Oct. 9, 2004
By EDDIE PELLS
AP Sports Writer
AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo. (AP) – Air Force quarterback Shaun Carney made abunch of good decisions in the crunch Saturday night to help the Falconsovercome an embarrassing special-teams debacle and hold onto a 28-23 victoryover New Mexico.
The Falcons (3-3, 2-1 Mountain West) won despite nearly blowing a 21-0halftime lead and having two punts blocked for touchdowns.
The second TD for the Lobos (2-4, 0-2) cut Air Force’s lead to five at 28-23with 4{ minutes left, but Carney ran Air Force’s option to perfection for apair of first downs that ran out the clock.
The clinching first down came on Carney’s handoff to Adam Cole, who took itstraight up the middle and barely got the tip of the ball past the marker.
Carney was even better earlier in the fourth quarter, when the game reallylooked to be slipping away.
After Air Force got its first first down of the second half courtesy of aroughing-the-punter penalty, Carney threw back-to-back completions – 33 yardsto Greg Kirkwood and 30 yards to Alec Messerall to set up the touchdown thatmade it 28-16.
Carney finished just 4-for-9 for 95 yards, but maybe coach Fisher DeBerryshould think about letting him throw it more. The freshman came in as thesixth-rated passer in the nation and on this night, he proved he had the knackfor making the big throws.
And given where this game seemed headed, the completions were, indeed, huge.
The New Mexico defense, awful in the first half, stopped Air Forcethree-and-out on five straight possessions to open the third quarter.Meanwhile, the punting game was atrocious. Donny Heaton had shanks of 16, 19and 18 yards, which gave the Lobos field position to cut it to 21-10.
His fourth punt of the quarter was blocked by Cody Kase and recovered in theend zone by Tyson Ditmore. A 2-point conversion failed, but the lead was onlyfive and the Falcons were having trouble simply getting the ball back to theline of scrimmage when they ran their trademark triple option.
Later in the fourth, Joe Selander scooped up the second blocked punt and ran46 yards to cut it to 28-23. It was New Mexico’s fourth touchdown off a blockedpunt in its last 12 games and it made Cole’s third-and-1 plunge on the nextpossession that much more important – there was no way the Falcons wanted topunt again.
Heaton punted eight times for an average of 19 yards, including a 12-yarderin the first half – possibly his best kick of the night considering he had torun 25 yards to chase down a snap that flew over his head.
DonTrell Moore returned from an injury and ran for 110 yards for the Lobos.
It went for naught, and New Mexico had plenty of people to blame.
A defense that makes a living stuffing the option got burned twice in thefirst half – on a 58-yard run by Darnell Stephens and a 28-yard run by AnthonyButler, who each went untouched down the sideline for touchdowns.
Also, coach Rocky Long passed up field-goal tries on fourth-and-goal fromthe 1 and fourth-and-10 from the 21, and the Lobos were forced to punt in thethird quarter after getting called for false start before a 52-yard attempt.Had Wes Zunker, who made a 45-yarder in the third, converted on two of thosekicks, the Lobos would have had the winning points.