Ask any coach and they’ll tell you there’s no such thing as an "ugly win," especially on the road.
So the Idaho State Bengals won’t be offering any apologies for their heart-stopping 41-38 win over Cal Poly Saturday night in California.
Gabe Panikowski’s 24-yard field goal as time expired was the difference in a back-and-forth game that saw over 930 yards of total offense, five combined turnovers, the two clubs going a combined 10-for-10 in the red zone and only one punt − by the Mustangs.
ISU’s win moved its record to 3-3 on the year, 1-1 in Big Sky Conference play and equaled the number of wins it had all of last season.
Cal Poly dropped to 2-3 on the year, 1-1 in the conference.
“Winning on the road in the Big Sky is a tough challenge,” Idaho State head coach Cody Hawkins told the Idaho State Journal in an exclusive phone interview. “If you look at the percentages, it’s somewhere between 70 and 80% in favor of the home team that they are going to win. We’re proud to come down here, play a team on the road, especially Cal Poly. It was their homecoming and they were coming off a big win for them. This week was all about playing together and playing confident, having fun and seeing it through for four quarters, and boy we needed every second of them.”
The game winning field goal was set up by a nine-play, 69-yard drive that saw Idaho State pick up four first downs. Quarterback Kobe Tracy ran a masterful final four-minute offense, mixing up passes and runs to keep the Mustangs off balance. The key play came when Tracy hit Christian Frederickson on a 30-yard pass along the left sidelines down to the CPU 22-yard line.
Tracy had a career night going 30-for-44, good for 425 yards, and three touchdowns.
Also having a career night, and one of the best receiving nights in program history, was Jeff Weimer. He caught a dozen balls for 236 yards, including an 84-yard touchdown late in the first quarter. That was the second most yards caught in a game by an ISU receiver, trailing only Ed Bell’s 261 yards in 1969.
“I am just so proud of those guys, for Kobe to come up so clutch in the second half and both of those guys just persevered and trusted the process,” said Hawkins.
The Bengals gave up 408 total yards, including 295 on the ground, turned the ball over twice and saw the Mustangs control the ball for almost five more minutes.
So how did they win the game?
Perhaps one play made all the difference and it came from a banged up defense.
Midway through the fourth quarter, Cal Poly was driving. It got the benefit of a pass interference penalty on Josh Alford to move the ball to the ISU 14-yard line. On third down, four yards to go, the Bengals' Logan George stopped quarterback Richie Watts on a run to the left side for no gain.
The Mustangs decided not to gamble and kicked a 26-yard field goal from Noah Serna to tie the game at 38. That stop meant ISU only needed a field goal to win the game, which eventually happened, instead of having to score a touchdown.
Hawkins was asked to comment about that play, which turned out to be a game changer.
“Logan is a fantastic player and I was talking to him before the game on how much I believed in him. That play was absolutely huge for them having to kick three. It’s one thing for us to go down and score when we have no skin in the game," he said. "You know you’re going to overtime, you're playing a little bit more free, but if we would have known that we had a gun to our head and have to try to win that game with a touchdown or we were going to lose. ... you never know what could have happened.”
“Logan and the defense did a great job coming up with huge plays and making the plays that mattered. You know in modern football it doesn’t matter what people do between the 20-yard lines. ... you’ve got to make stops on third down and you’ve got to make stops in the red zone.”
The Bengals now have a chance to get their heads above water next Saturday afternoon. They host winless Portland State, led by former Idaho State assistant coach Bruce Barnum.
The Vikings lost to UC-Davis in perhaps the most excruciating way you could lose a game Saturday afternoon in Portland.
PSU had a 26-21 lead with literally seconds remaining and thought it had won the game when an Aggie pass attempt fell incomplete. The Hillsboro Stadium clock was at zero and a celebration began.
But then the side official ruled one second remained and UC-Davis had life.
With another chance, quarterback Miles Hastings hit Trent Tompkins at the goal line and was driven back by cornerback Bryson Ross. A four-minute replay review took place before it was ruled Tompkins did get the ball in the end zone to give the Aggies a 27-26 win.
The Portland State-Idaho State game will kick off from the ICCU Dome at 4 p.m. Saturday.
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