By BJ Querubin – Staff Writer
Miscues and missed opportunities led to San Jose State football’s downfall Friday night against the Air Force Academy, falling 41-24.
SJSU (2-2, 0-1 MW) got caught napping, coming off of a strenuous 31-24 road victory against Arkansas and a practice short week of three days.
Despite the Falcons (3-1, 1-1 MW) turning the ball over twice, the Spartans turned over the ball four times on downs failed to score on any of those possessions.
“All of those [4th downs] were huge,” said head coach Brent Brennan to SJSU Athletics after the game. “Those are those moments that your playmakers have to make a play. And we didn’t do that.”
On two of the fourth downs, SJSU had opportunities to score, but two passes ended up just off the fingertips of junior wide receiver Tre Walker in the end zone.
Air Force also converted nearly 77 percent of its 3rd-down attempts and 1-2 on 4th downs, which made them that much more difficult to stop.
SJSU opened up the game with a near-perfect 62-yard drive on its first possession to jump ahead 7-0.
Senior quarterback Josh Love threw for 46 yards and completed all six of his passes on the opening drive, which was topped off by a DeJon Packer 1-yard rush.
The Spartans’ fast start was the beginning of a very slow end, because it was all Air Force from then on.
Three unanswered Falcon touchdowns followed prior to redshirt freshman’s Matt Mercurio’s 25-yard field goal with under a minute before halftime.
The Falcons’ fifth ranked rushing attack gashed the Spartans’ defense for 382 yards, averaging 5.5 yards per rush.
Air Force’s attack tonight was lead by senior running back Taven Birdow, who had 124 yards on the ground and two touchdowns.
“They’re a good team. You got to give them credit,” said sophomore linebacker Kyle Harmon. “They came out and played hard … executed … we got to be a little more disciplined.”
A winded Spartans’ defense had no answer for the onslaught of the Air Force’s gameplan. The Falcons took control of the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball from beginning to end.
The Air Force brought the heat all night. Josh Love was sacked once and hurried four times.
This forced Love to get rid of the ball quickly and throw into tight windows as soon as he dropped back to pass.
SJSU’s leading rusher and redshirt freshman Nick Nash continued to impress, finishing with 144 all-purpose yards. He added two late touchdowns during mop-up duty to freshmen Andre Crump and Derrick Deese Jr.
The Spartans dropped to 0-7 in Mountain-West conference openers since joining the league in 2013.
SJSU also remained winless in Colorado Springs in three attempts.
The Spartans last win against the Falcons came on Oct. 25, 1997.
The Spartans get a nice eight-day break before returning home to CEFCU Stadium for a matchup against New Mexico.
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