Box Score | 2016 Season Statistics
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — New Mexico scored on the second play of the game, and never trailed after that, gouging San José State for 446 yards on the ground as the Lobos improved to 1-0 in Mountain West play at 2-2 overall with a 48-41 victory over the Spartans in front of a Homecoming crowd of 19,852 at University Stadium.
It took just two plays, 75 yards on the ground and 55 seconds for UNM to take the lead for good. Teriyon Gipson went for the first 61 yards, and Tyrone Owens finished the drive with 14 more and quickly it was a 7-0 lead and a harbinger of things to come. Both Gipson and Owens rushed for 100 yards, Gipson’s fourth 100-yard rushing game of his career, and Owens’ first.
UNM got a quick three-and-out and went right down the field again, with Gipson scoring from 40 yards out to make it 14-0. San Jose State responded with two touchdowns, a 75-yard jaunt by Zamore Zigler and a 21-yard end around by Tim Crawley, but the second extra point was blocked by Nik D’Avanzo, keeping UNM in the lead 14-13.
The teams traded touchdowns in the second quarter, UNM with the first of Richard McQuarley’s three rushing scores and San José State with a Crawley 65 reception, but UNM would score the next 20 points.
Up 21-20, McQuarley scored again from a yard out, and then after a missed SJSU field goal, Jason Sanders ended the half with a career-long 45 yarder to give UNM a 31-20 lead.
Sanders added a field goal on UNM’s first drive of the third quarter, and then the defense got a big play when Austin Ocasio, who had just checked in at linebacker, dropped into coverage and picked off Kenny Potter and zig-zagged his was to a 37-yard touchdown, and UNM led 41-20 after three.
San José State however wasn’t done. Deontae Cooper scored on a short run, and then after an interception, he scored on a 45-yard screen pass to cut the lead to 41-34 with 9:27 left. However, UNM’s defense forced three-and-outs on the next two Spartan drives, and UNM then put together a drive to salt the game away, going 79 yards in six plays, with McQuarley scoring on third down for a 48-34 lead with 2:54 left.
San José State got a late touchdown with 31 seconds left, but the ensuing onside kick went out of bound, allowing UNM to take one knee and end the game.
The Lobos racked up 491 yards of offense, including 446 on the ground. UNM also dominated time of possession, holding the ball for 37:07. Defensively UNM allowed 41 points, but held San José State to just 2-for-9 on third down, and scored on an interception. UNM also forced six three-and-outs in the game, including two after the Spartans closed to within 41-34 in the fourth quarter.
UNM now has a short week to get ready for nationally-ranked Boise State on Friday night in a game that will kick off at 7 p.m. at University Stadium.Postgame Notes: New Mexico 48, San José State 41
This was the 18th meeting between the two teams.
San José State leads 12-5-1
San José State leads 6-3 in Albuquerque
San José State leads 6-1-1 in San Jose
Starting lineup changes for UNM from published two-deep
Offense: LG – Charlie Grammel started at LG in place of Chris Lewis; Michael Walsh started at TE in place of Cole Gautsche
Defense: None
*New Mexico’s captains were Lamar Jordan, Dakota Cox, Daniel Henry and Austin Apodaca
*John Russo was the New Mexico Man for his third time, and carried the New Mexico flag.
*UNM lost the toss for the third time this season. UNM got the opening kick for the fourth time this season.
TEAM NOTES:
*New Mexico scored a touchdown on the opening possession for the third time this season. The Lobos did it on two plays, a 61-yard run by Teriyon Gipson and a 14-yard touchdown run by Tyrone Owens.
The Lobos scored four rushing touchdowns for the fifth time in the last six games.
*SJSU’s missed field goal in the second quarter was the first missed field goal by an opponent this season.
*New Mexico totaled 320 yards rushing the first half. In the first three games of the season, UNM averaged 314.0 yards per game on the ground.
*New Mexico started 1-0 in conference play for the second straight year, and the Lobos are now 5-13 in Mountain West openers. It marked the first time UNM opened the conference season by winning a home game to go 1-0 since 2005.
*New Mexico improved to 44-45-3 on Homecoming, and Bob Davie is now 3-2 on Homecoming.
*Gipson and Owens both hit the 100-yard mark, the first time UNM had two 100-yard rushers in a game since last year when Lamar Jordan and Gipson did it against New Mexico State.
*New Mexico’s 446 yards on the ground we its most since rushing for 505 yards against Boise State on November 8, 2014.
INDIVIDUAL NOTES
*UNM had identical twins on the field when Jake Rothschiller and Kyle Rothschiller were both out on San José State’s first punt
*Teriyon Gipson went over the 100-yard mark for the game on his second carry. It’s the second time this season that he has hit the 100-yard mark on just his second carry of the game, the first time against South Dakota in the opener when his first two carries went for 75 and 84 yards. This time they went for 61 and 40 yards.
*Corey Bojorquez’ 53-yard punt in the first quarter was a career long.
*Nik D’Avanzo blocked his third career kick, blocking an extra point. It was the first blocked extra point by UNM since Brett Bowers did it against UTSA in 2014.
*Chris Davis’ 34-yard second quarter punt return was a career long.
*Emmanuel Harris’ first quarter catch was the first of his career.
