Bobcats Finish Season With Win Against Georgia State

There was less than a minute left in the game when Georgia State junior quarterback Tyler Arbuckle led the final shot at closing the gap, which was as high as 30 points in the third quarter.

Georgia State tacked on 21 points in the fourth quarter, trimming the deficit to 16 points. 

Through the array of allies and opponents, Arbuckle found sophomore wide receiver Robert Davis. Before the ball could settle in to his outstretched hands, David Mims, junior cornerback, came from Davis’ left side to intercept the pass and return it for a 60-yard touchdown.

In less than 20 seconds, the Texas State football team secured its seventh win of the season.

For the first time since the 2009-2010 season, the Bobcats finished the regular season with a winning record. For the first time in the program’s history, they have a realistic opportunity for a bowl game invitation.

“(I am) happy for our guys,” Coach Dennis Franchione said. “They are a team that deserves the opportunity to keep playing and hopefully that dream will come true for them.”

While the win was a positive for the Bobcats in the moment, Franchione was able to survey the abilities of next season’s returners in the win.

Next season Mims will fill in Craig Mager, senior cornerback, who returned one interception for 21 yards.

“(Mims) has come a long way as a man, as a student, as a communicator and I’ve saw his confidence start to grow within the last two weeks,” Franchione said. “I really saw it grow today with that end of game interception return, making a demonstrative statement about how far along he has come. So I think we’re going to have a really great corner coming back next year.”

In addition to Mims’ assuring performance, several Bobcats notched career-best and club-best numbers.

David Mayo, senior linebacker, concluded the 12-game campaign with 154 tackles and two games with more than 20 tackles. Mayo currently leads Division I in total tackles.

Tyler Jones, sophomore quarterback, moved in to the number one spot in the conference for most touchdowns. Jones accounted for four touchdowns and 323 total yards in the win.

On the carrying end of Jones’ hand offs this season was, Rob Lowe, junior running back, who became the first Bobcat since 2008 to exceed 1,000 rushing yards in a season.

Despite the individual and group accomplishments, Franchione knows the season could have gone drastically different.

“Well, 7-5 makes me proud of that fact and it was a good year considering what they’ve been through this year and last,” Franchione said. “It is kind of scary because we could have been 9-3 this year, but then again I guess we could be 3-9.”

According to ESPN’s week 14 bowl projections, the Bobcats are currently projected to participate in the GoDaddy bowl on Jan. 4 or the Raycom Media Camellia Bowl on Dec. 20, both of which are located in Alabama. 

“We didn’t win today as decisively as we did last week vs. Arkansas State, but we did put up 50-plus points on the road,” Franchione said. “You’d like to think those things all add up. It would be a tragedy to be denied two years in a row.”

Mariah Medinais the assistant sports director with the University Star where this story originally published. It is reprinted here through a news partnership between the University Star and the San Marcos Corridor News | @Corridor News