The Lobos traveled to the Bay Area this weekend to take on the San Jose State Spartans for what looked like a great opportunity. They had a chance to get to five wins for the first time in the Bob Davie era while moving into a tie for first place in the Mountain Division and to do so they needed to get a road win against a struggling team. Instead, they played a somewhat confusing game that sent them back to Albuquerque with a 31-21 loss. They are still only a game back in the division and they still have four chances to pick up the two wins they need for bowl eliibility, but this game may come back to haunt us.
The first two drives of the game didn’t inspire much confidence, with the Spartans scoring a quick touchdown and the Lobos going three and out. For the Spartans, that touchdown came on a 71 yard run up the middle for a Tyler Ervin score that felt preordained. The Lobos have been exposed several times with having issues stopping runs up the middle and Ervin has been one of the most productive backs in college football, so that SJSU would try such a play early and have success might have been one of the least surprising things about this game. On the Lobos drive, Austin Apodaca got a surprise start that even caught the Lobos’ beat writer, Rick Wright, off guard:
This move didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me. Although Apodaca has played well in the last couple of games in limited action, SJSU seems like an especially bad matchup for him, as they are much better at defending the pass than the run. I think that if we had seen this switch a different week, it wouldn’t have been such a headscratcher, but it didn’t seem like they were setting him up for success. In that first drive, Apodaca didn’t throw a single pass (although he was going to on third down, but had to scramble instead) and the Lobos were forced to punt.
On their next drive, Teriyon Gipson took the ball on the first play and ran for a 79 yard touchdown. That play singlehandedly swung the momentum over to the Lobos, making them look like the much better team for a while. The defense shut down the Spartan attack and the offense moved the ball effectively for a couple of drives, resulting in a blocked field goal and a touchdown. SJSU was able to even things out with a long drive of their own and it looked as though the game was going to head into halftime all knotted up at 14. Then, things began to unravel. The Lobos had a bad drive that gave SJSU the ball back with a little over two minutes to go in the half. Things started out looking okay, when the Lobos forced a third and medium, but then SJSU threw a deep ball down the left sideline that resulted in a very strange defensive pass interference call. The resulting first down was all the life that the Spartans needed and they eventually scored on a 25 yard pass in which the defensive back slipped and fell down, leaving their tight end wide open for an easy touchdown. That drive completely changed the dynamic of the game and I don’t think that the Lobos ever completely recovered.
The second half was basically all SJSU, as they moved the ball fairly easily, forced turnovers, and basically just beat the Lobos. The Lobo defense had a really difficult time preventing big plays and the offense rarely seemed like it was getting things going. All in all, the game never really felt in doubt after halftime, but this still feels like a game that just got away from the Lobos. There are plenty of excuses to go around. There were some bad calls, some guys were banged up, some of the bounces just didn’t go their way, etc. But, the team still has a lot of the same issues that it showed against New Mexico State and they are going to have to be addressed if the team is going to have a chance to win a couple more games.
From all of this, I actually feel a little bad for Apodaca, as I think he was thrown into a tough situation today. I don’t doubt that he earned the start, because I’m sure that looking at his last couple of appearances and seeing him play well in practice would do that, but I do think that this wasn’t the right game to make the switch. Again, it’s not that surprising that he ended up with a bad stat line throwing the ball against this team’s passing defense. What he did do that was surprising was that I thought that he did fairly well running the option today. He certainly doesn’t have the explosiveness that Lamar Jordan has running the ball, but for the most part he seemed to make pretty good decisions with the ball, which let him be effective on the ground. If he gets the start again next week, and I kind of think that he will, he’ll have another tough task ahead of him in Utah State, so I just hope that it goes better in that one.
This was a game that was easy to talk ourselves into being a great opportunity for the Lobos to pick up their fifth win, so it is maybe a bit harder to swallow than it should be. That all said, even though the remaining schedule is tough, the Lobos still have three more home games and a week off to get rested, healed, and prepared for that final stretch. They knew that the road to bowl eligibility was never going to be easy, so I’m sure they’re prepared to fight it out until the end.