Coach won’t allow ‘low class’
Bobcats’ Withers: Team culture poor among his players.
— For the fourth consecutive season, the Texas State Bobcats have lost to Louisiana-Lafayette, this time 27-3 on Saturday night.
“Disappointing,” Texas State coach Everett Withers said after the game at Bobcat Stadium. “Early, I thought we were playing pretty good football. Obviously, we didn’t score enough points. Some of that had to do with field position, but we just kept shooting ourselves i n the foot offensively.”
The Bobcats (2-5, 0-3) scored on their first drive of the game, going 63 yards on 12 plays and getting a 29-yard field goal from freshman Marcus Ripley.
Louisiana-Lafayette (3-4, 2-2) scored on a 36-yard field goal by Stevie Artigue and a 4-yard run by Elijah McGuire to take a seven-point lead. One more field goal of 42 yards by Artigue as time expired in the second quarter gave Louisiana-Lafayette a 13-3 advantage at halftime.
The Ragin’ Cajuns scored two more touchdowns i n the second half on a 1-yard run by McGuire in the third quarter and an 18-yard pass from quarterback Anthony Jennings to Keenan Barnes in the fourth.
“In the first half, our defense battled and did some good things,” Withers said. “But they got wore out in the second half and just couldn’t hold up.”
With a three-game losing streak, Withers said after the game that the culture among the current players is poor and needs to be fixed, either by attitude adjustments or by replacing problem players with new ones.
“I told the kids in the locker room that I’m not going to be associated with a low-class program. I’m not. I’m not going to do that,” Withers said. “We had five guys with their helmet on during the alma mater and two other guys talking while the alma mater was going on, and I ripped their ass in the locker room. I’m too old to be around low class.”
“You are what you put on tape. We are 2-5. We are that team that you saw tonight, and it’s because we’re not good enough in a lot of spots. And we don’t have good enough players in a lot of spots, so we got to go recruit. It’s as simple as that; it’s as transparent as that.”
With a bye this week, Withers has shifted his focus.
“We’re getting ready to go on the road and hit the road recruiting this week, and I can’t wait,” he said. “I’ll be on that road with our coaches because it’s red alert to go find some football players because we don’t have any. I shouldn’t say any; we don’t have enough to go compete. We got to go find some.”
Texas State senior quarterback Tyler Jones completed 20 of 28 passes for 142 yards and an interception.
Redshirt freshman lineb a c ke r Br y a n Lo n d o n recorded 10 tackles, including eight solo. London has double-digit tackles in five of seven games and is second in the Sun Belt Conference with 74.