5 (with an extra safety as a hybrid player). So, on the DLine they have Nick McCann, Caeveon Patton and Jordan Revels. McCann is a 6’2 310 NT transfer from Texas Tech, and Patton is the Senior leader on the DLine, but Revels is the best of the upfront guys. He has 39 tackles on the season including 2 TFLS and ½ a sack. Patton is not far behind him with 26 tackles on the season and ½ a sack. McCann has 16 tackles and ½ a sack as well. They don’t have a lot of depth on the DLine but the other guys to watch out for are Nico Eidore and Samuel Obiang, Obiang was out last game with an injury, he is now listed as out for the year.
LB--The 3 starting LB’s are Isaiah Nixon, Sione Tupou and Coleman Markeveon. They are very active with this group, Markeveon leads the team in tackels with 47 and 3 TFL, Tupou, who left the game this weekend with an injury is 3rd on the team with 43 tackles. From what I could see during the game he is a good one. And finally, Nixon has 20 tackles on the season, but leads the team in TFL with 5 and Sacks with 3. So, while he does not put-up huge numbers, he is a disrupter in the Offensive backfield. Tupou is a transfer from UTEP and Markeveon is a RS Senior. They do have a couple of players in the 2 deep at LB that make some plays including Brayden Stringer and London Harris, Stringer is another Texas Tech transfer for them. Texas State has traditionally had some pretty good LB’s in the past and this year is no exception.
DB—Like I said they play a 3-3-5, so they like to give you multiple looks with 3 safeties in the game and some of those are more of a hybrid LB position/Nickle back position. At their corners are DC Williams who started his career at Wisconsin and had 14 games and 5 starts there, but eventually transferred to TSU from Vanderbilt. He only had 2 starts there and Kordell Rogers. Neither of these guys have a pick on the season. At Safety they have two transfers in Troy Lefeged a SR transfer from Utah State and Tory Spears a So transfer from Iowa State. Lefeged is good, really good, he is 2nd on the team in tackles with 46 and a pick. Spears is pretty good too; he has 28 tackles on the season. The final starting Safety/Nickle/LB is Sophomore Dejordan Mask and Zion Childress. Texas State only has 2 INT’s on the season and they have both come from their safeties in Childress and Lefeged.
ST—With the greatest name in the SBC Seamus (pronounced Sheamus) O’Kelly (should be the name of an Irish Pub, but the guy is from Australia is their punter. He is only averaging 38 yards per punt but does have a long of 53. Of his 33 punts 15 have been fair caught and inside the 20. Their FG kicker is Seth Keller, and he is pretty good, he is 8-9 on the season and 3-3 from 40 +. His only miss was from inside 30 yards, but his long is only 43 yards. So, it looks as though he does not get a chance to kick many from long range. Jacob Bates is their KO specialist. 22 of 32 kicks have not been returns, with 20 for TB and 2 kicked out of bounds, so Chris may not get a chance to return many of these. They have tried 4 different guys returning punts and none of them have more than 5 yards total. They have a total of 8 yards in punt returns overall and 5 of them are on 1 return from Rontavius Groves. They don’t return many punts. Their main guy as far as kickoff returns is Donnovan Moore, with 22-yard average. He does have a long of 60, but overall, they are not a team that scares you on returns.
Offense—as stated earlier, this team goes as Brady McBride goes. When he is on, he is really good and really dangerous, when he is off, he can turn the ball over and get sacked with the best of them. They are only averaging 25 ppg on offense. In total they are averaging only 354 yards per game and 215 of those are in the air with only 139 of them on the ground. They are not very good at 3rd down conversions at only 38%, but they are 10 of 14 on 4th down at 71%. They have turned the ball over 15 times, 10 INT’s and 5 lost fumbles, but they have fumbled it a total of 12 times, so they like to try to turn it over. McBride, because of the mix and match OL that they have had to play gets allot of pressure on himself as they have given up 21 sacks in 7 games, which is a ton considering how mobile he is. They have been pretty good all season in the redzone, with the exception of last weekend where they failed to score TD’s in the Redzone. That is going to be a key for us this week as TSU will move the ball, we can not afford to let them in the endzone we need to hold them to FG’s.
Defense—They are giving up an average of 34 points per game and a total of 422 yards per game. Of which 230 via the air and almost 200 rushing. (Cajuns should have a chance to run the ball again this week). Teams are also really killing them on 3rd and 4th down conversions, with the Bobcats giving up almost 50% on 3rd down and an astounding 7-9 or 78% on 4th down. Between 3rd and 4th down they are giving up 52% conversion rate. They do force fumbles through, as they have forced a wild 17 fumbles recovering 9 of them but they have only picked off 2 passes. They do not pressure the QB well, as they only have 6 sacks on the season through 7 games.
This should be another game the Cajuns should have a good chance to run the ball well early vs Texas State and control the clock. They really need to watch McBride, many of the Texas State fans are ready to give up on the McBride experience, but he is so dangerous as a player you never know what you are going to get with him. I think the Cajuns come out on top as they put another really good game together, similar to the App State game a few weeks ago.
Geaux Cajuns
Quote
Originally Posted by RaginDave
