MOBILE, Ala. – Quotes from Texas State football head coach Jake Spavital following the game against South Alabama at Hancock Whitney Stadium.
 
Jake Spavital, Head Coach
Overall thoughts…
Nothing really (changed in the second half). We just finally got into a rhythm of things. And the rhythm of things was we established the run game a little bit better. We had 17 plays in the first half, and we could never get the rhythm that was needed. I think what really happened in the second half was our kids kind of settled down. Layne (Hatcher) was seeing a lot better. The run game started popping way better for us, which allows us to keep the momentum on the drives so we can be more aggressive with the play calls.
 
In the first half, it was how do we get a first down? We only had two first downs in the first half. (South Alabama) held the ball for a long time. They were really good on their critical downs, and that's why we didn't have very many reps in that first half. And we finally got into the rhythm of it all and guys started making some plays.
 
The issue was we went through a lot of injuries. We lost (Julian Ortega-Jones) again, and we moved guys around but the run game starting hitting a little bit. We kind of find our niche with Rontavius Groves. It was more rhythm-based in that second half and we finally got that offense moving like it should.
 
On the defensive performance…
I thought our execution was poor on offense, with dropped balls and self-inflicted wounds. We kind of worked our way through it. And the same thing happened on defense. Defensively, I thought we missed some tackles, and (South Alabama) was 6-of-6 on fourth down. Our kids fought very well and all the way to the end, but we just couldn't convert on those critical downs. That's what allowed (South Alabama) to sustain some drives.
 
It's a tale of two games in my mind. When you look at it, the offense couldn't do anything and we struggled in the first half but we got better in the second (half). Then the defense had its struggles more in the second half, but it's the name of the game. You got to play complementary football and you got to have all three phases of the game playing well together, and we just didn't do that. (South Alabama) did that a lot better than we did.