After the first two weeks of Big Sky play, it looked like the Mustangs might be in for another long season.
On the heels of a one-win campaign in which the only victory came against Portland State, Cal Poly suffered a 70-17 loss at Eastern Washington top open the conference season this fall. The following week, fumbles plagued the Mustangs again as Montana ran roughshod to a 48-28 victory in San Luis Obispo, California.
At that point the Mustangs were 0-2 in league play, 1-4 overall and losers of 15 of their last 17 games dating back to a 35-21 home loss to San Diego in the first round of the 2016 FCS playoffs. But Cal Poly bulldozed Sacramento State the first Saturday of October, rushing for 462 yards and averaging 6.6 yards per carry with its pulverizing triple option on the way to a 41-27 victory.
Cal Poly fumbled four times and lost two of the miscues in a 52-10 loss to rival UC Davis in the Battle for the Golden Horseshoe coming out of its bye week. But last week, Cal Poly got back on track, rushing for 343 yards, including 217 by All-American fullback Joe Protheroe en rout to a 38-28 win over Northern Arizona.
“I think this is a team that is playing its best football right now,” Choate said. “I think Cal Poly is really on a roll. Offensively, I mean shoot, you look at that NAU game, I think there was five consecutive drives where they went down and scored.”
Entering Saturday’s game at Montana State, all of a sudden, the Mustangs have an identical record to the Bobcats, who sit at 2-3 in league play after a 24-17 loss to Idaho State last week. Cal Poly is 3-5 overall, a game back of its 4-4 hosts.
Cal Poly leads the conference by a wide margin in rushing yards per game, averaging 323.6 yards per game, nearly 80 more than second-place Eastern Washington. With senior quarterback Khaleel Jenkins back as the triggerman after missing 2017 with a torn ACL and Protheroe back for his final year as the battering ram dive back, the Mustangs have rushed for 1,899 yards and 14 touchdowns in Big Sky play alone, averaging 5.0 yards per carry and nearly 380 yards per game. Cal Poly rushed for more than 400 yards against Montana (412) and Sac State so far this season.
Montana State’s defense has been good against the run, giving up 180 yards per game so far this season despite playing long stretches because of an offense that has largely struggled to move the ball but took a step last week against Idaho State with 20 first downs and more than 33 minutes of possession.
MSU has not played Cal Poly during Choate’s three seasons at the helm. The only time a Choate-led Bobcat team has played a triple option team came last season when the Bobcats lost 16-14 to Kennesaw State, an eventual FCS playoffs quarterfinal qualifier, in Bozeman last October.
Montana State rallied from a 24-7 hole but lost by a touchdown at Idaho State, MSU’s second straight loss. The Bobcats missed two field goals and had a fake punt pass wide open but did not convert.
“The story line for us was missed opportunities, whether it was the missed field goals or…at one point we had a 14-play, 94-yard drive where we took the ball down to the 4-yard line, were penalized for an illegal shift, went backward on that, got a procedure penalty on the next play, didn’t convert on third down and missed the field goal,” Choate said. “You have an opportunity to go first and goal from the 4-yard line and you end up missing a field goal three plays later, that’s what I mean by those missed opportunities. Just really frustrating whether that was dropped passes or opportunities to blow the game open.”
Location: San Luis Obispo, California
Nickname: Mustangs
Enrollment: 21,306
Founded: Cal Poly was founded in 1901 thanks to the California Polytechnic School Bill.
Stadium: Alex G. Spanos Stadium holds 11,075. It originally opened in 1935. In 2006, it was expanded and named after Spanos, Cal Poly alum and owner of the Los Angeles Chargers. The men’s and women’s soccer teams at Cal Poly also play there, meaning it hosts one of the biggest rivalries in college soccer: Poly vs. UC Santa Barbara. Cal Poly has averaged 7,315 fans in its four home games this season.
Alumni: Al Yankovic, parody musician; Ozzie Smith, shortstop; Chuck Liddell, UFC fighter; John Madden, retired football coach and broadcaster.
The Coach
Tim Walsh (10th year at Poly, 54-56 with the Mustangs) — Walsh is a Big Sky icon, having coached Portland State from 1993 to 2006 and guiding the Vikings through their transition from Division II to the FCS. He finished 65-47 in those years at Portland State and, although he never won a Big Sky title, had some solid teams. Portland State finished second in the Big Sky four times in 11 years under Walsh and third two more times. He left the Vikings and was an assistant coach at Army for a few years before returning West to coach Poly, then in the Great West Conference, in 2009. The Mustangs moved to the Big Sky in 2012, winning the conference that first year and losing in the second round of the playoffs.
