Article

Cellar Dwellers

MSU football's 25-24 loss to Augustana locks up its last place finish in NCC.

by Dan Myers
November 01, 2005

Despite holding a lead for most of last Saturday’s game, the Minnesota State football team fell to the Augustana Vikings 25-24 Saturday in Sioux Falls, S.D.

Leading 24-18 with less than six minutes to go, the Mavericks forced an Augustana fumble deep in their own territory. Looking to add an insurance touchdown and run time off the clock, junior quarterback Joshua Bryant fumbled the football on his own 35-yard. The Vikings’ Matt Lien scooped up the ball and raced 65-yards for the score. Kicker Ryan Grossman added the extra point and gave the Vikings a 25-24 lead.

“It was about as heart-breaking a loss as you can have,” said Maverick head coach Jeff Jamrog. “Both teams had that turnover late in the game, but they forced us to cough it up and they scored. They were able to take advantage and we weren’t.”

Minnesota State had chances to bury the Vikings earlier in the fourth quarter. The Mavericks embarked on a 90-yard drive that stalled at the Augustana two-yard line. MSU lead 21-18 and faced a third-and-one. But the Vikings forced a five-yard loss and the Mavericks had to settle for a 23-yard Jason Tompkins field goal.

Near the end of the first half, the Maverick defense allowed an 85-yard drive that gave the Vikings three additional points and a 10-7 lead heading into halftime.

MSU scored a pair of touchdowns to start the third quarter, including a touchdown pass from Bryant to junior fullback Dan Smedberg and a three-yard run by senior Danny Nichols.

The touchdowns gave MSU a 21-10 lead midway through the third period, but for the fourth time this season, the Mavericks gave up a lead on their way to a loss. In their first game at home against Northwest Missouri State, MSU led the No. 5 Bearcats 21-14 with just under 11 minutes to play but lost 24-21 in overtime. One week later at Bemidji State, MSU led 3-0 after the first quarter before losing 28-23. At homecoming against St. Cloud State, Minnesota State led 14-3 with 10:57 to play before yielding a pair of SCSU touchdowns in the fourth quarter.

But Saturday’s match-up with Augustana may have been Minnesota State’s last legitimate chance to earn a win in 2005. Up next for MSU is conference heavyweight Nebraska-Omaha, where Jamrog and the Mavericks are hoping to inflict similar damage to UNO’s 2005 campaign as they did to the 2004 team. UNO entered the game as the only undefeated team left in the NCC, but MSU upset UNO 20-13, a loss that kept Omaha out of the Division II National Playoffs.

“They are going to be fired up because they know if they win, they have an excellent shot at making the playoffs,” Jamrog said. “It’s a similar situation to last year, and I’m hoping we have the right kind of character and the right team that is going to keep score. Any time you keep score in life, you want to win games.”