SAN JOSE, Calif.\u00a0\u2014 History didn’t favor University of Wyoming football.<\/p>\n
The Cowboys went into Friday’s fourth quarter against San Jose State with eight consecutive road losses and seven consecutive quarters without a touchdown.<\/p>\n
Nothing 10 unanswered points couldn’t fix.<\/p>\n
Erik Sandvik’s 21-yard field goal in overtime lifted the Cowboys past the Spartans, 16-13, at CEFCU Stadium in San Jose, California. The game-winning kick came after UW’s defense forced a turnover on downs to start overtime.<\/p>\n
“We executed really well in overtime, offensively and defensively,” Cowboys coach Jay Sawvel said. “I felt good when we got to overtime, because we played pretty good in the red zone, defensively, against this group. I felt like we could maybe do that again, and that’s what we got to do.”<\/p>\n
Sandvik capitalized a second-half comeback that started when UW (3-3 overall, 2-1 Mountain West) quarterback Tyler Hughes hit Jake Wilson for an 8-yard touchdown with 6 minutes, 25 seconds left in the game. The extra point evened things 13-13.<\/p>\n
\u201cProud of the group,\u201d Sawvel said. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t always clean. I thought we left about 10 points, at least, on the field in the first half, and that was a little bit disappointing. When you control time of possession the way we did in the first half, you kind of control things the way we did in the first half. To go (into halftime down 7-6), you felt like you missed opportunities, but we kept fighting.<\/p>\n
“We kept scratching. We kept clawing. The team pulled together. None of these guys were born the last time Wyoming won at San Jose, so it was a good win for us.”<\/p>\n
Hughes finished 16-of-24 for 114 yards \u2014 plus that touchdown and an interception. He rushed for 92 yards on 27 carries and absorbed six sacks.<\/p>\n
SJSU’s Luke Weaver was 26-of-38 for 259 yards and an interception.<\/p>\n
The Cowboys won the time-of-possession battle by 20 minutes but finished 3-of-15 on third down. They were 5-of-6 on fourth down.<\/p>\n
“That might be a record for Wyoming football going for it on fourth down,” Sawvel said. “I told the players before the game, ‘Go let it rip.’ We played so tense last week (against North Dakota State). We played so tight. We played so much to not make a mistake that we didn’t play fast and we just sat on our heels.<\/p>\n
“… When you looked up at the scoreboard in the middle of the second quarter and looked at what the time of possession was, we were doing everything that I would have wanted us to do to kind of make this game boring for them and just kind of take them out of it. I wanted to control the ball and I wanted us to be able to run it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“That is going to be a mode for us. We have a couple of good backs, we have a couple good tight ends and we have a quarterback that can run. We have a defense that will get better and better here as we go, and they fought tonight. I think (controlling the ball) is going to be a way that we win some games if we have to.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Cowboys’ final drive of regulation reached the Spartans’ 39-yard line with six seconds left, but a Chandler Donaway holding call pushed them out of field goal range and forced overtime.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sandvik’s 38-yard field goal gifted the Cowboys an early lead four minutes into the game.<\/p>\n
SJSU nearly tied it on the ensuing drive, but Trajan Sinatra pushed a 44-yard field goal attempt wide left.\u00a0<\/p>\n
UW then drove 61 yards in 18 plays while burning nearly 10 minutes off the clock, but the Cowboys turned the ball over on downs after a failed fourth-and-goal at SJSU’s 2-yard line.<\/p>\n
The Spartans answered with an eight-play, 88-yard drive capped with an 18-yard rushing touchdown from Jabari Bates with 10:47 left in the second quarter.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Cowboys cut SJSU’s lead to 7-6 with Sandvik’s 29-yard field goal seven minutes later.\u00a0<\/p>\n
UW cornerback Therman Williams recorded his first career interception on SJSU’s next possession. The momentum didn’t last long, as Dylan Lee intercepted Hughes five plays later at the Spartans’ 13-yard line.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Spartans had the ball at UW’s 25-yard line with 16 seconds left in the half, but Jayden Williams and Cade Brook sacked Weaver. SJSU was unable to spike the ball as the final seconds ticked away.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Running back Markell Holman lost a fumble after picking up a third down on UW’s opening drive of the second half. The Spartans capitalized with a 22-yard field goal from Sinatra to stretch their lead to 10-6 with 9:43 left in the third quarter. Another Sinatra 27-yard field goal put SJSU up 13-6 going into the fourth quarter.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Cowboys host Northern Illinois (0-4) at 1:30 p.m. Oct. 17 at War Memorial Stadium. The Huskies host Air Force (3-1, 1-1) at 5:30 p.m. Saturday for their first conference game as a MW member.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN JOSE, Calif.\u00a0\u2014 History didn’t favor University of Wyoming football. The Cowboys went into Friday’s fourth quarter against…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":491706,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[32820,191715,88,90,89],"class_list":["post-491705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-michigan-state-spartans-men","tag-michigan-state-spartans-seasons","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491705","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=491705"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491705\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/491706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=491705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=491705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=491705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}