Cal Poly Wins Over Southern Utah 42-39

Six Cal Poly players scored touchdowns as the Mustangs, who let a 21-0 lead slip away, rallied for a 42-39 Big Sky Conference football victory over Southern Utah on Saturday night in Alex G. Spanos Stadium.

Brandon Howe, Brent Michaels, Chris Brown and Kori Garcia all scored on the ground while Jordan Hines and Austin Albison caught touchdown passes as Coach Tim Walsh’s Mustangs improved to 2-3 overall and evened its conference record at 1-1.

Southern Utah fell to 1-5 and 1-1.

Howe and Brown both went over the 100-yard mark for the second time this season.

Howe, who now has a pair of 100-yard games in his career, rushed for a career-high 133 yards on 28 carries and scored on a one-yard run in the first quarter.

Brown (pictured at right) increased his total of career 100-yard games to five with 110 yards on 17 carries, scoring on a one-yard run on the first play of the fourth quarter, giving Cal Poly the lead for good at 35-31.

Brown also connected with Albison on a 13-yard scoring pass and with Hines on a 24-yarder, both in the first quarter, and completed 13 of 17 passes for 141 yards.

The pair of touchdown passes and the run by Howe gave the Mustangs a 21-0 lead, but Southern Utah turned to its passing game after being held to just one rushing yard in the opening period and, by the 12-minute mark of the third quarter, had wiped out Cal Poly’s advantage.

Southern Utah blanked Cal Poly 17-0 in the second quarter on a 34-yard field goal by Trevor McGirr, a 29-yard pass from Ammon Olsen to Justin Brown and a three-yard run by Olsen.

The Thunderbirds took their first lead, 24-21, three minutes into the third period on a five-yard pass from Olsen to Chandler Allphin.

Cal Poly regrouped and outscored the Thunderbirds 21-15 the rest of the way for the win. After one exchange of touchdowns, Brown’s one-yard run four seconds into the final period gave Cal Poly a 35-31 lead and Garcia’s five-yard touchdown run just three minutes later made it 42-31 with 11:37 to play.

Olsen ran one yard and hit Chris Robinson with a two-point conversion pass to close the gap to three points with 3:27 to play, but Cal Poly was able to run out the clock by picking up four first downs, two on personal fouls by Southern Utah.

Also in the fourth quarter, Olsen’s pass was intercepted by Jordan Williams with 9:16 to play and McGirr missed a 38-yard field goal attempt with 13:43 to go.

Both teams accumulated over 500 yards in total offense, combining for 1,097 yards. Cal Poly, however, built an advantage of 38 minutes, 28 seconds to 21:32 for Southern Utah and ran 97 plays to “just” 73 for the Thunderbirds.

Cal Poly rushed for 452 yards while the Thunderbirds passed for 402 yards. Olsen completed 29 of 43 passes, three for touchdowns, and was sacked three times.

Garcia, who rushed for 997 yards on 16 carries, was Cal Poly’s top receiver with four catches for 22 yards. Justin Brown made eight receptions for 159 yards for Southern Utah. Malik Brown rushed for 57 yards on 12 carries to lead the Thunderbirds’ ground game.

Cal Poly senior linebacker Nick Dzubnar recorded his fifth straight double-digit games in tackles with 15, giving him 69 stops in five games. He entered Saturday’s game as the leader in the Big Sky. Dzubnar also recorded a sack and another tackle for lost yardage.

Chris Judge and Marcus Paige-Allen also earned sacks for the Mustangs. In addition, Judge recovered a Southern Utah fumble.

Miles Killebrew and Chinedu Ahanonu both made 14 stops for the Thunderbirds, Josh Kariya added 13 and Taylor Pili 12.

Cal Poly is now 14-1 at home against Southern Utah, winning 14 straight since the opening game of the series back in 1986. The Mustangs lead the all-time series, 19-7.

Cal Poly plays its next two Big Sky games on the road, visiting Weber State next Saturday and Sacramento State in two weeks.