The drama has been building all season. The Big Sky Conference title race will come to a head next weekend with four different games holding potential playoff implications and three matchups playing a hand in who earns the league crown.
Southern Utah could have sewed up the league championship with a win at Portland State. But SUU’s first league loss now leaves the door open for five different teams to possibly stake a claim to the championship. Montana’s resounding win over Eastern Washington (See Here) sets up a rivalry game with playoff and title implications for the Griz as UM heads to Montana State. Northern Arizona dispatched of Sac State, meaning NAU might be able to punch a playoff ticket with a win over Southern Utah in Cedar City next week. Portland State and Eastern Washington play in what amounts to a playoff game last weekend.
UM wide reciever Josh Horne catches a pass with EWU rover Todd Raynes defending/by Evan Frost
UM, PSU, Northern Arizona and Eastern Washington are all 5-2 in Big Sky, a game behind the 6-1 Thunderbirds. A Southern Utah win would eliminate the Lumberjacks and give the Thunderbirds their first-ever Big Sky crown. An NAU win coupled with Eastern Washington and Montana wins would create a four-way tie atop the standings with UM holding the tie-breaker over EWU and NAU thanks to victories earlier this season. An NAU win over SUU and a PSU win over EWU coupled with a Montana Cat-Griz win would give Portland State the tiebreaker due to wins over Montana and Southern Utah.
Losses by Montana, Eastern Washington and Northern Arizona would almost certainly eliminate each from the 24-team playoff field. Each would have just six Division I wins. A loss by Portland State would put the Vikings at 8-3, including 7-3 against Division competition. PSU holds wins over FBS Washington State and North Texas as well Idaho State, Montana State, Montana and Southern Utah when each was ranked in the Top 25 of the FCS. The Vikings are likely into the playoffs regardless of a win or loss against EWU. But the Big Sky autobid and nine wins could earn PSU a top eight seed and a bye into the second round of the playoffs.
If Montana State upset Montana along with NAU and PSU winning, the Vikings would receive the auto bid. If MSU, NAU and EWU won, PSU would have three league losses, meaning NAU, SUU and EWU would tie for the league title with NAU holding the tie breaker due to head to head wins, each notched this month.
MAU wide receiver Emmanuel Butler stiff arms a Sac State defender/by Nick Canaday
Southern Utah can punch the auto bid with a win but a loss would put SUU on the playoff bubble as well. SUU would be 7-4 in that scenario with just two Top 25 opponents. SUU lost at then-No. 9 South Dakota State 55-10 in September. The T-Birds beat an unranked Montana State team that began the season in the FCS Top 10 last week.
North Dakota is 4-3 in Big Sky play so is not alive in the league title race. But a win over Northern Colorado last week means a win at Cal Poly next week would put UND at 7-4. North Dakota defeated FBS Wyoming to begin its season and handed Portland State its first loss the first week of October. A spat of injuries that included quarterback Keaton Studsrud and two key defensive veterans caused UND to go on a three-game slide late last month. UND defeated then-No. 19 Montana State and UNC in consecutive weeks before taking its bye last week to keep its hopes alive.
No. 15 Portland State 24, No. 18 Southern Utah 23 — In Portland, Southern Utah quarterback Ammon Olsen’s go-ahead two-point conversion pass attempt fell incomplete with 88 seconds to play and Portland State almost certainly punched its first ticket to the FCS playoffs since 2000.
“We were pretty sure he was going to go for two, and we may have lucked out a little bit, but good for the kids and good for Portland State,” PSU first-year head coach Bruce Barnum told Mike Lund of Portland State sports information on the sideline at the end of the game. “That’s fun. Good for these kids, they worked hard this week (to prepare). To get to eight wins by beating that football team, what a great night.”
PSU wide receiver Thomas Carter III catches a TD pass against SUU/by PSU Athletics
On the first play of the fourth quarter, Barnum reached into his bag of trips, calling a fullback jump pass for the go-ahead score. Kieran McDonagh started at quarterback for Portland State as a true freshman in 2012 and the following season as well before falling out of favor. On Saturday, the 6-foot-2, 250-pound bruiser who has since moved to fullback took a handoff from junior quarterback Alex Kuresa. He approached the line, jumped and tossed a pass to Cameron Thompson for the senior tight end’s second touchdown of the game. Thompson’s score put PSU up 24-17 with 14:54 to play.
Southern Utah failed to convert a 31-yard field goal attempt in the final quarter but did mount a scoring drive late. After a Brady Measom punt return to midfield, SUU took over with 2:03 to play. Olsen, who threw for 384 yards, hit senior Justin Brown for a 25-yard gain. Two plays later, he found junior Mike Sharp for a 14-yard touchdown with 1:18 to play. Southern Utah head coach Ed Lamb elected to go for two and the lead.
