Quarterback TJ Finley 'just needed to be in the right system'

One of the less talked-about upsets on opening weekend of college football was Texas State winning 42-31 at Baylor, led by former Auburn and LSU quarterback TJ Finley.

Finley transferred to Texas State this summer as a graduate, giving the Bobcats a Power 5-caliber quarterback.

“TJ was one of those deals where I remember where I was at,” Texas State coach GJ Kinne said on the Andy Staples On3 show. “I was in New Braunfels, over there and I saw his name go in the portal. I talked to a couple people, got his number, reached out to him and kind of gave him my spiel. He came on an official visit later that week and he had a couple other P5 OVs lined up, and after the OV he canceled them and decided to be a Bobcat, which was huge.

“He’s a difference-maker.”

Finley was electric in the team’s season opener against Baylor. He went 22-of-30 passing for 298 yards with three touchdowns and no interceptions. He also ran six times for 18 yards and a score.

His new head coach sees a lot of potential that has gone untapped through no fault of Finley’s.

“I think he’s an NFL quarterback. He’s got the size, he’s got the arm,” Kinne said. “He just needed to be in the right system. If you look at his career, the guys that recruited him for their system kind of left. So it was a situation where we felt really confident in his abilities, we just had to get him here.”

That process involved a few steps, not the least of which was making sure Finley was a graduate transfer after already having used a transfer from LSU to Auburn.

“So he had to graduate. We had to go through that whole process,” Kinne said. “Then we got him here in the summer and he really, you could see his leadership and you could tell he’d been around a bunch of really good coaches. That was a pretty smooth transition.”

A smooth transition indeed. It’s not often Texas State rings up a win as high-caliber as the one they scored Saturday over Baylor.

TJ Finley was a huge part of that.