Texas St. loses historic home opener

SAN MARCOS (AP) -  Texas Tech scored a pair of touchdowns in a 51-second span of the opening four and a half minutes of the game, and the Red Raiders coasted to a 58-10 victory over Texas State on Saturday night.

Seth Doege passed for 319 yards and a career-tying five touchdowns by completing 25 of 32 for Tech (2-0) in less than three quarters of work. He threw two TDs in the first quarter, his first coming less than a minute after the Tech defense opened the scoring on Cody Davis' 88-yard interception return.

Facing a Big 12 school on home turf for the first time, the Bobcats (1-1) were showing off an expanded, 30,000-seat stadium in front of an overflow crowd of 33,006 a week after pulling off a shocking 30-13 win at Houston. But they fell behind 28-0 and didn't score until starting quarterback Shaun Rutherford was pulled and backup Tyler Arndt threw a 25-yard TD pass to Terrence Franks with just less than 11 minutes left in the first half.

But the damage already had been done, mostly by Doege. His first two scoring passes of 23 yards and 4 yards were completed to Darrin Moore. His third came on a drive that ended the first quarter and opened the second, a 99-yard march that took all of six plays and less than three minutes. It finished when Doege found Alex Torres over the middle of the field for a 23-yard TD.

At that point, Doege had completed 11 of 14 for 142 yards and three TDs. Texas State had zero passing yards, with Rutherford 0 for 7 plus the interception that was returned for a touchdown.

So Bobcats coach Dennis Franchione, who has returned to San Marcos after coaching at TCU, Alabama and Texas A&M, subbed for Arndt. He went 7 of 11 in the second quarter without being sacked or intercepted.

It's the sort of work that might fare well as the Bobcats play this season in the Western Athletic Conference after spending their first campaign as the Football Bowl Subdivision member as an independent a year ago.

But it wasn't enough against the Big 12's Tech. Doege answered Arndt's score a minute and a half later with a 19-yard pass to Jace Amaro. Texas State cut it to 35-10 with Will Johnson's 38-yard kick with 3:25 to go in the half, but Tech answered that with a field goal, as the first-half horn sounded.

Doege directed two more scoring drives before he was done for the night. He hit Javon Bell for an 8-yard scoring pass and finished up after Kenny Williams ran in from 16 yards to give Tech a 52-10 advantage with 4:59 to go in the third quarter.