“I felt like we didn’t have a lot of momentum with our field goal kicking unit and I didn’t want to play for overtime,” Lamb said about the decision to go for it in an SUU press release. “I didn’t think that we were a sure thing even to take the one point PAT and I felt our best shot to win it was to not get into a field goal kicking competition in the overtime period.”
With a sack in the second half, SUU senior defensive end James Cowser broke the Big Sky career sacks record previously held by Jared Allen. Cowser now has 39.5 sacks in his career. He broke Allen’s for tackles for loss in a career. Cowser now has 75 TFLs.
“It’s fun, it’s exciting,” Cowser said. “I guess after a loss it’s not as sweet, but we were hoping to win this and win conference outright but we’re still in the driver’s seat and that’s what the focus is as a team right now.”
SUU quarterback Ammon Olsen/by Brooks Nuanez
Olsen threw for 384 yards and Sharp piled up 10 catches for 197 yards and two scores as SUU piled up 562 total yards. Olsen’s 53-yard TD pass to Sharp gave SUU a 10-7 lead at the end of the first quarter. But Olsen also threw three interceptions, including two by junior cornerback Xavier Coleman, giving him five this season. Senior safety Patrick Onwuasor also snared an interception, giving him an FCS-best nine this season. Onwuasor’s interception came on a shot by Olsen from the PSU 25-yard line that Onwuasor intercepted in the end-zone.
Sharp, a former quarterback, took a pitch 38 yards into PSU territory to set up Levi Te’o’s seven-yard touchdown run to tie the game at 17-17 with 3:33 left in the third.
Portland State managed 203 yards rushing, 65 yards below its season average. Kuresa threw for 196 yards and two touchdowns, including a 73-yard bomb to Thomas Carter that put PSU up 17-10 heading into halftime.
Despite the loss SUU is still in the driver’s seat in the race for the Big Sky Conference title and have at least a share of the title right now. The Thunderbirds will have a chance to clinch the Big Sky Conference title next weekend when Northern Arizona travels to Cedar City.
“At the beginning of the season our goals were to protect the trophy case and add to it,” Lamb said. “My understanding is that we already have a share of the Big Sky title locked up so we’ll be looking to win that outright and be selfish about that title.”
Northern Arizona 49, Sacramento State 35 — The Lumberjacks knew two wins to finish the season would set up a potential playoff berth. NAU knew it had to take care of the Hornets before even thinking about the front-running Thunderbirds of rival Southern Utah.
Freshman quarterback Case Cookus threw four touchdowns and ran for a fifth in the first half as NAU turned a 14-14 tie into a 35-14 halftime lead. Cookus threw his fifth touchdown in the third quarter and his sixth in the fourth quarter as NAU held off a late Sac State rally.
NAU wide receiver Emmanuel Butler evades a Sac State defender/by Nick Canaday
Cookus completed 25-of-33 passes for 407 yards, including three scoring strikes to Elijah Marks and two more to Dejzon Walker. Cookus also rushed for 41 yards on 10 carries. This season, Cookus leads the country in passer efficiency with a rating close to 200. He has completed 72 percent of his passes for 2,761 yards. He has thrown 33 touchowns and just three interceptions. He is throwing for 276 yards per game on just 26 times per game.
Cookus hit sophomore Emmanuel Butler for a 16-yard touchdown 49 seconds into the game for Butler’s 15th touchdown catch of the season. Butler finished with six catches for 119 yards, his seventh 100-yard game this season. Butler has caught at least one touchdown in nine of 10 starts this season. He now has 56 catches for 1,095 yards. He is averaging almost 20 yards per catch.
NAU senior Casey Jahn rushed 11 times for 88 yards, putting him over 1,000 yards for the season. Jahn has 1,019 yards and seven touchdowns. The yardage total is second in the Big Sky behind UND freshman John Santiago.
Sacramento State true freshman quarterback Nate Ketteringham continued his stellar play. He completed 28-of-52 passes for 339 yards and four touchdowns. He is throwing for 269 yards per game since becoming the starter earlier last month. Over the last three weeks, Ketteringham is throwing for 320 yards and has nine touchdown passes. Ketteringham threw two first-quarter touchdown passes to senior Shane Harrison. He found Harrison early in the fourth quarter for a touchdown to cut the NAU lead to 42-21. Garrett Steel’s one-yard touchdown with 5:49 to play cut the Northern Arizona lead to 42-28 before Cookus found Marks for a third time.
Harrison caught 11 passes for 152 yards. Senior Nnamdi Agude added six catches for 96 yards as Sac State fell to 2-8.
North Dakota 45, Northern Colorado — UND stayed hot out of its bye thanks to a rushing attack that surpassed 400 yards for a second straight week.
