Texas State football team shocks Appalachian State, improves to 3-0 at home
SAN MARCOS — A program in dire need of hope found some Saturday night as Texas State stunned Appalachian State 36-24.
The game was played in front of the largest crowd for a Sun Belt opponent at Bobcat Stadium, the seventh-largest overall, with an official attendance of 25,613.
Despite coming in as 19½-point underdogs, Texas State (3-3, 1-1 Sun Belt) built its lead to as much as 27 points en route to beating Appalachian State (3-3, 1-2) for the first time in seven tries. The win also secured the first 3-0 start at home for the Bobcats since 2011.
Though Texas State was out-gained in total yards 436 to 334, it scored on six of its 10 drives and held the Mountaineers to 2-for-6 on fourth down and 6-for-15 on third down. The Bobcats didn’t relinquish the lead after scoring on their second drive.
“We’ve talked about complementary football and playing clean football, efficient football and playing together, momentum swings — all that good stuff — and we finally did one tonight against a very quality opponent,” Texas State coach Jake Spavital said. “(Appalachian State) coach (Shawn) Clark, that’s a really good football team. They are beat up like a lot of teams across the country right now. That’s a team that beat Texas A&M, went toe to toe with North Carolina, had 'College GameDay' at their university, and they’ve done a lot of great things there. For us to win that game was a big-time moment for our program.”
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Texas State's first drive ended on an interception in the end zone after 11 plays, but the defense managed to get the ball back after stopping the Mountaineers on fourth down. The Bobcats took advantage, scoring on a 2-yard run by Lincoln Pare.
Texas State extended its lead to 24-0 with three scores in the second quarter — a 2-yard pass from Layne Hatcher to Charles Brown, a 33-yard field goal by Seth Keller and a 23-yard touchdown pass from Hatcher to Ashtyn Hawkins. Appalachian State scored with no time on the clock on a 30-yard field goal by Michael Hughes to make it 24-3 at halftime.
The Mountaineers started the second half with a 10-play drive that ended on a 94-yard pick six on fourth down by Texas State safety Tory Spears, giving the Bobcats a 30-3 lead after a botched PAT.
“We got up a large amount after that pick six by Tory, which was a big-time play,” Spavital said. “I kind of went into more of the clock management thing in that second half because we know how explosive (Appalachian State is). If you go back and look what they did against North Carolina, they scored 41 points in the fourth quarter. We were trying to slow the game down, run the clock and get them to eliminate their timeouts. We got that done early in the second half, which allowed us to ball-control and make some big plays to get us into field-goal range.”
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The Mountaineers finally found the end zone on a 2-yard pass from Chase Brice to Henry Pearson with 7 minutes, 37 seconds left in the third quarter, making it 30-10. The Bobcats countered with a 29-yard field goal by Keller before Brice found Pearson for a touchdown again to make it 33-18 with 13:02 left in the game. A 37-yard field goal by Keller at 5:08 and a 3-yard touchdown pass from Brice to Dalton Stroman with no time on the clock cemented the final score.
Hatcher finished 26-for-36 for 281 yards, two touchdowns and an interception. Hawkins caught six passes for 105 yards and a score, his sixth touchdown this season and third 100-yard game. Spears led the team with 12 tackles and snared his first career interception.
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas State football team pulls upset against Appalachian State
