{"id":109328,"date":"2026-01-03T07:17:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T07:17:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/109328\/"},"modified":"2026-01-03T07:17:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T07:17:10","slug":"texas-state-wins-3rd-straight-bowl-41-10-over-rice-in-armed-forces-bowl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/109328\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas State wins 3rd-straight bowl, 41-10 over Rice in Armed Forces Bowl"},"content":{"rendered":"

When the Texas State Bobcats drew their first-ever bowl bid in December 2023, the shelves of the facilities in San Marcos were empty, in desperate need of new decor.<\/p>\n

Fast-forward 25 months later, and Texas State more than populated that once-empty trophy case. In year three of the GJ Kinne era, the Bobcats won a third bowl in three seasons \u2014 and each victory transpired in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex against American Conference competition. On Friday afternoon, Texas State handled Rice in the 2025 Armed Forces Bowl, boatracing the Owls in 41-10 fashion. After staring down a 3-6 record in mid-November, the Bobcats concluded the season with four-straight victories of 17+ points.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m happy for the players and coaching staff and everyone involved in our success,\u201d Kinne said. \u201cIt\u2019s been an up and down year. We started off really well, had a little lull, but I think the way we finished speaks to what we have going on here at Texas State. Super proud of everyone involved.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Rice defense presented early challenges for Texas State\u2019s 12th-ranked FBS scoring offense, as the two Lone Star State institutions entered the second quarter at a deadlocked 0-0. However, Texas State eventually found its groove with quarterback Brad Jackson leading the way. The dual-threat quarterback attained 173 passing yards, 52 rushing yards, three passing touchdowns, and ran in his Sun Belt-best 17th rushing score of the year to secure MVP honors.<\/p>\n

\u201cBrad\u2019s gonna be very humble, but people forget that this kid\u2019s a freshman,\u201d Texas State running back Lincoln Pare said. \u201cHe early enrolled and since he came in the previous year, we knew how good Brad was gonna be. Throughout that \u201824 season, everyone saw it in practice him dotting up our defense. When you have a quarterback who can push the ball down the field and is a run threat, it\u2019s unbelievable. The way he operates, he knows what everybody\u2019s doing on the field at all times. All the guys on offense are good, but we\u2019re nothing without him.\u201d<\/p>\n

The spark was provided by Beau Sparks who caught an Armed Forces Bowl record 69-yard touchdown pass from Jackson in the first minute of the third quarter, extending Texas State\u2019s lead to 17-7. Sparks finished with 87 yards, while wide receiver Chris Dawn Jr. joined his teammate in 1,000-yard territory on the season, generating 75 yards and two touchdowns in the commanding win.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you have your best receivers and your best players on offense, when they\u2019re that unselfish, you have a chance to be really special on offense,\u201d Kinne said. \u201cThey\u2019re just great kids and great football players. It was very important for me to get Chris that 1,000 yards \u2014 him and Beau \u2014 just because of all the hard work that goes into that, what they\u2019ve put into this program, and they\u2019ve decided to come back.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"FORT<\/a><\/p>\n

FORT WORTH, TEXAS – JANUARY 02: Brad Jackson #8 of the Texas State Bobcats throws a pass against the Rice Owls during the first half during the 2026 Lockheed Martin Armed Forces Bowl at Amon G. Carter Stadium on January 02, 2026 in Fort Worth, Texas. (Photo by Tim Heitman\/Getty Images) Getty Images<\/p>\n

Rice produced the third-fewest turnovers in the FBS prior to Friday, only coughing up the ball eight times this year. However, turnovers doomed the Owls in the Armed Forces Bowl by a 3-1 margin. The turnover hiccups started in the second quarter when Rice quarterback Patrick Crayton Jr.\u2019s misfire was returned 44 yards in the other direction by Texas State cornerback Jaden Rios. The Owls fully began to unravel in the middle of the third quarter. Rice fumbled behind the line of scrimmage on three-consecutive plays, and two of those loose balls were scooped up by Texas State.<\/p>\n

The Bobcats started three separate drives inside the Rice 40 and two inside the red zone thanks to these turnovers, which served as an early source of their points \u2014 with 17 of their first 24 stemming from takeaways. For much of the season, Texas State\u2019s offense shined while the defense struggled, but the defense repeatedly set up the offense for success, forcing three sacks and 13 tackles for loss in addition to the turnover barrage.<\/p>\n

\u201cCoaches have just been emphasizing, \u2018Just do it for a series,\u2019\u201d Texas State defensive end Kalil Alexander said. \u201cWe know we\u2019ve struggled. We were there. It was just that resilience. When you\u2019re down in a season and things aren\u2019t going your way, what are you gonna do to change that around? It was coming together and playing as one. It takes all the little people on defense to make it go.\u201d<\/p>\n

