Explosive, disciplined... exposed? Takeaways from opening week of Tarleton State Football

BY GAVIN PATRICK

Co-Managing Editor/Sports Editor

It wasn’t until after midnight on Saturday that head coach Todd Whitten finally hit the podium for postgame.

His Texans had just put together a good team win against Prairie View A&M, the 19-point margin right in line with sportsbook projections. The offense was unstoppable, as usual. The defense played well, but not too well.

It was the perfect storm for classic Whitten.

“I thought we played pretty well,” he said matter-of-factly.

If that doesn’t sound too interesting, it’s because it wasn’t.

Everything the pollsters thought the 2026 Tarleton State Texans would be showed up on Saturday night. The team led almost from start to finish. The “upset watch” never came to fruition. Fans at Memorial Stadium broke the attendance record—again. You know, just another day at the office in Stephenville, Texas.

Here are some takeaways from the Week 0 action.

Kaden Anderson secured his status as QB1

When the Texans signed Anderson from Wyoming in February, the presumption from the outside was that he would be QB2 behind Arizona transfer Braedyn Locke. But Whitten maintained that the quarterback position would be an open competition, and Anderson seems to have won the job fair and square.

“He’s been outstanding really all through camp,” Whitten said on Saturday. “He’s taking very good care of the ball; he's been explosive, and we’re throwing the ball down the field pretty well. Kaden's a good athlete as well. He can move his feet; he can get out of trouble; he throws well on the run. But I thought he played especially well tonight.”

Those remarks came on the heels of a near flawless performance from Anderson, where he completed 71% of his passes (15-21) for 224 yards and scored four total touchdowns, becoming the first Texan quarterback to score four touchdowns in an opener since 2009.

“All through camp, I was trying to have fun playing football again,” Anderson said. “I just tried to translate that to my game today, and just being out there with the guys, it was so much fun. We got a great group of guys on offense and defense. I love our team.”

Again, on the notion of normal, Anderson’s play was right on par with his performance in camp. His 71% completion rate practically matched his 72% mark from camp.

Between him and Locke, who completed 67% of his throws in camp, new offensive coordinator Chris Ross said he had never seen two quarterbacks in a competition be as efficient and accurate as Anderson and Locke were.

The competition was close. But ultimately, Whitten said Anderson won the job in part because the offense was more explosive with him at the helm and he took better care of the ball than Locke. With the first box score reading 49 points and zero turnovers, Anderson proved himself in a big way on Saturday.

Locke got some reps against Prairie View’s starters in the blowout win and led a touchdown drive, but this clearly looks to be Anderson’s job going forward. Much like the dynamic last year with Victor Gabalis and Daniel Greek, whoever is at quarterback for the Texans looks to be in good hands once again.

Three penalties, zero turnovers showed maturity

Nothing fires up the average coach more than clean football. Tarleton State was middle of the pack in 2025 when it came to penalties, and Gabalis—although he improved in this regard—was prone to the occasional head-scratching turnover.

By all accounts, Anderson has been taking care of the ball all summer, and carrying it over into game action against a formidable opponent that was number one in pass defense last season is a good sign of things to come.

And the run game looks as good as ever with Tylan Hines leading the way. 232 yards rushing is literally routine for the Texans, and Hines gobbled up almost 200 himself. The depth behind him is scary as well. Tarleton has basically turned into a running back factory, and the play of the offensive line under Scott Carey may deserve just as much credit.

If the Texans can keep up this level of efficiency and discipline, they could very well lead the country in scoring for the second straight year.

The defense just has to hold up its end.

Defense still struggles with the running quarterback

The Achilles’ heel of the unit, and perhaps the team as a whole, reared its ugly head again on Saturday.

The Texans had no answer for Prairie View QB Tevin Carter’s legs. In fact, Carter outrushed all of his running backs combined almost two times over, gaining 140 yards on 14 attempts. That’s 10 yards per carry, meaning Prairie View could count on a first down every time their quarterback took off with the ball. It was about that easy against Tarleton all of last season, too.

Asked after the game about the continued struggles defending mobile quarterbacks, Whitten pointed to missed tackles and the general complexity the situation presents to a defense.

“A running quarterback, out of one-back sets like you see a lot, oftentimes they're going to have the advantage in terms of blockers,” Whitten said. “You hear people refer to that as a plus-one running situation. It's extremely difficult to defend, and it's even more problematic when their guys are really talented. He (Carter) was a load. We had him dead to rights a few times and we just kind of melted off him.”

Tarleton may have also been unprepared physically to take on Carter. Whitten said that he cut fall camp scrimmages short after just the third day after a couple of injuries to starters spooked him.

“When you do that, it puts you behind a little bit in terms of tackling,” he said. “We had some injuries early in camp, like the first two or three days, and so I got worried about that, maybe overly worried. … When you do that, you're going to worry about how well you're going to tackle early, but we'll catch up with that.”

Linebacker Stephen Woods Jr. admitted that his unit gave up more than it would have liked but also said that he liked how they flew to the ball.

Whitten has been excited about the speed he has on defense all offseason, and it showed in the opener. A product of that is Division II transfer Gerard Culotta, who broke out with nine tackles—including 2.5 for losses—at the linebacker spot, repeatedly flying to the ball.

“That's one thing I like about our defense, we fly around a lot,” Woods said. “You know, [it was] the first game, so it was a lot of missed tackles, so that’s something we'll go into the week working on, just getting a lot of tackles, working and making sure that we get our angles right.”

DeAndre Buchannon is a dynamic spark on special teams

The West Georgia transfer and first-team All-UAC return specialist from 2025 picked up right where he left off for Tarleton State. It started with the opening kickoff, which Buchannon returned 31 yards to get the crowd going early, giving the offense good field position.

That could very well be a recurring theme—that is, as long as teams continue kicking to him.

“We were really worried about him when we played [West Georgia] last year at our Homecoming,” Whitten said on his radio show Thursday. “We didn’t kick the ball to him; we kicked it to the opposite side of the field. But whenever he got into the transfer portal... I knew he would be a good addition.”

Buchannon returned another kick 45 yards in the second quarter. Six plays later, Tarleton’s offense was in the end zone.

Giving a short field to one of the best offenses in the country is certainly not a risk future opponents will want to take by kicking to Buchannon. After the 45-yarder, he never saw another return the rest of the game. Perhaps that’s a pattern to keep in mind as the season goes on.