{"id":489340,"date":"2026-10-08T15:50:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-08T15:50:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/489340\/"},"modified":"2026-10-08T15:50:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-08T15:50:12","slug":"san-jose-state-returns-home-for-a-friday-night-game-to-face-wyoming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/489340\/","title":{"rendered":"San Jose State returns home for a Friday night game to face Wyoming"},"content":{"rendered":"

SAN JOSE \u2014 San Jose State took care of business, opening Mountain West<\/a> play with a win at Hawaii<\/a>. But after a long flight home and with a short week to prepare for Wyoming, Ken Niumatalolo wants his Spartans to have a short memory.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy concern is that we still got a little bit of a hangover from being excited about that win,\u201d Niumatalolo said Tuesday. \u201cWe\u2019ve got to push on and move forward. This team (Wyoming) beat Hawaii 27-10.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Spartans beat Hawaii 20-16 in Honolulu<\/a> on Saturday night, and return home with momentum for Friday night\u2019s homecoming game (6 p.m. kickoff) at CEFCU Stadium.<\/p>\n

San Jose State (3-2, 1-0 MW) has won three of its past four games since its season-opening loss at USC, the lone setback a 26-10 home loss to Fresno State<\/a> in Week 4.<\/p>\n

\"San<\/a>San Jose State Spartans\u2019 Naseri Danielson (3), San Jose State Spartans\u2019 Dylan Lee (4), San Jose State Spartans\u2019 Malakai Hoeft (24), San Jose State Spartans\u2019 Dejon Roney (48) and San Jose State Spartans\u2019 Nate Lewis (99) tackle Cal Poly Mustangs\u2019 Misa Paiau (0) during the first quarter at CEFCU Stadium in San Jose, Calif., on Saturday, Sept. 12, 2026. (Shae Hammond\/Bay Area News Group)<\/p>\n

Wyoming (2-3, 1-1 MW) beat Hawaii at home two weeks ago, but is coming off a 24-0 loss at conference-leading North Dakota State. All three of the Cowboys\u2019 losses have been blowouts \u2013 with a combined score of 87-23 \u2014 and all have come on the road.<\/p>\n

SJSU\u2019s defensive coaching staff will prepare for Wyoming\u2019s heavy rushing attack, a contrast to the spread offense Hawaii used a week before.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou go from one side of a defensive scheme to going to another completely different type of world,\u201d SJSU defensive coordinator Bojay Filimoeatu said. \u201cAll credit to our coaching staff, we have done a great job of trying to get our guys correct.\u201d<\/p>\n

SJSU\u2019s rushing defense is currently third in the Mountain West, allowing 3.9 yards per carry.<\/p>\n

Wyoming running backs Markell Holman and Samuel Harris each present a different challenge, both averaging above 4.9 yards per carry. Quarterback Tyler Hughes shows dual-threat ability, rushing for 37 yards per game.<\/p>\n

The Spartans\u2019 defensive front has set the tone for the defensive success, ranking third in the Mountain West, averaging two sacks per game and fourth with 4.8 tackles for loss per game.<\/p>\n

SJSU\u2019s secondary has also had moments of excellence, with six interceptions this season. The unit has also struggled, giving up big passing plays and being last in the conference, allowing 258 passing yards per game.<\/p>\n

\"San<\/a>San Jose State Spartans\u2019 Caleb Womack (32) intercepts a pass intended for Cal Poly Mustangs\u2019 Tayvion McCoy (2) during the fourth quarter at CEFCU Stadium in San Jose, Calif., on Saturday, Sept. 12, 2026. (Shae Hammond\/Bay Area News Group)<\/p>\n

SJSU cornerback Caleb Womack has led the unit in interceptions (two) and is second on the team, averaging 7.2 tackles per game and will look to clean up the explosive pass plays.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo see Womack bounce back after that one explosive pass at the end of the third quarter to come back in the fourth quarter to get a pass breakup and then a pick the next play,\u201d Filimoeatu said. That\u2019s big for him \u2026 a big play may happen; adversity strikes in football for him to bounce back the next quarter and have those tremendous plays showed me the grit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Offensively, the Spartans are still looking to put together a complete game and find consistency. SJSU has only scored three points in the first quarter this season and will look for ways to get off to a fast start.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe got some holding calls on some big runs; penalties weren\u2019t as much, and we didn\u2019t turn the ball over,\u201d SJSU offensive coordinator Craig Stutzmann said. \u201cBut in order to be efficient and explosive and score more points, we can\u2019t have those mental or physical mistakes. It\u2019s a step in the right direction, but it\u2019s still not good enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

Throughout the season, SJSU has shown a balanced offense, almost having the same number of rushing attempts (170) as passing attempts (173). This is a huge difference for a historically pass-heavy spread-and-shred offense.<\/p>\n

SJSU quarterback Luke Weaver has managed the offense well, throwing for 255 passing yards per game. Running back Jabari Bates has been the team\u2019s best offensive weapon, averaging 97.4 rushing yards per game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN JOSE \u2014 San Jose State took care of business, opening Mountain West play with a win at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":489341,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[7,1471,1327,266,88,90,89,198,127],"class_list":["post-489340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-california","tag-central-coast","tag-college-sports","tag-northern-california","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news","tag-santa-clara-county","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=489340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489340\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/489341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=489340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=489340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=489340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}