TXST Release:
LAFAYETTE, La. – After Texas State went up 30-21 early in the fourth quarter, Louisiana blocked a punt that was leveraged into a go-ahead offensive touchdown and the Bobcats fumbled the ball on their final drive of the game as the Bobcats had their three-game winning streak snapped with a 34-30 loss to the Ragin’ Cajuns at Cajun Field on Saturday.
Texas State (4-2, 1-1 SBC) dropped its first conference game of the season despite never trailing until the final 2:21 of the contest. Louisiana (4-2, 1-1 SBC) cut its nine-point deficit in the fourth with a touchdown on an 11-play, 63-yard drive that took over four minutes. On the following Texas State drive, the Ragin’ Cajuns blocked the Bobcats’ punt from the Texas State 35-yard line, which ended up in a Zeon Chriss rushing touchdown four plays later that made it 34-30 Louisiana.
With a drive starting at 2:16 remaining in the game, the Bobcats converted their fourth fourth-down conversion of the day to set up a 12-yard pass from TJ Finley to Ashtyn Hawkins that ended with a fumble near midfield and was recovered by Louisiana.
The Texas State offense finished with 530 yards of offense. Finley was 30-of-40 with 326 yards passing and two touchdowns against one interception. Ismail Mahdi had his second 100-yard rushing game of the season as he finished with 188 yards on a career-high 34 carries.
Kole Wilson and Joey Hobert each had a receiving touchdown. Wilson had a team-high nine catches for 66 yards while Hobert registered a season-high 132 yards on eight receptions.
Louisiana had 423 yards of offense, highlighted by quarterback Chriss throwing for 205 yards and three touchdowns on 13-of-17 passing. He also rushed for 67 yards and a touchdown.
The Bobcats took the early lead with a Mahdi rushing touchdown from 10 yards out on the game’s opening drive. Louisiana responded with a 10-play, 70-yard drive that resulted in a four-yard touchdown pass by Chriss and helped tie the game at 7-7 just over seven minutes into the game.
After Mason Shipley put the Bobcats up in the first quarter with the first of his career-high three field goals, Finley connected with Wilson on a fourth-and-goal attempt from the two-yard line to give the Bobcats a 17-7 lead early in the second quarter.
Finley was 18-of-24 in the first half and threw for 215 yards to pilot a Texas State offense that had 307 total yards of offense in the opening 30 minutes.
Later in the second, Texas State went up 20-7 after Bobby Crosby forced a Louisiana fumble that was recovered by Kaleb Culp inside the Texas State 10-yard line. The Bobcats then used an 83-yard reception by Hobert from Finley to get the ball inside the Ragin’ Cajun 10-yard line. Shipley finished off the 92-yard scoring drive with a field goal after the Bobcats were stopped on their and-goal attempts.
The Ragin’ Cajuns responded with a six-play, 67-yard drive over 2:43 that was capped by a 34-yard pass from Chriss to Peter LeBlanc that helped make it 20-14 Bobcats.
Texas State was driving in the final four minutes of the second half and used a fourth-down conversion earlier in the drive to position the ball at the Louisiana 18-yard line with 15 seconds remaining. The Bobcats elected to go for it on fourth down once again, but on a pass attempt to Wilson along the Texas State sideline, Louisiana’s Glenn Brown III broke up the play to stop the march and keep the Bobcats’ lead at six going into halftime.
The Bobcats used another Louisiana fumble on the Ragin’ Cajuns’ opening drive in the second half to cash in Shipley’s third field goal of the day that made it 23-14 with 6:59 to go in the third. The Bobcats scored six points on Louisiana turnovers while the Ragin’ Cajuns did not score any points on the two Texas State turnovers.
Louisiana responded with a touchdown on the following drive to cut the Bobcats’ advantage to 23-21 with 3:45 left in the third. Zylan Perry, who had 50 rushing yards on the 82-yard drive, capped it off with a six-yard touchdown rush.
Texas State went up 30-21 when Finley found Hobert for an 18-yard touchdown pass to end a 10-play, 69-yard drive with 10:14 remaining in the game.
From Head Coach GJ Kinne
Opening Statement
“All we can do is get back, get back to work, learn from it. We have a really good football team, and there is a lot of football ahead of us. We let this one slip away. All we can do is go back to work.”
On what went wrong…
“I’m not so sure it was the end of it, although there are some things we got to correct. It’s not just one play. Thinking back on it, we got to score a touchdown when we get into the red zone. They had a big third-and-20 there, and we got to be able to get off the field on third-and-20. We can’t turn the ball over, but all you can do is learn from that and get back to work.”
On defensive rotations…
“We had some guys banged up a little bit. We’ll know more when we get back.”
On attempting to use the run game to extend drives after last week of the defense playing so many plays…
“We took what the defense gave us. (Ismail Mahdi) is a warrior. He got banged up a little bit, and he came back in the game and played really well. Really proud of him. I thought the o-line played well. TJ played well, the receivers played well. We played pretty well on offense; we just got to execute when we get down in the red zone.”
On Louisiana’s defense holding the Bobcats to field goals…
“We got to execute better. Give credit to (Louisiana). They had a good game plan.”
On the two turnovers…
“(On TJ’s interception) I’m not sure. Either he was trying to get over the defender or throw it out of bounds. I think it was one of those crazy plays. But I was super proud of (TJ), the way he bounced back on the next drive. He converted a big third down and hit his checkdown.”
On the offense…
“I thought they played really well. TJ put the ball (on the receivers). Sean Shaw had some big catches. I thought they executed pretty well.”
Stats To Know
TJ Finley became the first Texas State quarterback to have back-to-back games of 300+ yards passing since Damian Williams in 2017.
Texas State dropped to 0-11 all-time against Louisiana, including 0-6 in Lafayette.
Ismail Mahdi has 493 rushing yards over the last three games after running for the career-high 188 on Saturday. He left Saturday’s game with an injury but returned in the second half.
Mahdi, the nation’s leader in all-purpose yards, finished with 197 all-purpose yards on Saturday. He has 1,131 all-purpose yards this season.
The Bobcats forced three fumbles and recovered two.
Texas State was a combined 10-of-20 on third and fourth downs, including 4-of-5 on fourth down. Louisiana, meanwhile, was 7-of-10 on third downs.
Texas State’s offense finished with a season-high 30 first downs. It also won the time of possession (33:27-26:33).
Texas State’s Standout Performers
QB TJ Finley: 30-of-40, 326 yards, 2 TDs, INT
RB Ismail Mahdi: 34 att, 188 yards, TD, 1 rec, 9 yards
WR Joey Hobert: 8 rec, 132 yards, TD
WR Kole Wilson: 9 rec, 66 yards, TD
K Mason Shipley: 3-of-3 FG, 3-of-3 XP
S Kaleb Culp: 8 tackles, 1 FR
DE Sam Latham: 3 tackles, 2.0 TFLs, 1.0 sack, 1 FF
DE Ben Bell: 7 tackles
Up Next
Texas State returns home for a conference matchup against ULM. Kickoff is set for 6 pm at Bobcat Stadium.
