Utah State came agonizingly close to clinching bowl eligibility in year one of the Bronco Mendenhall era, losing to UNLV 29-26 in double-overtime at Allegiant Stadium on Saturday evening.
Twice, the Aggies lined up for walk-off field goals, one from 44 yards and the other from 41 yards away. Placekicker Tanner Rinker, who entered the evening a perfect 10-for-10 on field goal attempts this year, missed both of them.
The first of those kicks came with two seconds left in regulation and the game tied 23-apiece. Bryson Barnes had marched the Aggies 49 yards to get into field goal range, including a 21-yard scramble. Once the offense got well within Rinker’s range, they ran the ball up the gut to burn the rest of the time off the clock. But the kick left hash, went wide right off the foot of Rinker.
That left the game for overtime, and it was there that the Aggies got a gift from UNLV’s kicker, who missed from 39 yards out after the Utah State defense held the Rebels to a three-and-out.
As is typical when your opponent has an empty possession to start overtime, the Aggies went conservative, playing for the makeable middle-distance field goal. Rinker trotted out for a shot and redemption and proceeded to pull it wide left.
Rinker would finally make a field goal in the clutch, nailing a 39-yarder to start the second overtime, but UNLV scored a 25-yard touchdown on the very next play to win in walk-off fashion.
Struggles in special teams left not just those six points from missed field goals off the board, but 13 points in total. A single one of those points could have won the game in regulation, or in overtime. Rinker missed a field goal on the first possession of the game, then a PAT after the Aggies’ first touchdown. Later, Utah State ran a fake field goal, but it was “not executed well” by head coach Bronco Mendenhall’s description, and resulted in a turnover on downs.
Those issues caught Mendenhall off guard, who hadn’t lost a wink of sleep over his field goal unit’s performance all year thanks to a previously perfect mark on field goals and 33 of 34 PATs made.
“I’m not sure why they struggled,” Mendenhall said. “We’ve kicked the ball really accurately in field goals and extra points throughout the year. And so I certainly didn’t see that coming. We had multiple chances from the beginning of the game, all the way to the very end. And we earned those chances. We prepared our team and put our team in positions to execute in the special teams. And that unit particularly, we didn’t have the consistency or the outcome we wanted there.”
Mendenhall spoke with the emotion of the game poorly concealed behind his calm demeanor. To come up short was nothing short of emotionally shattering for the players, who’d gone to great lengths to make big strides after a mid-season slump. A victory over the Rebels would have pushed the Aggies to bowl eligibility – few predicted they’d get there in the preseason – and proved to themselves and the team’s doubters that they had it in them to win big games, even on the road. It’s a loss that’s going to hurt for a while.
“This isn’t a fast recovery. How could it be? They tried as hard as they can try and knew they had a great chance to win multiple times,” Mendenhall said. “There’s going to be sting and there’s going to be a recovery process. There’s going to be hurt. There’s going to be grieving. There’s going to be frustration. There’s going to be all of that. And how could there not when they try as hard as that? And so I just told them I love them. I’m proud of them. I’m lucky to be their coach. And there’s games left and we’ll recover and then we’ll play.”
So many players pushed themselves to the limit. Barnes recorded his fourth career 100-yard rushing game, netting 113 yards, putting him over 500 yards on the season and over 1,000 for his career. And with seven minutes left to play, Barnes provided a crucial spark to the team with a 58-yard touchdown run. It was Barnes’ eighth rushing TD of the year, tying for the program record for QBs in a single season (Chuckie Keeton in 2012), but more importantly, handed Utah State a 23-20 lead. Barnes also threw for 256 yards and one touchdown pass.
Noah Avinger made numerous big plays, including a touchdown-saving pass breakup in the first half, one of Utah State’s eight PBUs on the day. John Miller had a team-leading 11 tackles, including a pair of sacks and 2.5 TFLs overall.
One Aggie saw his night end too early as he went all-out trying to make a big play right after USU’s biggest momentum shift of the night. Immediately after Barnes’ 58-yard touchdown run, sophomore safety Titan Saxton made a tackle on the ensuing kickoff, but suffered an injury in the head/neck area. It led to a long pause in the game as Saxton was carefully administered to, placed in a neck brace and carted off the field. He raised his fist in the air as medical personnel wheeled him away, but the emotions of the moment were yet another thing the Aggies had to try and overcome.
After the game, Mendenhall said he had no update on Saxton’s condition.
In the end, each area of play saw some kind of shortcoming. Every position group, and just about every player, will have a play they see when they lay down to sleep tonight. A missed tackle here. A dropped pass there. The offense made almost enough plays to win this one outright, but a few too many drives came up short and led to field goal attempts instead of touchdowns and PATs. The defense, which made plenty of stops throughout the game, might have made one more and held UNLV to no score late in the fourth, instead of a game-tying field goal. Or, they could have held the Rebels to a field goal in the second overtime, and extended the game.
But that’s the harsh lesson Utah State will now learn, or perhaps re-learn for some veterans. Nothing they do now will change anything, and it’s about picking yourself up and moving on.
“For sure, it’s frustrating. When you put so much into trying to win and it doesn’t go your way,” USU wide receiver Braden Pegan said. “But we just got to have the right emotional disposition going into this next week. Grieve right now and tomorrow like it didn’t happen.”