Texas State iced the victory to open the fourth quarter, as sixth-year senior running back Lincoln Pare capped his college career with a 63-yard scamper to the end zone. Pare celebrated with the Bobcat faithful in attendance in the midst of his 106-yard outburst, leaving the school as its second all-time leading rusher.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a blessing to be a Bobcat and be with the guys,\u201d Pare said after riding off into the sunset on his college days. \u201cI got here in \u201822 \u2014 last year without Coach Kinne \u2014 and Texas State wasn\u2019t known for being bowl eligible and all of that. To be able to be at Texas State and help change the culture at Texas State, and now we have three back-to-back-to-back bowl wins, it just means everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

The transfer portal opened the morning of the Armed Forces Bowl, which caused Rice to operate without its top two quarterbacks \u2014 Chase Jenkins and Drew Devillier. Thus, the Owls operated under a two-QB system with redshirt freshman Lucas Scheehorn and true freshman Patrick Crayton Jr., a duo which entered the contest with a combined 13 passing attempts and seven rushes. Other than a 54-yard bomb from Crayton to Payton Matthews to set up a Rice touchdown with nine seconds left in the first half, the Owls\u2019 shotgun option offense didn\u2019t demonstrate much explosiveness.<\/p>\n

\"FORT<\/a><\/p>\n

FORT WORTH, TEXAS – JANUARY 02: Chris Dawn Jr. #1 and Beau Sparks #11 of the Texas State Bobcats celebrate after a play against the Rice Owls during the second half of the 2026 Lockheed Martin Armed Forces Bowl at Amon G. Carter Stadium on January 02, 2026 in Fort Worth, Texas. (Photo by Tim Heitman\/Getty Images) Getty Images<\/p>\n

The Owls collected just 195 yards of offense. With the quarterbacks struggling, they relied heavily on running back Quinton Jackson wildcat snaps in the second half. Jackson provided his best efforts with 79 rushing yards, but it wasn\u2019t enough for a youthful Rice offense which started six freshmen Friday.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur young quarterbacks struggled and we didn\u2019t really get in a rhythm,\u201d Rice head coach Scott Abell said. \u201cNo matter what you\u2019re doing, the quarterback still remains a very important position\u2026 I\u2019ve got to put a better gameplan together for them. That\u2019s on me. Obviously I did not do a good enough job putting a gameplan together for PJ and Lucas. I will take and learn from this, and hopefully they will as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rice (5-8, 2-6 American) remains in the chase for its first bowl win since 2014. The sub-.500 Owls qualified for the postseason due to a lack of available teams but wanted to seize an opportunity and play a high-stakes game to round out Abell\u2019s debut year. Although Rice dropped its third bowl in the last four years, the experience in Fort Worth was certainly worthwhile to the first-year head coach and his players.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d take it again,\u201d Abell said on taking a bowl bid despite not attaining six wins. \u201cThe three weeks of practice. And I can\u2019t replicate that moment out on the field today for Lucas (Scheerhorn) or PJ (Crayton). And that\u2019s part of the problem, you can\u2019t replicate that in practice\u2026 I would say yes all over again. I think this was a good experience here for our players. First half we were right in the hunt going into halftime. We were battling and making mistakes battling. You can\u2019t play one half though, and those are things our program has to learn.\u201d<\/p>\n

Texas State (7-6, 3-5 Sun Belt) celebrated its third-consecutive bowl victory, cementing an era of newfound success under its 37-year old head coach. The Bobcats lit their victory cigars on the field in Fort Worth, basking another signature moment for the young FBS program. The Armed Forces Bowl marked the final time with the Sun Belt Conference patch on Texas State\u2019s jerseys, as the program prepares a move to the refurbished Pac-12 on Jul. 1, 2026 \u2014 hoping to keep the postseason wins rolling in a new league.<\/p>\n

\u201cReally proud of the guys,\u201d Kinne said. \u201cWe\u2019ve had a bunch of really good players, a bunch of really good coaches come in here. To be able to keep it rolling year in and year out, I think we do things the right way. I think we recruit the right type of kids. Now it\u2019s going to the Pac, and I think we have a real chance to continue to make some noise and be a real player going into next year\u2019s season.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When the Texas State Bobcats drew their first-ever bowl bid in December 2023, the shelves of the facilities…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":109329,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[6746,25291,38940,27,29,28,2426],"class_list":{"0":"post-109328","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-texas","8":"tag-american-conference","9":"tag-rice","10":"tag-sun-belt-conference","11":"tag-texas","12":"tag-texas-headlines","13":"tag-texas-news","14":"tag-texas-state"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109328\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}