Mountain West Football Review: Week Six

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This game was a lot closer then the score indicated because Colorado State scored 14 points in the final six minutes to defeat UNLV.  This loss was UNLV’s 17th consecutive conference road loss.  The Rebels have not defeated the Rams since 2002.

The running game for the Rams finally did what most—well, at least me—thought they could do when Gatrell Johnson III went off for 191 yards rushing for three scores.  Quarterback Billy Farris also had a career game with 294 yards passing, with 211 going to Rashaun Greer in this game.

The Rams seemed to have the game in hand by scoring 24 straight points to end the third quarter with a 13-point lead over the Rebels, but then the fourth quarter came along, and the Rebels woke up.

The fourth quarter is where all the action happened.  During the third quarter the Rebels had only three possessions: The first resulted in a missed field goal, the second was a pick, and the last drive set up a fourth quarter touchdown.

Omar Clayton was on fire, hitting all of his receivers for both scores in the quarter. UNLV regained the lead by one with six minutes left and looked in good shape.

Then Colorado State marched down with ease to score and made a two-point conversion, which made it a seven-point lead with nine seconds left and sealed the win.  Then on the kickoff, UNLV fumbled the ball.  The Rams should have just taken a knee to seal the win, but the team decided to be fancy and risky with four laterals, which resulted in another score.

Both teams were evenly matched, but the difference was the Rams' playmakers in this game.

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Special teams doomed the Air Force Academy, who suffered their sixth straight loss to the Navy Midshipmen.  Navy returned two blocked punts for touchdowns, which ultimately was the difference in this game.  This game was the first of the round robin format for the Commander-in-Chief's Trophy, and this winner usually has had the upper hand recently.

Turnovers also hurt the Falcons.  They had two of them, which netted 10 more points for Navy.  Air Force did outgain the Mids 411-244 and actually passed the ball effectively with 184 passing yards by two quarterbacks, but considering the opponent scored 24 of their 33 points off mistakes, it is amazing that Air Force was able to keep this game as close as it was.

The Navy offense just had to be effective because of the short