The gist
- UTSA 31, Texas State 26. The Roadrunners rallied from a 17-7 halftime hole in San Marcos and won the Battle for I-35 on a 25-yard Brandon High Jr. run with 14 seconds left.
- Turnover margin was the ballgame. UTSA turned it over zero times. Texas State turned it over three, including a pair of Brad Jackson picks.
- The defense got run over. 289 rushing yards allowed, 481 total, Torrance Burgess Jr. for 149 on the ground. Fine against an 0-2 Texas State. Not fine going to Austin next Saturday.
- Now 2-0, 76 points for and 42 against — a fine start on the scoreboard, a shakier one on the tape.
Two straight wins, a rivalry trophy in the trunk, and this Roadrunner team feels a lot less comfortable than the scoreboard suggests. UTSA 31, Texas State 26 in San Marcos on September 12 — from a game in which we were outgained by 83 yards and trailed by 10 at the break. First road trip of the year, first real test on the schedule, and we found a way. But “found a way” is doing a lot of work in that sentence.
How the game actually moved
Owen McCown opened the scoring with a 1-yard TD strike to Brandon Young Jr. midway through the first quarter, and then the offense went quiet. Texas State ripped off 17 straight — a Davian Jackson 16-yard TD run, a Brad Jackson 6-yard keeper, and a 51-yard Jacob Bonilla field goal at the horn. UTSA walked into the locker room down 17-7. Whatever you were feeling at halftime, it wasn't confidence.
Then the third quarter got weird, in a good way. On the first drive back, David Amador II — yes, not McCown — hit Mekhi Anderson on a 44-yard touchdown to cut it to 17-14. A Michael Petro 34-yard field goal tied it at 17. Texas State answered with a late-quarter Brad Jackson-to-Chris Dawn Jr. 13-yard scoring pass, the PAT clanged off the upright, and the Bobcats led 23-17 heading into the fourth.
The fourth belonged to the road team. A'Marion Peterson punched in a 2-yard TD to reclaim the lead 24-23. Bonilla answered with a 26-yard field goal to make it 26-24 Bobcats. And then, with 4:36 to play and the season sliding sideways, UTSA got the ball back one more time. Brandon High Jr. tore off a 25-yard touchdown with 14 seconds on the clock. Ballgame.
Numbers that matter
McCown was 28-of-42 for 214 and a score. Efficient, businesslike, and a full country mile short of the explosive-play afternoon we saw against UTRGV. Will Henderson III led the ground game with 14 carries for 80. Mekhi Anderson was the receiving-room headline: 5 catches, 83 yards, and that 44-yard touchdown from Amador.
On defense, Brandon Tucker's 13 tackles led everybody, and the secondary picked off Brad Jackson twice. Great. But the front seven surrendered 289 rushing yards, 149 of them to Burgess Jr., and gave up 27 first downs. Texas State converted 9-of-17 on third down. UTSA converted 3-of-15. And 11 penalties for 115 yards on the road, in a rivalry, is discipline slipping.
| Stat | UTSA | TXST |
|---|---|---|
| Total yards | 398 | 481 |
| Rushing yards | 140 | 289 |
| Passing yards | 258 | 192 |
| 3rd down | 3-15 | 9-17 |
| Penalties | 11-115 | 9-90 |
| Turnovers | 0 | 3 |
About last week's headline
Our Week 1 recap was titled “McCown and the Big Plays Announce Themselves.” Half right. The big plays showed up — the Amador-to-Anderson 44-yarder, the High Jr. walkoff run — but McCown himself was 5.1 yards per attempt with a 1-yard touchdown as his only score. The announcement is paused. Rescheduled for Austin.
What people are saying
GoUTSA framed it as a “strong second half, late TD” flip. Accurate on the second-half part, though the honest read is that our second half wasn't dominant so much as opportunistic. Three takeaways covered three empty possessions, and the box score doesn't quite tell you how much of this game was Texas State beating Texas State.
Our take
Take the win. Rivalry, road, and Sunday morning waking up 1-1 would have been a very different Monday around this office. The trophy stays, the record stays, and the Battle for I-35 is ours.
Winning 2-0 with a run defense giving up 289 a night is borrowed time, and Texas isn't in the lending business.
Here's the hot take, and we'll stand on it: you don't give up 289 on the ground to Sarkisian and live. Texas State is 0-2 and just ran for 289 on us. The Longhorns will pull that tape, run the same wide zone and quarterback keeper looks, and see if we can set an edge. If we can't get the front seven to hold up on standard downs, next Saturday in Austin is going to be the kind of afternoon we don't want to describe in public.
And the flags. Eleven for 115 in a rivalry road game is one thing. Eleven for 115 in a stadium that pipes crowd noise through the roof is how you kill your own drives before you even snap the ball.
Falsifiable claim, so the next post can grade us honestly: if UTSA allows 220-plus rushing yards at Texas, we lose that game by more than two scores. Not might. Will.
Next up
Texas Longhorns, September 19, in Austin. That's the entire preview a week early — a full one lands before kickoff. In the meantime, this defensive front has six days to figure out how to hold an edge, and it's every bit as urgent as it sounds.
2-0 tastes fine even when it isn't clean. And if you'd rather turn your college Saturday reads into something the leaderboard actually notices, our pick'em is right there waiting.