Similar to their 2017 meeting, San Jose State (0-2, 0-0 MW) hung tough in the first quarter against Texas (1-1, 0-0 SEC) in a 38-7 loss in front of the crowd of 100,841 at Longhorn Stadium.
With immediate Spartan opportunities assisted by a few Texas penalties, the Spartans simply could not capitalize early. And after four turnovers, it was like gifting a prize-fighter with clean left hooks to the face.
“Those turnovers in bunches just killed us,” said head coach Ken Niumatalolo. “Giving them a short
field was not ideal and still, I thought we were doing well in the beginning.”
Two missed golden opportunity passes to Spartan receiver Danny Scudero, some decent running and a missed 47-yard field goal in the first quarter looked reminiscent of the sloppiness last week.
The Spartan defense had held the Longhorns to 22-yards of total offense until Texas QB Arch Manning found Parker Livingston for an 83-yard touchdown pass with four minutes in the opening quarter. A deflected Walker Eget interception led to another Manning-to-Parker touchdown and a 14-0 Texas lead to cap the first 15 minutes.
Livingston was the leading receiver for the game with two touchdown receptions on 128-yards receiving and four receptions.
The Spartans gifted a second and third turnover to Texas to open the second-quarter. As the Spartan defense found themselves on short fields, Manning immediately capitalized with his third and fourth touchdown pass — and the ghost of an ugly 2017 loss in Austin was rearing its head.
But midway through the second, Eget led an eight-play scoring drive with four straight completions to Kyri Shoels capped by Jabari Bates’ four-yard scamper in the end zone.
Shoels held the hot-hand for the Spartan receivers with eight receptions and 73 yards receiving. Scudero came alive in the second-half ending with seven receptions and 66 yards receiving.
“We were doing our jobs and I was getting the ball out and everyone was basically doing their one-of-11,” said Eget on the first successful drive of the game.
Closing the second-half with a fourth turnover and the Spartans down 28-7, SJSU got their first turnover of the year. On an Isiah Revis safety blitz, cohort Jalen Apalit-Williams intercepted Manning at the goal line.
“With the opportunity to get the interception, we all did our jobs on that play,” said Apalit-Williams. “The game plan going in was to mix-up coverages and make the quarterback think one thing while doing another, but at the end of the day, we still have to do our jobs.”
That Spartan opportunity came up empty after kicker Denis Lynch’s second miss of the day and fourth field goal miss of the year.
The second-half scoring started with a 47-yard field goal by Longhorn Mason Shipley.
Early in the third-quarter, Texas already garnered 300 yards of offense; finishing with 472 total yards for the game with Manning adding a rushing touchdown after throwing four touchdowns on 295 yards of passing on 19 0f 30 attempts.
“Arch gets a lot of criticism. I thought he played well. He’s super athletic and hard to bring down,” said Niumatalolo. “We tried to come after him a bit, but he kept extending plays with his legs and because we brought pressure, we’re weak on the back-end and if we didn’t get home, he had guys wide open.”
The Spartans were able to get sack number one of the season from DE Vili Taufatofua on the Texas one-yard line for the Spartans second takeaway, but San Jose could not muster a score on their shortest field of the day.
It wasn’t until the first drive of the fourth quarter that the Spartans found their second best drive of the game. But due to the struggling kicking game, a 13-play drive into the red zone stalled on a failed fourth-down conversion.
“I think with those two particular drives there wasn’t anything special about it,” commented Eget on the Spartans two best offensive pushes of the game.
The Spartan defense was able to cap the end of the day with SJSU’s second takeaway when former Longhorn and now Spartan Larry Turner-Gooden’s fumble recovery late in the fourth quarter.
San Jose State has a bye week next week and have Idaho State at home the following week.
