Change is coming.

For the first time in a long time, Texas State athletics is turning a new leaf. But it doesn’t have to do with head coach Jake Spavital. New athletic director Don Coryell officially took control of the department back in September and the University announced Kelly R. Damphousse as the future president back in March. It’s the first time in 20 years that Texas State has a new athletic director and university president.

Immediately, Coryell’s impact was felt by fans and supporters. Following Texas State’s 45-0 loss to Louisiana, Coryell issues a statement echoing his disappointment, an unusual tactic for an administrator much less from a Texas State AD.

“…I will do everything in my power to position our coaches, staff and student-athletes for success,” the statement read. “To that end, we are making further investments in our football program, including enhancing our operations and recruiting budgets, and working toward implementing full cost of attendance for our student-athletes as allowed by NCAA rules.”

Some may have read that as an ominous foreshadowing of Spavital’s tenure, but it was the opposite. This is still Spavital’s program and Coryell is backing him.

The Bobcats finished last season at 4-8, well short of their goal, but still the team’s best record since 2014. It wasn’t the leap the team anticipated taking, especially considering the influx of talent brought in, but it was still a step forward.

“There's been a lot of obstacles I guess you could say that we've gone through over the past two years,” Spavital said. “COVID, eligibility freezes, and the transfer portal, and I think that we've done a really good job at addressing today's time in a pretty quick manner.”

You’ll find plenty to be optimistic about perusing through the results - like the team playing eventual Big 12 champion Baylor as well as anyone did all season. But the lows felt very low – that loss to Louisiana as well as a loss at home to FCS program Incarnate Word.

Texas State feels like it’s on the cusp of a turning point, and that could be good or bad. Spavital’s heading into the second-to-last year of his contract and a roster that’s firmly his own now. The 37-year-old head coach hasn’t shied away from the fact that his tenure hasn’t produced the results people expected. Last year, inconsistent quarterback play, a passive defense and injuries set the program back from where it was thought to have been.

To the outside, one could assume that Texas State’s transfer-heavy roster construction was initiated to catapult the team toward bowl eligibility. That was only part of it. Obviously, the immediate benefit of adding 23 transfers in the 2021 class was the acquisition of ready-made talent, but there’s also the lack of attrition.

In the modern era of college football, and especially in the COVID-19 era where so many have opportunities for a free transfer, it’s easy for Group of Five programs to lose players in droves. Aside from former quarterback Brady McBride and running back Brock Sturges, both who had fallen out of the starting lineup by mid-season, Spavital’s team hasn’t lost much. He’s brought in a veteran quarterback in Layne Hatcher and maintained tons of offensive skill talent to where the few losses they have seen, aren’t detrimental.

Defensively, he’s only lost players to graduation and nearly every player that will appear on the two-deep has received ample playing time over the last two seasons. And he admitted they could add 16 to 20 more players by the time fall camp rolls around.

“We're not going to take a guy just to take a guy,” Spavital said. “They've got to either make an immediate impact on your team or they've got to have years where they can develop underneath and make sure that you balance out your classes correctly.

“I think there's so much more on the horizon that we’ve got to just make sure that our staff and everybody's on the same page and making sure that we're doing things the right way.”

Continuity has been the driving force so far. Former offensive coordinator Jacob Peeler took a position at Missouri, and rather than hire someone to take up the mantle, Spavital left the spot vacant. He’s the play-caller and primary offensive game-planner anyway. After offensive line coach Pat Turner was let go, tight ends coach Brian Hamilton was moved over to keep a familiar voice in the locker room.

“I can't be speaking English and you guys be hearing Japanese,” inside linebackers coach Brian Gamble said. “We got to get on the same page; you got to understand what the terms that I'm saying are and that way we'll be able to communicate faster, learn faster, and all of that.”

It may sound hyperbolic and cliché to say that 2022 is a pivotal season for Texas State, but it doesn’t mean it’s less true. There arguably isn’t a program in the state right now with as clear-cut of a target – a bowl game. The experience is there, and the stability is there to make it happen.

“The approach has been the same; work hard and just do your best and don’t sweat the rest,” senior linebacker London Harris said. “Just work hard for what you want, and I want this team to be the best, the best in the Sun Belt. I want to go to a bowl game.”

The Ceiling
Everything clicks — the running game hums, the QB situation resolves itself and the defense finds its groove as the Bobcats go bowling.

The Floor
The defense can't find any continuity and the passing game sputters as the Bobcats falter to 3-9 — setting off an uncertain future.

Game of the Year
Texas State vs. Louisiana — November 26
Last year, Texas State got blanked by the eventual Sun Belt Champions, 45-0. This time, at home and against a retooling Louisiana in the last game of the season, the Bobcats must prove that was an aberration.