Utah State lets another halftime lead slip away, fall to New Mexico
In the weeks and months to come, the sting from Saturday night’s heartbreaking 24-21 loss to New Mexico will live on.
More so than the pain evoked by the 27-20 loss to Air Force, a game in which the Aggies committed two costly mistakes late in the fourth quarter, sealing their defeat. It’ll be remembered for longer than the 31-24 loss to Colorado State, when the Aggies squandered a 24-10 lead at halftime. It hurts even more than the back-to-back blowouts to San Diego State and Wyoming, two games in which the Aggies were outscored 92-41.
The sting will resonate because with the loss, Utah State will record its second straight losing season and will miss out on a bowl game for the first time since 2010.
“That’s a tough way to lose a ballgame,” USU head coach Matt Wells said. “Congratulations to New Mexico. I’m proud of those guys in the locker room, they showed a lot of resolve, a lot of fight.”
New Mexico scored the final 18 points of the game to stun USU in front of the crowd of 15,212 at Maverik Stadium. Jason Sanders booted his third field goal of the contest, a 40-yarder, with 66 seconds to give the Lobos the go-ahead score.
The Aggies responded by marching 50 yards, using two big runs from LaJuan Hunt and a huge roughing the passer penalty on New Mexico. With time winding down, Kent Myers lobbed an 18-yard pass to Ron’Quavion Tarver in the end zone for the would-be game winner, but it was called back due to a shaky offensive pass interference penalty.
“I’m going to choose my words very, very carefully as you can probably imagine,” Wells said. “I hope they’re (the officials) right. That’s a hard one to take away from a kid. I’ll just leave it at that and let the Mountain West comment about it on Monday morning.”
Facing first-and-25, Myers scrambled for nine yards and slid down inbounds which kept the clock rolling with less than 16 seconds. Out of timeouts, the Aggies failed to get kicker Brock Warren on the field in time — as the hosts choose not to spike the ball on second down.
“We didn’t have any timeouts and the clock was running,” Wells said. “I wish the ball would have been incomplete or out of bounds. It’s tough to get a field goal team on that quick, tough to get them on.”
Two drives prior to that sequence, Utah State found themselves at the 1-yard line, just inches away from another go-ahead chance. Three straight rushes by Tonny Lindsey and Gerold Bright resulted in no gain, setting up an important fourth-down try. Instead of electing for the three points, Wells kept the offense out on the field and called a fourth-straight handoff to Lindsey, resulting in no gain and a turnover on downs.
“That was my call,” Wells said. “It was less than one yard, and I believe in our guys. And if we didn’t get it, it was going to have to be a 99-and-a-half-yard drive. We’ll look back and wonder, but that’s exactly what my mindset was. Put it behind our hogs and our big guys, and unfortunately, it didn’t work. But I believe in what we did, though.”
New Mexico rushed the ball 57 times for 249 yards and two touchdowns, which helped the Lobos overcome a 14-6 halftime deficit and reach their fifth-straight win. The main contributor for the Albuquerque based team was Teriyon Gipson, who collected 107 yards and the teams two rushing scores.
Adding to the win was quarterback Austin Apodaca who notched 109 yards through the air on six completions.
Apodaca’s Cache County counterpart Myers had an excellent outing in the loss, going 21 of 27 for 263 yards, a touchdown and an interception. The leading rusher for the Aggies was quarterback Damion Hobbs, who had 42 yards on five carries. Lindsey added the remaining two touchdowns to the Aggies’ total.
To their credit, the Aggies scored on their first two possessions of the game for the first time since the season and home opener against Weber State.
Utah State will travel to Reno on Saturday to take on Nevada with kickoff scheduled for 2 p.m.