Bobcats’ offense making strides for stretch run

Texas State’s offense might be on the upswing, despite losing an offensive shootout Saturday against New Mexico State.

The Aggies put up 10 more points than the Bobcats (2-7, 1-4 Sun Belt) in a 45-35 vic- tory at Bobcats Stadium.

Still, Texas State’s offense is putting up respectable numbers; averaging 31 points and 535 yards in its past two games.

“Our big emphasis we had coming out of the bye week was trying to find a way to get our big-play guys, guys that can make a play, the ball,” said Texas State coach Everett Withers at his weekly press conference. “Our offen- sive staff has done a pretty good job at spreading the ball around to those guys.”

Defensively, it has been a different story.

Texas State’s defensive unit has been been plagued by injuries and surrendered 622 yards of total offense, including 503 through the air on Saturday.

“It’s all hands on deck for us because of the numbers we started off,” Withers said. “When you start off of and you only have (67) scholar- ships, what you have to do is you have to make adjustments. So we’re going to make some adjustments this week to get some guys in the right spots, in the secondary and on our defensive line.”

Defensive end Dean Taylor and nose tackle Caeveon Patton will be out this week undergoing concussion protocol. Corners JaShon Waddy and Greg Peace II also will be out. Waddy left last week’s game with a shoulder injury.

With a shortage of schol- arship players and injuries starting to stack up, Withers brought up the proposed five-to-play-four rule as some- thing that his team could ben- efit from. Last January, the American Football Coaches Association announced a proposal that would allow players to participate in up to four games and still be eli- gible for a redshirt. The cur- rent stipulation for a redshirt is if a player has played less than 30 percent of the season or three games, whichever is higher.

“We could bring up a hand- ful of guys and play them to fill in some of these spots that we have,” Withers said. “It’s not in effect yet but my goal is to try to not ever burn a redshirt this time of year... A couple weeks ago, we almost had to burn (quarterback) Jaylen Gipson’s redshirt. If Willie ( Jones III) couldn’t go and Damian (Williams) was banged up, Jaylen Gipson was going to have to play and he knew that. That would have made my heart sink.”

“This is a good rule for kids, for student athletes, to be able to play the last four or five games of a season and them not lose a year. Alabama may use it as try outs, but for us it’s a necessity because we don’t have enough bodies.”

Withers said the rule will be voted on in January but he doesn’t think he’ll be able to use the rule retroactively on players this season. Along with Gipson, Withers mentioned linebackers Jakhar- ious Smith, London Harris and nose tackle Gjemar Daniels as freshmen he has planned to redshirt.

Heard would serve two purposes: he would allow the two other quarterbacks a week to heal up in time for West Virginia and Texas Tech, the two games that will define this season. He would also give the Jayhawks fits in the open field, that is if Herman expands his package beyond three plays.

Which brings us to the biggest gripe: Herman apparently doesn’t deem Heard impactful enough to consider playing him beyond the role of the brutally predictable Wildcat run off tackle.

“I think starting Jerrod, the issue with him is always going to be dependent on the health status of the other two,” he said. “You know, when you start the season with two scholarship quarterbacks, two trained scholarship quarterbacks, that’s what happens.”

Memo to Herman: Heard was once a scholarship quarterback who earned U.S. Army High School All-American status after leading Denton Guyer to consecutive Class 4A championships. He’s in the athletic mode of Greg Ward, Jr. who was the best offensive player on Herman’s Houston Cougars that went 22-4 over his two seasons.

Bob McNair has a choice. The Houston Texans owner could sign free agent quarterback Collin Kaepernick or he could take the easy route and avoid the Great Polarizer in order to stay in good with his fellow billionaire NFL owner buddies.

It’s an easy call I’m sure. Billionaire buddies are hard to replace these days.

Kaepernick makes the most sense from a football standpoint for his Houston Texans, who just one week ago were looking like a nice little playoff dark horse before starter Deshaun Watson tore his ACL.

Now H-Town is being subjected to Tom Savage, who isn’t ready to be a starter in this league, and T.J. Yates is, well ... T.J. Yates. The passing attack was borderline unwatchable against the league’s second worst pass defense and now the 3-5 Texans are just trying to avoid the AFC South cellar with a road game Sunday in Los Angeles against the Rams.

Politics before production, I guess. Before Watson, Matt Schaub was the last good QB to come through Houston. The franchise would kill for a QB that completes 64 percent of passes with 124 touchdowns against 78 interceptions even though he turned into a pick-six machine during his last season.

Coach Bill O’Brien said he’s discussed Kaepernick with General Manager Rick Smith, along with several other options but it appears Savage is choice moving forward.

How about those Rockets, Houston?

Besides that joke of a prevent defense that allowed Tyreek Hill to score on 57-yard catchand-run on the the final play of the first half Sunday, the Dallas defense has emerged as good enough to hold up its end if the Boys do indeed find themselves in the middle of the postseason in a couple of months.

Kansas City defensive end Tamba Hali didn’t stutter when describing the Cowboys to reporters following Dallas’ 28-17 win Sunday.

“I think that’s the best team in the league,” Hali said, via the Dallas Morning News. Then later he said, “They’re sound. Up front, they’re sound. They’ve got wideouts, they don’t need to use them. Their running back (Ezekiel Elliott), he does well. And the quarterback doesn’t make little mistakes.”

After reading that again, it occurred to me that Hali could have very well have been describing his own team. Dallas and Kansas City are very similar, except that we don’t expect Chiefs running back Kareem Hunt to be in court his week to determine if he will be playing Sunday.

Can’t wait to see “Nature Boy,” ESPN’s latest 30 for 30 documentary which centers on the life and times of professional wrestler Ric Flair.

It’s a look at the extremes that come with being professional wrestler. Just three months ago, Flair was near death — he was in a medically induced coma — before rallying back just like his character did time and time again in a wrestling career that spanned 40 years.

He was a stylin’, proflin’, kiss stealin’, wheelin,’ dealin’, limousine ridin’, jet flyin’ son of a gun.

If you have no idea what that means, tune in to ESPN at 9 p.m. Tuesday. It should be an entertaining but sad train wreck.