Nightmare finish
The game was over, wasn’t it?
It’s 34-14, 14:54 left on the clock. EWU was running, throwing, defending. Dominating. Sam Houston State was out of its element. The Bearkats had to buy additional Under Armor long-sleeve shirts to deal with the freezing temperatures. They couldn’t stop the Eagles’ balanced offense. Sam Houston State’s offense was blanked in the first half and, save a couple of breakaway pass plays, only marginally better in the third quarter.
Then came a fourth quarter that lasted an eternity, and a couple seconds too long for the Eagles. Then came the fourth-down conversions – five in a row by the Bearkats on their last three scoring drives. Then came the softer coverage by EWU’s defense. Suddenly, EWU’s lead was down to 34-28 and Sam Houston is lining up for an onside kick.
When EWU’s Chris Cwik made a sure-handed grab of the onside kick, it triggered a collective exhale from the 7,633 at Woodward Field. Now the Eagles were home free, weren’t they? They ran the clock down, made a key third-down conversion on a pass from Erik Meyer to Eric Kimble, forced Sam Houston State to burn up the last of their timeouts.
They set up for the clinching 37-yard field goal … and it’s smothered at the line by Sam Houston State’s 6-foot-4 Vincent Cartwright. But only 43 ticks remained and the Bearkats were out of timeouts. They faced 75 muddy yards and a hostile crowd. Can’t be done, can it?
After an incompletion, quarterback Dustin Long zipped six straight completions – for 5, 4, 12, 12, 19 and 16 yards, the last four going to Jason Mathenia. Two seconds remain. Ball at the Eagles’ 7 yard-line.
Long knows what the play call is going to be. Slant to Mathenia. It worked pretty much the entire second half. It worked again – a 7-yard strike to Mathenia just out of cornerback Jesse Hendrix’s reach.
“We were in a situation where we wanted to pick up chunks of yards and try to throw a Hail Mary at the end,” Long said. “But we kept hitting Mathenia; they were giving him 15-20 yards. You have to give credit to the receivers for catching the ball and at the end, man, what a great call.
“The slant was working great all night. We had tried to go deep but their corners did a good job, so we had to go with it.”
Lance Garner connects on the PAT and it’s over. Final: Sam Houston State 35, EWU complete agony.
The stunning ending left EWU players doubled over on the field. Rover Nick Denbeigh booted his helmet. Tackle Harrison Nikolao, who deflected a last-second pass at the line of scrimmage to preserve EWU’s 35-31 road win over No. 1 Southern Illinois last week, dropped flat on his back and covered his face. Tackle Brandon Myers fell down on all fours with his head on the turf.
“That’s a heartbreaker,” EWU coach Paul Wulff said. “I don’t recall one that tough. To be in control of the game the whole way and let it slip away at the end, that’s tough. Like I told the kids, we won more games like that than we lost. But when you play tight ballgames you’re not always going to come out on top.”
Wulff will undoubtedly replay the final quarter in his mind for a good chunk of the off-season. It will look nothing like the first three quarters. Eastern thoroughly outplayed the Bearkats, though the scoreboard didn’t always reflect it.
Glance at every statistic – but the scoreboard – and EWU was in command. At halftime, EWU led in first downs 18-4, gained twice as much yardage and held a 12-minute edge in time of possession.
That it was just 13-0 at half was a tribute to several missed opportunities by the offense, including a missed PAT, a fumble inside Sam Houston’s 5, an interception that slipped through Kimble’s hands at the Bearkats’ 15 and an unproductive series that started at Sam Houston State’s 35.
Still, the expected shootout, like the snowstorm, was nowhere to be found. The passing showdown between Meyer and Long, a Texas A&M transfer, hadn’t materialized.
“I don’t know why we executed so poorly in the first half, but give their defense credit,” Bearkats coach Ron Randleman said. “I felt like we were in good shape if we could get some things going, get a few stops and get our offense in gear. I don’t think there was any sense of panic. But we waited a while, didn’t we?”
Long was the maestro of the comeback. After looking downright pedestrian in the first half, Long was 30 of 44 for 377 yards and four touchdowns in the second half.
“I don’t know what Dustin’s numbers were in the second half, but I don’t know how they could have been any better,” Randleman said. “One thing our offense has down all year in the 2-minute offense was move the ball.”
This time, they only needed 45 seconds.
“Their quarterback was great, especially late in the fourth quarter,” Wulff said, “and they did all the right things late in the game. I don’t know how many times we had them fourth down and they converted. They were basically making plays all the way down until the last second on the clock.
“It’s one of those deals where we don’t want to give them a cheap, easy one. We were hoping they’d run out of time and basically they almost did.”
Almost never stung so much.