USU-Nevada: 2009 Edition 35-32 UNR victory. Oh, crap.

Postgame Interviews

In yesterday's show, I enumerated the keys to the Utah State - Nevada football game for the Aggies.

1. Contain Nevada's run.
2. Score in the red zone.
3. No special teams mistakes.
4. Win the turnover battle.

Check one until the fourth quarter when Nevada ran all over USU, and that's when Nevada won

Check two all game. Nicely done. A perfect 3-3 in the red zone, although one of those three should have been a TD instead of a field goal.

Uncheck three. The special teams game did great until the final two minutes of the game. Read on for details

Check four. USU beat Nevada on the turnover margin, 2-1.

Nevada boasts the No. 1 rush offense in the country. USU boasts the 107th ranked defense in the nation. One would think that Nevada would get USU on the rush immediately. Not so. It was through the pass that Nevada slaughtered USU before opening up the field to the rush in the 4th.

I guess I missed two keys for this game. They are to learn to cover the pass and to execute the offense. This was a game of missed opportunities.

USU struck first after Nnamdi Gwacham caught a 77-yard pass that set up a Robert Turbin TD run. A few punt exchanges after and right at the end of the 1st quarter, Nevada found itself on its own 19 yard line. During that series, USU nearly recovered a botched snap on the UNR 11. As a matter of fact, the Aggie defenseman fell on the ball first, but it snuck out of his grip and fell into the arms of Colin Kaepernick. Missed opportunity number one.

Also in the first half, UNR was trying to work out of it's own red zone. Caepernick threw a pass right into the waiting arms of Curtis Marsh, who made a heads-up, all-around good play on the ball. There was no one in front of him. Marsh was looking only at green pastures and a blue endzone ahead, but he dropped the ball. Missed opportunity number two.

And the grandaddy of them all came with little over 2:30 remaining in the game.

USU, down by 3 with little time left, decided to go for the onside kick. Brindley sped forward and caught the ball in the air. Had it not been for a great open-field tackle by the UNR special-teamer, he would have ran the distance. The play was called back, however. The line judge called an offsides penalty on the Aggies, and that spelled doom. Missed opportunity number three.

The irony of this game was that USU lead the game until the beginning of the fourth quarter. It took the Wolfpack 50 minutes to find a way past USU's defense, but when they did, they did.

UNR's first big play came on the option. Kaepernick pitched it out, and Vai Taua ran to the USU 9 with just over 11 minutes left in the 1st half. Two plays later, UNR got on the board when Kaepernick connected with Luke Lippencott on an 11-yard TD pass.

USU answered right back. Diondre Borel threw two great passes-one to Xavier Bowman and another to Turbin for the Touchdown. USU's offense truly began to fire on all cylinders and it looked like the Ags could run away with it.

The bad news: Nevada's offense came to play too.

Right after the USU TD drive, Nevada marched right down the field and Kaepernick connected with Virgil Green for a 44-yard TD pass. 21-14 USU.

At the beginning of the fourth quarter, Utah State trailed. Borel had fumbled at the USU 40 and given Nevada the opportunity to score and close the gap to 24-21. Nevada had the momentum. And of course, UNR put itself in the lead on the next drive. Kaepernick connected with Brandon Wemberly for a 49-yard TD pass. 28-24 Nevada.

And the coup-de-grás of Nevada's attack came after USU foolishly punted the ball away on a 4th and 1 with 6 minutes remaining. Nevada started on their own 3 yard line, advanced to their own 31 in three plays, and then scored a monster TD. Luke Lippencott ran 69 yards for the touchdown, put his team up by 11, and put an immense load of pressure on the Aggies to produce.

At that point, 4 minutes remained, and USU had only one option. Execute the 2-minute offense to perfection and recover the onside kick.

USU executed part one to perfection. They marched 80 yards in just under two minutes and scored one of the 2 necessary TDs very quickly on a bullet 14-yard pass from Borel to Gwacham. USU even took pressure off themselves by converting the two-point conversion. USU was in field goal striking distance. It would all come down to the onside kick.

To everyone in attendance at the game except for one person, Utah State did recover the onside kick. Ulinski put it forward 10 yards and James Brindley snuck through and caught it.

Who was the one person who disagreed? The line judge.

USU was called for offsides, sent back five yards, and forced to redo the kick, which Nevada easily recovered. That was it. No timeouts, no way to stop the clock, and Nevada took the victory formation.

I continue to marvel how the Aggie football team does just enough to get the hopes of their fans into the game, only to destroy everything.

However, I must say the offsides call was absolutely rediculous. I thought it was impossible for a football official to become exactly like a soccer referee. Often, a soccer referee will make a call that makes him the star of the show. Rarely does something similar happen in American football. Well, it happened today. The star of today's show was not Turbin; it was not Borel; it was not Kaepernick nor Lippencott nor any individual player. It was the line judge. I fully believe that USU would have pulled it out had they been granted what they earned on that kick. They would have. The Aggies had the momentum and the swagger.