The Nevada version

[Sasser Rules]

Pack still no road warrior
SMU capitalizes on myriad mistakes
Chad Hartley RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL
11/13/2004 09:30 pm

DALLAS -- The Nevada football team was in search of its first road win of the season.

All it found at Gerald J. Ford Stadium on Saturday was the reason why it hadn’t won a game away from home this year.

Costly turnovers and mistakes in the red zone -- two things that had heavily contributed to the Wolf Pack’s 0-4 road record this year -- were the primary reason Nevada is now 0-5 away from Mackay Stadium.

The Pack fumbled three times -- with two of those returned by Southern Methodist for touchdowns -- and was a miserable three-of-seven in the red zone in a 38-20 loss in front of an announced crowd of 10,206 who sat through a steady rain.

“Three turnovers and all of them on the ground and two for touchdowns, that’s rough,” Nevada coach Chris Ault said. “We aren’t good enough to overcome those kind of mistakes.”

Nevada fell to 5-5 overall and 3-3 in the Western Athletic Conference, and its chances to become bowl eligible became even slimmer with the loss. SMU moved to 3-7 and 3-4.

SMU’s Alvin Nnabuife recovered two of Nevada’s fumbles and returned both for touchdowns, which was essentially the difference in the game. The teams had comparable numbers statistically in total offense and turnovers. but the Mustangs turned two of Nevada’s turnovers into 14 instant points.

“Turnovers cost us tonight, and that is what has been killing us all year, especially on the road,” senior wideout Talib Wise said. “We just can’t seem to play mistake-free football. We are doing it to ourselves.”

After a sluggish first half, Nevada seemingly took all the momentum early in the second half when it recovered an SMU fumble on the Mustang 20-yard line and scored two plays later to take a 13-10 lead.

It was the Pack’s first lead of the game and it would be it’s last, too.

SMU answered with back-to-back touchdowns to go up 24-13 before disaster started to strike for Nevada.

After Foy Munlin’s 1-yard scoring plunge, Trevor Brackett coughed up the ball on the kickoff and Nnabuife returned the ball 17 yards for a touchdown.

The Pack struck back less than a minute later when Jeff Rowe, who set a career high with 351 yards passing, hit Talib Wise for a 40-yard touchdown to cut the lead to 31-20. On SMU’s ensuing drive, the Pack got a break when quarterback Jared Romo fumbled and linebacker Jeremy Engstrom recovered.

The Pack needed just three plays to get to the SMU 7-yard line. Rowe handed off to freshman Drew Robinson off right tackle and Robinson fumbled -- for the second time in the red zone.

Nnabuife picked it up and raced 95 yards untouched for the game-clinching score. He became just the third player in NCAA history to return two fumbles for touchdowns in one game.

“That’s tough when you go on the road and you beat up yourself,” Rowe said. “That is a big heartbreaker.”

Even SMU coach Phil Bennett admitted the Mustangs were lucky to get the victory and to get it by such a wide margin.

“The thing I like best is that we won a game by 18 points and I don’t think we played particularly well,” Bennett said.

But things like this tend to happen when a team that has everything to lose plays a team that has nothing to lose.

The Pack was riding a three-game win streak and needed two wins to become bowl eligible. SMU was looking to win back-to-back games for the first time in two years.

“They showed a lot of different things and played like they had nothing to shoot for,” safety Keone Kauo said.

Robinson was slated to split carries with junior B.J. Mitchell as Chance Kretschmer was doubtful with an ankle injury. Kretschmer played sparingly but did not have a rushing attempt. And Mitchell went down early in the second quarter with an ankle injury, leaving Robinson as the workhorse.

“I was disappointed in our offense because we did not move it on the ground at all,” Ault said of the Pack’s 86 rushing yards.

Robinson’s first fumble came on the SMU 13-yard line and while it was costly, the Pack had to stick with him.

“There is no question that losing B.J. hurt us,” Ault said. “We think Drew is a very capable back. He puts the ball on the ground twice and both times we are going in for touchdowns.

“He will learn from it and get better.”

It’s not like Nevada deserved to win this game and didn’t. The Pack was a horrible 5-of-15 on third-down conversions and two of its botched red-zone chances had nothing to do with fumbles.

Instead of a chip-shot field goal in the first half, the Pack ran a fake that came up 3 yards short. It also had a chance at another field goal right before halftime when Rowe was running the two-minute drill with the Pack out of timeouts. He threw a screen pass to Caleb Spencer, who cut inside with about 12 seconds left and was tackled in bounds. The clock ran out before the Pack could snap it again.

“You know, sometimes the offense plays well and the defense doesn’t and sometimes the defense plays well and the offense doesn’t,” Kauo said. “I don’t think I can say that either one of us played really well tonight.”

Rowe was 29-of-46 for 351 yards and two touchdowns. Wise had eight catches for a season-high 149 yards, and Nichiren Flowers has nine catches for 99 yards and a touchdown.

Defensively, the Pack saw double-digit tacklers in Engstrom (13) and Chris Barry (11).

The Pack offense couldn’t get in sync in the first half, despite having the edge in time of possession (16:21 to 13:39) and total offense (205 to 129), and it trailed 10-6 at the break.

And the red-zone problems that hurt the Pack in previous road trips resurfaced during the first 30 minutes as Nevada was just two-of-five on red-zone chances.

“It was as much our poor execution as it was their defense,” Ault said.

Following the Pack’s failed fourth-down try on the game’s first series, SMU jumped out to a 7-0 lead, needing just two plays to go 59 yards, when Cedrick Dorsey hauled in a 38-yard TD pass from Tony Eckert. Dorsey, a running back, came out of the backfield and beat Pack linebacker Jamaal Jackson in coverage on the play.

The Pack answered with a 33-yard field goal by Damon Fine on the ensuing drive, but SMU came right back with a field goal of its own, a 42-yarder by Craig McMurtray.

The Mustangs were threatening again near the end of the first quarter with the ball on the Nevada 6. But Pack cornerback Kevin Stanley picked off Jared Romo in the end zone to bail the Pack out.

In the second quarter, Nevada was poised to tie the game, but Robinson fumbled on the SMU 13.

Nevada got the ball back three plays later, however, as Kauo picked off Eckert and returned it to the SMU 11. But the offense couldn’t do anything with the possession and settled for a 26-yarder by Fine to make it 10-6.