Box Score | 2016 Season Statistics
LOGAN, Utah — There isn’t a kicker in the FBS having a better season statistically than New Mexico’s Jason Sanders. He proved that again on Saturday night. With the bright lights of ESPN2 on, Sanders hit a 40-yard field goal with 1:06 left in the game, giving UNM its fifth straight win, beating Utah State in Logan 24-21. The win moved the Lobos to 7-3 overall and 5-1 in the Mountain West, and into a first place tie with Boise State and Wyoming at 5-1 with two games to go.
Sanders’ field goal was his third of the night and it capped a huge second half comeback as UNM was down 21-6 after the opening drive of the third quarter. The kick was set up after a beautiful drive that followed a goal line stand. With the game tied at 21-21, Utah State drove from its 37 to the Lobo 2-yard line, sitting at second and goal from the two. Three times the Aggies (3-7, 1-6 MW) handed the ball to short yardage back Tonny Lindsey, and three times he was rebuffed.
First Dakota Cox nailed him at the line for no gain., On third and goal, Lindsey got a yard before Daniel Henry brought him down. Facing fourth down and staring at an 18-yard field goal with just over 5 ½ minutes left, the Aggies went for the touchdown, and Nias Martin tripped Lindsey up, and Cox finished him off just in front of the goal line.
That gave UNM the ball 99 ½ yards away, and they eventually got 76, more than enough for Sanders. Facing a third and 4 from the seven, Teriyon Gipson took an option pitch for 11 yards and a first down, and then UNM methodically moved the ball down the field. The Lobos got a Gipson 15-yarder to give him 100 for the game and move into Aggie territory, and then a pass interference call put UNM in field goal range. Three plays later Sanders nailed his career-high third of the day to make it 24-21.
UNM then had to play defense, and they held. Utah State converted a fourth and 1 to midfield, and then got 33 yards on the next play, an 18-yard pass and a roughing penalty to put the Aggies in field goal range at the 19 with 22 seconds left. Utah State then saw Kent Myers complete a pass to Ron’Quavion Tarver for an apparent touchdown with 16 seconds left, but Tarver was called for offensive pass interference, moving the ball back to the Lobo 34.
Utah State then burned its last timeout, and that would haunt them. With 16 seconds left, Myers was forced the scramble and got 9 yards on first and 25, but instead of trying to spike the ball, Utah State sprinted its field goal unit on the field. However, with the ball on the hashmark away from the Aggie bench, they got the kick off after the whistle, but it was well short anyways.
UNM needed the comeback because it mustered just two Jason Sanders field goals in the first half, and that couldn’t match Utah State which scored on a pair of short Lindsey runs on the opening two drives. The Aggies took the second half kickoff down the field and scored, again from Lindsey, making it 21-6 and setting up UNM’s comeback.
The Lobos got back in it quickly. Apodaca led UNM 76 yards in 11 plays (the exact same as the winning field goal drive) and Gipson scored from five yards out. After a three-and-out, UNM again scored a touchdown with a 37-yard Apodaca to Q’ Drennan pass starting the drive and Gipson ending it. That made it 21-19, and Richard McQuarley scored for a two-point conversion to make it 21-21.
New Mexico now heads to Ft. Collins to face Colorado State, who lost 49-46 to Air Force. The game will be at 8:15 p.m. on ESPN2, and it is the final game in Hughes Stadium. CSU is 5-5 overall.
Postgame Notes: New Mexico 24, Utah State 21
This was the 23rd meeting between the two teams.
New Mexico now leads 13-10
Utah State now leads 6-4 in Logan
New Mexico leads 9-4 in Albuquerque
New Mexico has won two in a row overall.
Starting lineup changes for UNM from published two-deep
Offense: UNM started Richard McQuarley as a third running back instead of Cole Gautsche at TE.
Defense: UNM started I.B. Brown is LCB instead of Jadon Boatright and Maurice Daniels at RUSH instead of Donnie White
*New Mexico’s captains were Lamar Jordan, Dakota Cox, Daniel Henry and Austin Apodaca
* Jack Lamm carried the New Mexico flag for this game.
*UNM won the toss for the second time this season and the second time in a row and took the opening kickoff for the seventh time this year.
TEAM NOTES:
*Utah State scored the opening touchdown of the game, only the second time this season that UNM didn’t score first. The other game was the Boise State game, which UNM lost 49-21.
*New Mexico went 1-for-3 on fourth down. They entered the game 11-for-14, which was third nationally entering the game.
*New Mexico was held without a touchdown in the first half. The last time UNM didn’t score a touchdown in a half was 20 games against, when they trailed Arizona State 10-0 at the half.
*The game was tied after three for only the second time in the last 43 games. The only other time was last year against New Mexico State when it was 29-29 after three and UNM won 38-29,
*The 15-point second half deficit tied for the seventh-largest deficit in school history, and it’s the second time it’s happened under Bob Davie. UNM was down 29-14 to New Mexico State and scored the final 24 points.
*New Mexico’s five-game winning streak ties for the longest in the last 20 seasons (2004). The Lobos won the opening six games of the 1997 season.
