This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Logan • In the coming months, when Aggie Nation reflects on its football-season-gone-wrong, none of the frustrating defeats will be replayed more than Saturday night's 24-21 loss to New Mexico.
Not the 27-20 loss to Air Force, when the Aggies squandered a 20-17 lead in the final five minutes.
Not the 31-24 loss at Colorado State, when Utah State owned a 24-10 lead at halftime.
Not the 21-10 loss at Boise State, when the Aggies outplayed the nationally-ranked Broncos in the first half but trailed 7-3.
No.
The loss to New Mexico will likely cost coach Matt Wells and his players the most sleep because the game could have — probably should have — been won.
The biggest play?
With 1:01 remaining, the Aggies trailed after New Mexico's Jason Sanders kicked a 40-yard field goal. Starting at its 25, Utah State quickly drove to the New Mexico 19, with the help of a roughing-the-passer penalty.
With 16 seconds left, quarterback Kent Myers lofted a pass to Ron'Quavion Tarver in the end zone. The Aggie receiver, who the Lobos struggled to cover all night, leaped in the air and came down with the ball.
It looked like a game-winning touchdown reception, until an official threw a flag and called Tarver for offensive pass interference.
"I want to choose my words very, very carefully, as you can probably imagine," Aggie coach Matt Wells said later. "I just hope they're right. It's a hard one to take away from a kid. I'll just leave it at that and let the Mountain West comment on it Monday."
Myers, who completed 21 of 27 passes for 263 yards, thought he'd thrown his second touchdown pass of the game.
"It was a big emotional swing, thinking we had it," he said. "But then I saw them pointing toward us, so in my head I thought, 'We'll have to drive it down [again] and at least get a field goal and go into overtime. … That was the plan."
Facing first-and-25 from the New Mexico 34, Wells burned his last time-out.
"I didn't like what we had called," he explained. "We didn't have the right people in for it. … We took it to get regrouped, to be honest with you."
On Utah State's next play, Myers scrambled up the middle and reached the 25-yard line. The Aggies needed to line up quickly and spike the ball to stop the clock. Instead, the field goal team dashed onto the field. Some offensive players ran off. But time expired before Brock Warren hurriedly tried to kick what would have been a 42-yard field goal.
"We don't have any timeouts and the clock is running," Wells said. "I wish the ball would have been [thrown] incomplete or [run] out of bounds. It's tough to get a field goal team on that quick — tough to get them on."
Said Myers: "I'm trying to clock it. Then I saw the field-goal team coming on the field …"
He didn't finish.
Another critical sequence in the game came with 5:35 left, with the scored tied, 21-21.
Utah State faced fourth-and-goal from the New Mexico one. Wells decided against a chip-shot field goal — perhaps because the Aggie defense had trouble stopping the Lobos in the second half and he felt three points would not be enough.
Instead, Wells called a straight handoff to Tonny Lindsey Jr., who was stopped one foot from the goal line.
"That was my call," Wells said. "It's less than one yard. Our guys felt comfortable doing it. If we didn't get it, it was going to [take] a 99 1/2 yard drive for them. We'll look back and wonder, but that's exactly what my mindset was: put it behind our hogs — our big guys. Unfortunately it didn't work."
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