*Richard McQuarley’s two touchdown runs gave him six on the season. Last year in 13 games he had seven.
*Jason Sanders hit a career-long 45-yard field goal to end the first half. It also gave him a career-high four field goals on the season.
*Austin Ocasio recorded his first career interception, returning it 37 yards for a touchdown. It was UNM’s first interception return for a touchdown since September 5, 2015 when Travis Green picked off a pass and returned it 32 yards for a touchdown against Mississippi Valley State.
*Richard McQuarley’s 72 yards rushing were a career-high.
*Sanders also hit six extra points, he now has hit 42 in a row, and UNM as a team has hit 76 in a row.
*Gipson entered the game averaging 12.15 yards per rush, and somehow improved upon that, rushing for 156 yards on 11 carries, giving his 399 on just 31 carries, an average of 12.87 per rush.Postgame Quotes: New Mexico 48, San José State 41
New Mexico Quotes
UNM coach Bob Davie:
Opening Statement:
The offense I thought was really good. We bogged down just a little bit because we couldn’t get the ball on the perimeter as much from the end of the third quarter until really the end of the game they were make us hit it in there (in the middle) and just boxing us in. Still, we did enough to score 48 points.
The defense there are so many times where you think we are ready to turn the corner, we are ready to seize momentum and get after them, but we couldn’t because of the big plays. Even on that last drive there at the end was disappointing.
We’ve got a weapon (in Jason Sanders) on special teams in terms of a kickoff man as he’s able to put it in the end zone every time. He hit his field goals as well. … I think the one that put us up 11 right before the half was big. I really do. To be able to go up 11 was big because it makes it feel like you have a little bit of breathing room going into the second half. I was happy for him. He’s had a good year.
Davie discusses the defense:
I don’t want the theme to be if I was sitting down writing a story that I was disappointed in the defense – but I can’t hide it. We have some good things going. … I just thought we’d be playing at a higher level right now defensively. I just do. I know we all feel that way across the board in this building. So it’s a positive we won and it’s positive and we are happy. But I also know today is like Sunday because we play Boise on Friday. I’m back to reality right now. It’s Sunday now and we’ve got to get better.
Davie on McQuarley’s three touchdowns:
I’m a big fan of (Richard McQuarley). He’s a stronger, bigger back than we’ve had here. … We don’t lack for running backs.
Linebacker Austin Ocasio:
On the interception for a touchdown:
Today was the first game I felt like I played without thinking. … I made a check, but thing that was supposed to happen didn’t so I dropped back in coverage. He tried to throw a dig under me, but I read it and was at the right place at the right time. The defensive call was the right call.
On the defense as a whole:
Obviously there are things that need to be corrected, but I’m a positive person. So what I’m looking at are the sacks, tackles for loss and the interception. There were a lot of positive things on the defense. We got to get better, but I’m looking at the positive.
Running back Richard McQuarley:
On starting conference play 1-0:
It feels like everybody is on the same page. Everybody feels good and they are comfortable now. We lost those back-to-back games and everyone was waiting on that punch to get back on track. Now that we are 1-0 in the conference, we feel like we have our head on straight and are ready to go.
On the strong start to the second half:
We came out at halftime with confidence … and when Austin Ocasio came out with the pick-six, that brought the momentum back our way and helped us on offense get ready.
San José State Quotes
Head Coach Ron Caragher:
“Well that was a tough lost for the Spartans. I think we started off slowly and both halves, we were mirroring each other. The first quarter and the third quarter we started off slowly and it was tough to get out of that rut that we were in. They bounced on us, the made some nice touchdown runs, and we failed to go down and score. It was a tough one and I think with all that said I was proud of the guys for competing and I think that we didn’t quit and we didn’t give up and we kept battling. The fourth quarter was evident that the guys kept fighting. We had 21 points to their seven in the fourth quarter we had the ball twice and the opportunity to tie up the game and unfortunately we failed and then they got the ball and they got the touchdown and even then we didn’t fail, we got the touchdown. Some good things were done.”
“Zamore Zigler had a good game and it was tough losing him. He’s a young promising star in our program, a freshman and he had nine carries for 90-something yards and he’s a good player. It was great to get Kenny Potter back, he had a very valiant effort on his part of competing. All in all, I think our defense came around and did a good job of stopping our opponent but it did take some time to get to that point and we had that as a concern, they were a fast starting team as we knew and by the time that we got up to that game speed we had dug a little bit of a hole and to answer it we had caught up to their speed and were playing very well, particularly in the late third quarter and the fourth quarter so hats off to the defense. It was just a little too late to win a football game against a good football team.”
Tim Crawley (WR):
On overcoming a bad start…
“Well I think it was still early in the game you and there was a lot of game left and we kind of just wanted to bounce back and recover from a bad start.”
Mark Amann (LB):
On what happened today…
“You know, playing these kind of offenses, it takes a while to get used to the movements, the different shifts and everything. The first half was not reflective on how well we prepared for it in practice, but second half we got it down, guys were staying in their gaps. See, with this offense you really have to stay in the game and in the gaps because if you don’t stay in your gap, they’ll squirt out and score like they did in the first half. That was big key that we changed at halftime.”
Lobos Run Past Spartans 48-41