*UNM’s 154 yards passing in the game was the fifth time this year the Lobos broke the 100-yard barrier in a game this season.
INDIVIDUAL NOTES
*Teriyon Gipson moved into seventh place on the all-time UNM rushing list, passing former teammate Jhurell Pressley with 2,801 yards.
*Gipson’s two rushing touchdowns in the third quarter gave him 29 career rushing touchdown, tying him for fifth place on the UNM list with Willie Turral.
*Jason Sanders hit his 47th extra point of the season, two away from tying Justus Adams for the most in a single season.
*Jason Sanders set a career-high with three field goals. He is now 10-for-11 on the season and 47-for-47 on extra points.
*Sanders hit four of sixkickoffs for touchbacks (slipping on one that still went into the end zone but was returned and having the other brought out as well). He is now 56-for-66 on touchbacks.
*Richard McQuarley’s two-point conversion run was UNM’s first successful conversion since Lamar Jordan did it last year against New Mexico State in a 15-point comeback win, 38-29.
*Bob Davie is now 60-60 as a head coach. He was 35-25 at Notre Dame, and he is now 25-35 at New Mexico.
*Steven Steele from Cleveland High School made his collegiate debut on special teams.
*Teriyon Gipson rushed for 107 yards, his fifth 100-yard game of the season, and his seventh of his career.
*Dakota Cox led all Lobos with 10 tackles. He has 374 career tackles and is now in eighth place on the UNM career list and he is now fifth all-time in Mountain West history.
*Ryan Santos had an interception for the second straight game. It was the third of his career.
Post-Game Quotes
vs. New Mexico
Nov. 13, 2016UTAH STATE HEAD COACH MATT WELLS:
“That’s a tough way to lose a ball game. Congratulations to them. I’m proud of the kids in our locker room. They have a tremendous amount of resolve and fight, effort and want-to. That’s a hard one to get taken away from you.”On the pass interference call on the final drive:
“I’m going to choose my words very carefully, as you can imagine. I hope they are 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 on it Monday morning.”On the final play of the game:
“When you don’t have any timeouts and the clock is running, it’s tough to get the field goal team on that quick.On the emotions right now:
“It’s hard. Especially when you have 25 seniors that are doing everything they can to get a win on Senior Day. It’s an emotional locker room right now.”UTAH STATE SENIOR LINEBACKER BROCK CARMEN:
“I thought the defense played alright as a whole. It’s hard to evaluate it this quick after a loss without seeing film, but I think we did alright. There are some assignments we have to get better on and we need to be a little more sound against the option.”On defending New Mexico’s option play:
“It’s all about everybody doing their job. When you do that, you’ll stop them for little to no gain. As soon as one or two people don’t do their job against the option, you’ll get gassed and they’ll keep running it. It’s all about 11 people doing their jobs on the field at the same time.”On taking the loss in the last home game:
“It’s tough. You hate to lose, especially on Senior Night and in a game like that. We’re encouraged that we have two more games to get a win, but it hurts to not get that last one at home.”UTAH STATE JUNIOR QUARTERBACK KENT MYERS:
“We started off fast, which is exactly what we wanted to do. We should have put more points on the board, we had opportunities at the end of the game in the end zone.”On the last seconds of the game:
“It was a big emotional swing, thinking we had it. As soon as they were pointing it on us, we just wanted to drive it down a little more and at least get the field goal to go to overtime. I thought we had a lot of momentum there on offense. That was the plan, we just didn’t get the snap off. We didn’t let down when we didn’t score on the 1-yard line. We practice two-minute drills every day at practice and that’s exactly what we did. They kept dropping back and we had to hit some stuff underneath. I didn’t really see anything open, so I just took off running because it was there. I felt good with some parts, but it’s hard that we came out on the short side of it.”On the possibility of a five-win bowl bid:
“We’re just going to go one game at a time. We lost this one, so we have two more chances. We’re just going to treat it like any other game. Each game is always the biggest game, no matter who we’re playing. This is a game we need to win to be bowl eligible. We have a lot of juice. We didn’t send the seniors out like we wanted to on Senior Night, but we can send them out with two more wins and hopefully a bowl bid.NEW MEXICO HEAD COACH BOB DAVIE:
“Starting at the end, our offense took that ball from our own goal line and we were trying to milk it. Daryl Chestnut went out-of-bounds and that hurt us, but then came a big field goal by our kicker Jason Sanders, who has been unbelievable this year. After yet another roughing the passer penalty, they’re in position to tie or maybe win the game. Huge call on the pass interference, which I think was a good call, but of course I’m probably a little biased. I was really surprised that they called a timeout with six seconds left. Quite honestly, I thought that they were going to kick the field goal or throw the ball in the end zone. The safe thing would be to throw it to the end zone, but there was a chance they would get sacked because it wasn’t just a three-step and launch because they were out there with pretty significant field position. We were then out there with quarter personnel and seven defensive backs, so we were able to at least lineup and block the field goal with our seven defensive backs. I think it was really big that our offense was able to keep and run the ball on this team. We haven’t been able to run the ball on this team in three yearsand it’s just a terrific win.”