Blake Shapen's return to the field a success for Bulldogs

It had been nearly one calendar year since Blake Shapen had last taken the field for an actual game.

It’s one thing to take in practice preparation, spring scrimmages and preseason work, but taking the field and playing someone else is another thing entirely. It made for some pregame jitters for Shapen that would be hard to completely ignore, but that also meant that he was on the field with his team again.

Shapen told the media postgame that missing the time that he did on the field with his teammates was something that he would never take for granted again. On Saturday, he played the game that way.

So after State was slugging through a 13-10 first half, Shapen was in the locker room encouraging his teammates to come out stronger for the final two quarters. They did just that.

“It was just ‘cut it loose’. I don’t want any of our guys to hold anything back,” Shapen said of his message to the team. “There are some jitters and a lot of new guys and I just want everybody to cut it lose. That was the main emphasis in the second half. Our emphasis was to come out and play fast, holding on to our blocks and staying on blocks.”

Shapen puts sluggish first half behind him for second half turnaround

The senior quarterback finished his first game back 26-of-34 for 270 yards and one touchdown with an interception in there. He wasn’t totally pleased with the performance, but it was a step in thh right direction.

Shapen led the Bulldogs to a touchdown just six plays into the game when he hit Seydou Traore for a 55-yard pass, but State couldn’t sustain that momentum. Shapen took blame for some of that, but the Bulldogs also had significant issues on the offensive line in terms of penalties and blocking.

Over the course of the next five possessions, Shapen threw an interception, the Bulldogs punted twice and the offense had two touchdowns called back on penalties that would net them two field goals. All of that allowed the Golden Eagles to stay in the ball game and it was just 13-10 at the break.

“In the first half, we shot ourselves in the foot with the flags and the interception,” Shapen said. “For us, we’ve got to continue to play fast. During the first drive, we scored in two or three plays and we’ve got to be able to sustain that.”

The second half had more usage from the Bulldogs’ stable of running backs. The stout duo of Davon Booth and Fluff Bothwell had eight carries for a combined 31 yards in the second quarter and no touchdowns but would have three scores in the third quarter alone to push the lead out to 34-10 and seal the win.

Bothwell felt challenged to perform at higher level in the second half. He finished his first game in the SEC with nine carries for 43 yards and two touchdwons while Booth carries the load with 16 carries for 79 yards and a score.

“It was really just getting motivated by the quarterback. B Shape kept telling us to keep running and the o-line would get it right,” Bothwell said. “We just came out swinging. In my head this is where I was supposed to be. I told myself after the game that I should have done more and it will happen.”

With game one behind him and State in the win column, Shapen now gets to turn the page.

A season ago, Shapen went to Arizona State and watched as his team climbed in a 27-3 hole before falling 30-23. A year later, his goal is to come out of it on the other end and give the Bulldogs their first marquee win of the Jeff Lebby era.

“I feel like the biggest thing for us is going 1-0. We’ve got Arizona State next week and that’s all we’re focused on right now to go out there and get a W against them. Being able to clean up a lot of the things we struggled with this week and move forward. I feel like we have a really talented football team, if we can just keep the flag off the grounds we’ll be really good.”