A group of UND defenders sack UNC quarterback Jacob Knipp/by Matt Schill
Freshman phenom John Santiago rushed for 180 yards on 12 carries, including touchdowns of 49 and 81 yards on back-to-back possessions to help extend UND’s lead to 28-0. Iwarri Smith and Kyle Norberg took over for Santiago and each had career days. Smith rushed for 100 yards on 14 carries, including a 34-yard touchdown to extend the UND lead to 45-0 late in the third quarter. Norberg, a converted linebacker, rushed 13 times for 80 yards, including a 19-yard scoring run to give North Dakota a 35-0 lead with two minutes left in the first half. All told, UND rushed for 408 yards on 52 carries, averaging 7.8 yards per rush.
Fresh off the biggest win in program history, Northern Colorado mustered just 275 yards of total offense. Redshirt freshman quarterback Jacob Knipp completed 13-of-22 passes for 114 yards and was intercepted three times, including a Brian Labat interception that the junior returned 35 yards for a touchdown less than a minute into the game. Labat added 2.5 tackles for loss, a sack, a forced fumble, a fumble recovery and three quarterback hurries. UND totaled six sacks, eight quarterback hurries and 11 tackles behind the line of scrimmage.
UNC quarterback Jon Newson runs toward the endzone vs. UND/by UNC Atheltics
UND sophomore quarterback Keaton Studsrud injured his ankle late in UND’s 37-31 loss to Idaho State. At the time of the injury, UND led 31-15. With Studsrud on the shelf, North Dakota lost 25-24 at Weber State the following week and 42-16 at Montana on October 24 to fall to 4-4. Studsrud returned in UND’s 44-38 win over Montana State entering the bye week.
On Saturday, Studsrud completed 13-of-16 passes for 141 yards. UND’s lone loss with Studsrud at the helm for a full game was a 34-9 loss to four-time defending national champion North Dakota State.
“As even as our league is this season, if you can win the turnover battle, get a defensive score and keep moving the chains, most of the time you are going to get a positive result. That is what happened today,” UND head coach Bubba Schweigert said in a UND press release. “I’m really proud of our seniors and glad we could send them off with a nice win at home.”
Cal Poly 55, UC Davis 38 — At Davis, Cal Poly piled up 486 yards rushing and 669 yards of total offense overall as the Mustangs reclaimed the Golden Horseshoe from their in-state rival.
With the win, Cal Poly improved to 4-6 for the year and 3-4 in Big Sky Conference games. UC Davis fell to 1-9 and 1-6. The visiting team has won the Battle for the Golden Horseshoe three straight years and UC Davis still leads the series, 18-17-2.
Cal Poly running back Joe Prothero runs the ball against UC Daivs defense/by Ian Billings
For the second time in his Cal Poly career, quarterback Chris Brown scored a touchdown by run, pass and receiving. Brown also accomplished the trifecta against Weber State last year.
Brown surpassed 1,000 yards rushing for the second straight year with his 155 yards on Saturday to lead a Mustangs rushing attack that averaged 7.4 yards per rush on 66 rushes. Brown now has 1,016 yards this season. He rushed for a Big Sky quarterback record 1,235 yards last season. Brown had a 54-yard run an scored a 22-yard touchdown.
Brown also completed 6-of-9 passes for 153 yards and three touchdowns. He threw all three touchdowns to Willie Tucker, scoring tosses that covered 56, 65 and five yards. Tucker’s first TD gave Cal Poly a 7-0 lead 54 seconds inot the game. Brown’s 30-yard touchdown catch thrown by junior slotback Kori Garcia gave Cal Poly a 21-14 lead at the end of the first quarter.
On the first possession of the second quarter, Cal Poly forced a punt but the Aggies downed the ball on the 1-yard line. The Mustangs put together an epic drive, marching 99 yards in 20 plays. The drive included 19 runs, including Malcolm Davis’ 15-yard touchdown run, and ate up seven minutes, 43 seconds. Davis’ score plus Brown’s score gave CP a 34-14 halftime lead.
Joshua Kelley capped an 88-yard drive to begin the second half with a 34-yard touchdown run to draw UC Davis within 13, 34-21. Tucker’s 65-yard TD catch pushed the Cal Poly lead to 41-21 before the Aggies caught fire. Brady Stuart hit a 33-yard field goal, Nolan Tooley caught a 15-yard touchdown from CJ Spencer and Manusamoa Luuga scored on a 39-yard run as Davis cut the lead to 41-38 with 14 minutes to play.
Cal Poly responded with a 10-play, 90-yard drive capped by Tucker’s third touchdown catch. Cal Poly forced a three-and-out before mounting a 13-play, 79-yard drive that ate up 5:10 to give Cal Poly the final margin of victory with 2:37 to play.
Davis faces Sacamento State in the Causeway Classic next weekend. Cal Poly hosts North Dakota.
Montana State 44, Idaho State 20 (Click here)
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