{"id":428011,"date":"2026-09-06T11:56:20","date_gmt":"2026-09-06T11:56:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/428011\/"},"modified":"2026-09-06T11:56:20","modified_gmt":"2026-09-06T11:56:20","slug":"bears-fall-to-no-8-texas-am-in-season-debut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/428011\/","title":{"rendered":"Bears Fall to No. 8 Texas A&#038;M in Season Debut"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/missouristatebears.com\/documents\/2026\/9\/6\/MSU-01.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">FINAL STATS<\/a><\/p>\n<p>COLLEGE STATION, Texas &#8212; Missouri State&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/missouristatebears.com\/sports\/football\/roster\/jared-lloyd\/9355\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"9355\" target=\"_blank\">Jared Lloyd<\/a> logged a career-high 13 tackles, while Mo State newcomer <a href=\"https:\/\/missouristatebears.com\/sports\/football\/roster\/joel-boamah\/9636\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"9636\" target=\"_blank\">Joel Boamah<\/a> produced five solo stops and three pass breakups in his debut. But the No. 8-ranked Texas A&amp;M Aggies scored on seven straight possessions after the opening quarter and logged 505 total yards on the evening to push past the visiting Bears, 50-0, in the season opener for both squads here Saturday.<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\nThe crowd of 107,782 at Kyle Field was the largest opening-night crowd ever for Texas A&amp;M, which was ranked No. 8 in both the AP and AFCA polls this week. It was also the largest crowd in the history of Missouri State&#8217;s program.<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\nA handful of first-half mishaps kept Missouri State off the board in the opening half with Texas A&amp;M pushing ahead 19-0 at the intermission.<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\nIn the opening quarter, the Aggies held the Bears to 14 total yards and forced three punts in the frame while putting up a pair of scores of their own to take an early 9-0 lead.<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\nTexas A&amp;M&#8217;s initial score came on its opening drive of the game with a 15-yard pass from Marcel Reed to Isaiah Horton, capping an eight-play drive just five-and-a-half minutes in. Later in the opening stanza &#8212; after back-to-back Missouri State sacks of Reed \u2013 A&amp;M&#8217;s first punt of the night was muffed by the Bears who subsequently kicked the ball in the end zone which resulted in a safety call against the Bears to make it 9-0.<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\nNew Bears cornerback Boahmah turned the tides for the visitors early in the second quarter with a strip and fumble recovery to halt a Texas A&amp;M red-zone threat at the 15. The Bears were able to produce a pair of first downs on the ensuing possession and moved the ball beyond midfield with 26 ground yards on five carries by <a href=\"https:\/\/missouristatebears.com\/sports\/football\/roster\/breezy-dubar\/9640\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"9640\" target=\"_blank\">Breezy Dubar<\/a> on the series. Unfortunately, the drive stalled at midfield on a failed fourth-and-one attempt at the TAMU 49.<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\nTwo-and-a-half minutes later, the Aggies tacked on a 28-yard field goal by David Olano to extend their lead to 12-0 before capitalizing on a Bears fumble two plays later to push ahead 19-0 at the break.<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\nReed finished 21-of-30 for 233 passing yards and a pair of touchdown passes on the night, while Rueben Owens II carried 17 times for a game-high 77 rushing yards.<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/missouristatebears.com\/sports\/football\/roster\/skyler-locklear\/9648\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"9648\" target=\"_blank\">Skyler Locklear<\/a> finished 8-of-17 for 30 yards through the air in his first start with the Bears, who were playing on ESPN for the first time in program history. Dubar was MSU&#8217;s top rusher, carrying 7 times for 20 yards, while <a href=\"https:\/\/missouristatebears.com\/sports\/football\/roster\/jmariyae-robinson\/9460\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"9460\" target=\"_blank\">Jmariyae Robinson<\/a> had 4 pass receptions for 14 yards.<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\nRobinson extended his school-record streak of consecutive games with a pass reception to 36 while moving into the school&#8217;s top 10 in career receiving yards.<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\nTexas A&amp;M added four second-half touchdowns and a field goal to put things out of reach with the Aggies manufacturing three drives of 11 plays or more in that span.<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\nThe Bears return to Robert W. Plaster Stadium for their next two games starting with a 6 p.m. kickoff against visiting Lindenwood (1-1) next Saturday (Sept. 12).<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\nTickets for the 2026 home opener are available online at <a href=\"https:\/\/mostate.evenue.net\/event\/FB27\/FB01\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">MissouriStateBears.com<\/a>, at Great Southern Bank Arena Box office, (417) 836-7678, during regular box office hours. It will be Heroes Day and Extra Yards for Teachers in addition to the Dennis Heim jersey retirement ceremony.<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\n\u00a0<br \/>&#13;<br \/>\n\u00a0&#13;\n<\/p>\n<p>#WeAreMoState<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<br \/>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FINAL STATS COLLEGE STATION, Texas &#8212; Missouri State&#8217;s Jared Lloyd logged a career-high 13 tackles, while Mo State&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":428012,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-428011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428011","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=428011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428011\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/428012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=428011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=428011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=428011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}