Georgia Southern wins ugly over Texas State, 15-13

In a matchup of two teams that looked like they did not get the memo that there was a football game on tonight, Georgia Southern was able to squeak out a sloppy 15-13 win on the road over a Texas State team that simply could not stop shooting itself in the foot.

The biggest blunder for the Bobcats came with 2:20 left to play, and after quarterback Tyler Vitt had rocketed a 29-yard score to Jeremiah Haydel that cut the Georgia Southern lead to just two points.

After calling a timeout, Texas State coach Everett Withers dialed up a fade pass to the end zone to Haydel on the two-point conversion that would have tied the game, but the wideout looked like he just gave up on the route while trying (and failing) to draw a pass interference call.

At that point, the game was essentially over in favor of the Eagles. The win is not one that Georgia Southern will put on their mantle as a proud memory, as GS tried its hardest to give the game away at every turn.

As I have alluded to many times, offensive coordinator Bob DeBesse typically comes out slow with his play calling for the first few drives and starts getting into the meat of the playbook as the game moves along, but he was absolutely awful tonight and the offensive line did nobody any favors.

Every possession felt as if it had a complete lack of rhythm to it, and the offense sputtered many times while the Bobcats gave away the field position advantage on almost every turn. In addition, outside of one drive in early in the second quarter, Wesley Fields looked awful for much of the game and managed just 3.6 yards per carry and the team rushed for just 164 yards in total. But an ugly win is better than a pretty loss, I suppose.

Texas State on the other hand has a number of things to figure out — most importantly, its quarterback position. Tyler Vitt looked as if he was the most dynamic option at the position the team had and was benched for some reason until he nearly tied the game up late in the fourth because Willie Jones III had to come out of the game after losing his helmet. To say Withers’ days are numbered in San Marcos seems like an understatement underlined in bright red ink.

Random Observations:

• Where was Wesley Kennedy III for Southern tonight? Other than returning kicks and punts, he was a complete ghost on offense with just one carry for 12 yards. He’s way too talented (and this offense as a whole is not talented enough) to just stuff this guy in a locker for much of the game, especially when one big play would have put this one out of reach.
• The defense for both teams played their butts off and kept both offenses from establishing any offensive momentum, although the playcallers for each team did their best to make sure this game was low scoring.
• There were way too many passes called for Shai Werts and company. Werts threw 12 passes tonight after putting up 35 attempts so far this year. I am fine with screen passes when the defense is conceding space on the outside, but throwing the ball that aggressively is borderline criminal when a team with that much talent in its backfield. It’s going to be tough to win games if they hold the ball for 36 minutes every night and barely muster 15 points.