Walsh went to Junipero Serra High School in San Mateo, California, and UC Riverside, where he was a backup quarterback. He started his coaching career at Serra in 1977 as an assistant before moving up to be the head coach at Moreau Catholic High School in Hayward, California. He broke through to the college game as the defensive coordinator for UC Santa Clara in 1986 before being named head coach at Sonoma State in 1989. He was with the Cossacks for four years before replacing Pokey Allen at Portland State in 1993. Walsh’s Cal Poly teams are famous for their triple-option offense.
Offense-Players to Watch
Joe Protheroe, FB (Sr., 5-11, 230) — Protheroe has established himself as a memorable if not legendary Big Sky Conference force already. The fifth-year senior led the league in rushing with 1,334 yards and 13 touchdowns in 2016. Last season, he suffered a season-ending torn ligament in his knee that cost him the season before league play began.
This season, he has returned with a vengeance. He has been the most heavily used, durable and most punishing runner in the league and perhaps the FCS. He currently leads the Big Sky with 1,152 yards on 252 bruising carries. He has scored 10 touchdowns, one less than Idaho State running back James Madison and Montana State quarterback Troy Andersen for the top total in the league.
“Protheroe is a STUD,” Choate said with the proper amount of emphasis. “He’s like 32 years old and he’s playing like an 18-year-old again. You can tell he has a renewed sense of urgency about what he does.
“He’s a bowling ball guy, really, really hard to tackle. It looks like you are getting him for a one-yard gain and it’s five yards.”
Protheroe has rushed for more than 128 yards in Cal Poly’s last six games, including 228 yards and three touchdowns, both career highs, in CP’s first win of the season 44-15 over Brown. He had three touchdowns against Montana as well. He has carried the ball more than 30 times in each of his last six games with a high of 43 against Brown and 39 last week against NAU.
Khaleel Jenkins, QB (Sr., 6-2, 215) —In Cal Poly’s 49-3 loss at No. 1 North Dakota State to open the season, Jenkins had a scare that likely had Walsh, his staff and Mustang supporters on the edge of their seats. But the injury just cost him that loss and the following week’s 24-17 loss to Weber State, not the rest of the season like the injury that thwarted Cal Poly’s campaign in 2017.
So far this season, Jenkins is averaging just 3.1 yards per carry but has rushed 442 yards and six touchdowns, both career highs. He’s also thrown for 398 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions. His best game came last week as he rushed for 103 yards and two touchdowns and threw for 98 yards and two more scores in Cal Poly’s win over NAU.
“It’s a really frustrating style and Jenkins is operating the offense at a very high level,” Choate said. “They will spread you out some, too.
“Jenkins is a good passer. He’s a better passer than you think. He doesn’t pass a lot but when they do, they are calculated and they get a lot of explosive plays out of their pass game.”
Defense-Players to Watch
Kitu Humphrey, S (Jr., 5-10, 195) — Humphrey is from Long Beach Poly in Los Angeles, the same high school as Montana’s Calhoun twins and an array of other solid football players over the years. Beginning as a redshirt freshman, he’s started 29 of a possible 30 games at safety for the Mustangs. After recording 46 tackles in 2016 and 48 in 2017, he’s stepped up his production this year, with 46 tackles and eight pass breakups this season so far.
His pass breakup total is tied for sixth in the Big Sky.
“They are a pretty good defense, a multiple front that plays a decent amount of three and four-down front and I really like their safeties,” Choate said. “They are really aggressive in the run game. They will get down in the box quickly. They mix coverages well and their linebackers are good and aggressive.”
Nik Navarro, LB (Jr., 6-1, 238) — Navarro has burst on the scene this year after starting just one game and recording eight total tackles all of last year. The junior from Fontana, California, was a bright spot in a season-opening loss against North Dakota State with eight tackles, two for loss. He picked up another two tackles for loss the next week against Weber State.
Currently, he’s second on the team with 58 tackles and leads the Mustangs with eight total tackles for loss. That number is tied for 9th among all Big Sky players. He’s also forced a fumble and broken up a pass.
Matt Shotwell, LB (So., 6-0, 225) — The youngest of four Shotwell brothers to play at Cal Poly, Matt can only hope to be as productive as his oldest brother Kyle, the only other Shotwell to play linebacker for the Mustangs. Kyle won the Buck Buchanan Award in 2006 as the top defensive player in the FCS during a three-year run that saw Jordan Beck and Chris Gocong also win the award.
This season, Matt Shotwell leads the Mustangs with 65 tackles, including 44 solo tackles and 3.5 tackles for loss.
Photos by Brooks Nuanez or Cal Poly Athletics. All Rights Reserved.
