SAN JOSE – With 2:03 left in the fourth quarter, a third-down conversion by San Jose State would’ve iced Saturday’s game at CEFCU Stadium against Wyoming.
Spartans coach Brent Brennan kept it in the hands of dual-threat quarterback Nick Nash, who in the first half broke the program record for career rushing yards by a signal caller.
Nash, who ran for 112 yards, was stuffed on a QB keeper, the Cowboys called their final timeout and San Jose State was forced to punt.
Brennan felt more than comfortable with such a scenario.
“I just had faith in the defense, so the choice there was to run the ball and just burn as much clock we possibly can,” Brennan said. “Our defense has been awesome for us all year, so for me to say, ‘We need you to close it out for us,’ I feel great about that.”
The gamble paid off.
Back-to-back sacks by last year’s Mountain West defensive player of the year Cade Hall with under two minutes left helped San Jose State seal a 27-21 victory over visiting Wyoming in front of 13,042 fans.
“I think it’s about effort and disruption,” said Hall, a 6-foot-2, 260-pound defensive end out of nearby Bellarmine College Prep.
“Defensively, the way we finished that game was just fantastic,” Brennan said. “Cade, what a player, just what an awesome person he is. Shoot, he played darn near every snap and he still came up with that kind of effort that late in the game.”
The Spartans (5-4, 3-2 Mountain West) need to win one of their final three games to become bowl eligible for the second year in a row. Their final road game is next week at Nevada (6-3, 3-1), which routed winless UNLV 51-20 on Friday.
The odds do not favor San Jose State.
“It’s not just that we’re playing on the road, it’s that we’re playing on the road at Nevada,” Brennan said, “which is a place that’s been hard for us in the past. TV did us a favor and put it at 7 o’clock at night instead of at 1 o’clock, which is where I thought it was going to be. So it’s going to be dark and cold and their fans are going to be rowdy.
“It’s going to be one helluva place to play college football.”
On the first play from scrimmage, Nash hooked up with his favorite target tight end Derrick Deese Jr. for a 23-yard gain.
The Spartans gained 20 more yards on nine plays the rest of a scoreless first quarter and punted three times.
“We were playing the 15th ranked defense in the United States of America,” Brennan said. “There’s a feeling-out process to that.”
“We knew it was going to be a battle,” Nash said. “We knew they were a very good defense and very disciplined. I was comfortable with the game plan the whole time, and I knew that eventually if we kept making the right reads and making the right plays that we’d wear them down.”
The breakthrough came after Wyoming (4-4, 0-4) dialed up a blitz early in the second quarter but lost containment, allowing Nash to scramble for 48 yards.
Nash proceeded to score on a 1-yard keeper to break the scoreless deadlock.
“I thought their quarterback made some spectacular running plays,” Wyoming coach Craig Bohl. “We knew he was going to be a weapon.”
The Spartans, who led 17-7 at halftime after a 9-yard TD run by Kairee Robinson with 1:54 left in the second quarter, gained a season-high 238 yards on the ground.
Nash, in only his fifth career start at QB as the injury replacement to Nick Starkel, led SJSU in rushing yards for a second consecutive time and his current 797 career yards surpassed the marks of both Kenny Potter (745) and Jeff Garcia (729).
“I’m more excited about the win,” Nash said. “But it’s pretty cool to have that record.”
Credit to the Cowboys, every time they fell behind by double digits the offense managed to come up with a big play.
Interceptions by San Jose State linebacker Tysyn Parker and safety Jay Lenard set up field goals by Matt Mercurio of 36 and 44 yards in the second and third quarter, respectively.
“Those are game-changing plays, you have to have those,” said Spartans linebacker Kyle Harmon, who had a game-high 13 tackles. “Extra possessions in a game like this with a team like Wyoming where you get X-amount of possessions, those picks and turnover on downs are game changers.”
But Wyoming responded each time with a touchdown. First came a 54-yard bomb to wide receiver Isaiah Neyor to get within 10-7. Then a 67-yard run by Xazavian Valladay, who finished with 172 yards on 22 carries. That set up a 3-yard TD run by Titus Swen to make it 20-14 midway through the third quarter.
The Spartans, though, had one more explosive play left in them – a 44-yard touchdown pass to Charles Ross with 2:59 left in the third quarter for some much-needed insurance points.
“I told him that he would have a chance before the play,” said Nash, who finished 11-of-22 for 150 yards with no interceptions. “I was like, ‘Hey, you could be open on this,’ because their safeties were playing Deese very aggressively.”
“It was an incredible throw,” Brennan said. “And then it was great to see Charles play the ball off his feet and go get it. That’s been a huge point of emphasis for us on both sides of the ball – we have to attack the football.”
Trailing 27-14 for the majority of the fourth quarter, Wyoming turned it over on downs in back-to-back possessions, with a time-consuming 15-play, 84-yard drive stalling inside the red zone.
“We just knew we needed to pin our ears back, make a play,” Parker said. “Obviously they wanted to lean more heavily on the run game and then once we knew we had them in an uncomfortable situation passing the ball late in the game, we knew that played in our favor.”
The Cowboys managed to make it a one-score game with on Neyor’s 12-yard TD catch with 2:48 left, but as aforementioned Brennan was prepared for such a scenario.
It was up to the defense to close it out.
“(Defensive coordinator Derrick Odum) mentions it in our meetings all the time how we play for each other, how we swarm,” Harmon said. “You can see it on film, just the love and camaraderie we have in that defensive room. You can really feel it, we’re a tight-knit group.
“And to put the game on our shoulders definitely meant a lot. And I had no question we were going to get it done.”
Source: www.mercurynews.com