SAN JOSE – After falling 26-16 to Air Force at home and dropping three of its last four games, San Jose State now finds itself in a sudden-death situation in terms of reaching bowl eligibility.
The Spartans (3-6, 2-3 Mountain West) were 6.5-point favorites, but their only lead in Saturday’s loss to Air Force (3-6, 2-4) came after their first offensive drive, when kicker Denis Lynch hit a 31-yard field goal to make the game 3-0.
Now SJSU has to win out the rest of the season with three games remaining, including a road game against one of the best teams in the conference at San Diego State.
“The message is now you just got to come back and win one,” head coach Ken Niumatalolo said. “You can’t think about how you need all three games and trying to win all of them. You just have got to try and get this next game.”
Over the last three games of the season the Spartans will need everything to go right in order to claim bowl eligibility.
Here are the biggest takeaways from the loss to Air Force.
TURNOVERS DOOM OFFENSE
Entering Saturday’s game, quarterback Walker Eget had not thrown an interception since SJSU’s Week 2 loss at Texas.
Against Air Force, Eget threw two interceptions, marking the end of a streak where Eget threw 276 consecutive passes without getting picked off.
Eget also had to play the majority of the game banged up as he missed several plays on the Spartans’ second drive with a leg injury.
Xavier Ward took Eget’s place to finish that possession and fumbled on a read option, marking the first turnover of the game for SJSU.
“It took away some of (Eget’s) mobility,” Niumatalolo said of the leg injury. “You could see in some of his deep balls, he couldn’t really step into some of his throws.”
Both of Eget’s interceptions came after his injury and he struggled to generate enough power in his deep throws, forcing the Spartans’ receivers to make plays coming back to the ball.
Eget finished the game 27-of-42 passing with 334 yards, two interceptions and zero touchdowns.
SJSU lost the turnover battle 3-0 and Air Force scored 14 of its 26 points off takeaways.The worst miscue of the game came with the Spartans pinned at their own 2-yard line with 1:43 to go in the second quarter.
Eget’s pass was deflected by an Air Force defensive lineman and bounced back towards Eget. In an attempt to spike the ball on the ground, Eget tipped the ball off the helmet of an Air Force defender, the ball shot up in the air and Spartans running back Lamar Radcliffe caught the ball in the endzone and was tackled for a safety.
“We got to knock that ball down and not take a safety. That’s a bad play,” Niumatalolo said.
Air Force’s defense did a great job of limiting the production of Spartans wide receiver Danny Scudero, the nation’s leading receiver.
Scudero had a season-low five receptions and 41 yards, his second-lowest total of the season.
SJSU wide receiver Leland Smith had a career-high nine receptions and 144 yards with the added attention to Scudero. Smith has now gone over 100 yards in three consecutive games.
CHEW CLOCK AGAINST SAN JOSE STATE
The Spartans offense is known for its quick-strike capabilities and is first in the Mountain West in passing yards per game (332.56). With Eget’s ability to find Scudero deep, the offense can have the potential to score from anywhere.
The best way to counter that attack is to limit the time the offense has the ball. That’s exactly what Air Force did in this game.
Air Force won the time of possession 36:26 to 23:34 and ran eleven more plays than the Spartans did.
The Falcons averaged 4.1 yards per play compared to the Spartans’ 7.2. The Falcons’ triple-option style offense had 63 rushing attempts compared to 10 passing attempts, making sure the clock was constantly running.
Air Force drove methodically down the field with four of its nine offensive drives lasting over five minutes. It seemed almost every first down the Falcons picked up was just enough to reset the downs and keep running time off the clock.
“They were just willing to grind it out and play keep-away,” said Niumatalolo, who implemented a similar style of offense during his years coaching at the Naval Academy. “When you get those turnovers early in the game then you’re playing from behind, then you play right into their hand.”
This strategy was also implemented by Central Michigan during SJSU’s season-opening loss and by FCS opponent Idaho, which forced SJSU to hit a game-winning field goal late.
TWO-KICKER SYSTEM IS WORKING
Both kickers struggled to make field goals early in the season as Lynch 4-10 and Mathias Brown 0-2 through five games.
Niumatalolo decided to go with the left-footed Lynch from the right hash and the right-footed Brown from the left hash entering the Oct. 17 game at Utah State.
The kicking duo is 6-6 since making this switch.
Saturday was the first time SJSU had two different players make a field goal in the same game since Nov. 10, 2012 in a 47-7 win over New Mexico State.
“I wish I had figured that out earlier in the season,” Niumatalolo said.
Niumatalolo was still discouraged that the offense had to settle for three field goals against Air Force – all from inside the red zone – leaving 12 potential points on the table in a 10-point loss.
