[jwplayer jF5wU66N-sNi3MVSU]
San Jose State Scores 23 Unanswered To Defeat Nevada, 30-20
Spartans have a dominant second half to secure the win.
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SJSU going to the title game.
This was a game of two halves with Nevada dominating the first half and leading 20-10 at the half, but the third quarter was disastrous for the Wolf Pack and San Jose State made plays and took advantage of the situation.
There were a few key plays that made the difference and swing this game in San Jose State’s favor in the third quarter to defeat Nevada, 30-20. It started late in the second half when nearly automatic kicker Brandon Talton missed a short 25 yarder. That make would have made it 23 to 7 at the half for the Wolf Pack.
That is when the tide started to turn, San Jose State took the ensuing kickoff to start the third quarter 98 yards for a touchdown by Shamar Garrett to make it a 20-14 game within seconds of the second half to close the gap.
“We broke it down really simple at halftime,” Spartans head coach Brent Brennan said. “We need to fix two things. We need to fix our physicality, and we need to play for each other.”
https://twitter.com/CBSSportsNet/status/1337623585565921282
Nevada’s turn with the ball had them go all the way down within the 1-yard line but Wolf Pack’s Toa Taua fumbled the ball and the Spartans recovered. That fumble was reviewed and scrutinized for minutes and could have gone either way but with call being ruled a fumble there was not enough evidence to say Toa was down.
Then the Spartans offense took over and went 99 yards for a score to go up 21-20, and then San Jose State forced Nevada to punt on five plays. One play later, running back Tyler Nevins broke out a 69-yard touchdown run.
https://twitter.com/MountainWest/status/1337636171971641345
“We’ve been through so much that no other team has, and that’s our advantage against everybody,” Nevans said. “We’re doing things that other teams have never done before, as far as moving around, not being able to practice in our county, having two games be canceled. Our struggles that we’ve gone through out the season shaped us.”
Nevada never really got going in the second half and outside of their first drive the Wolf Pack never got going. Quarterback Carson Strong was harassed all night and in total was sacked four times with 2.5 of those by Cade Hall.
The Wolf Pack had two fumbles, both by Tao, and a turnover on downs and a pair of punts in that second half.
https://twitter.com/SanJoseStateFB/status/1337654790675808257
It was the star players for San Jose State who showed up big in this win. Nevens had a back-to-back dominant performance, he carried ball just 12 times for 184 yards with 138 of those yards taking place on a pair of 69-yard runs with one for a touchdown. Bailey Gaither and Tre Walker each had seven catches with the former going for 156 yards and the latter 80.
Quarterback Nick Starkle had a good day as well by completing 20 of 30 for 306 yards with a pair of touchdowns and one pick.
The big difference in this game came from the Spartans running game showing up with explosive plays, or really big plays overall which include the kick return and that 57-yard pass competition to Gaither.
Nevada usually comes up with big plays in the passing game and that was not the case as the longest pass play completed was a 22-yarder that was caught by Cole Turner. Tao did have a 52-yard gain on the ground.
In addition to big plays, the defensive fronts favored San Jose State over Nevada. In addition to those four sacks, the Spartans defense also got another tackle for loss. The second half defense was huge for San Jose State as they made adjustments and slowed down the Nevada offense.
The Nevada defense which has a good defensive front had just one sack and four tackles for loss. Even with Dom Peterson — though not sure exactly how healthy he was — back on the field, the defense was unable to fully and completely shutdown this San Jose State offense for 60 minutes.
Full game highlights:
https://twitter.com/MountainWest/status/1337658516169867264
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