The Rams came back from their first loss of the season in a big way with a come from behind double overtime victory against Utah State. The Aggies went for the two point conversion on the one yard line after their second overtime touchdown, Mike Orakpo made the big stop to seal the victory for the Rams. The Rams scored the tying touchdown and two point conversion with less then a minute to play after trailing the whole game. Crockett Gillmore and Chris Nwoke were the go to guys scoring all the Rams touchdowns and two point conversions. Ben Deline nailed all his FG and PATs which proved to be a factor in winning. The Rams had not won consecutive road games since 2003 when they beat California and then BYU five weeks later.
The Utah St Aggies didn't play their best game with 4 turnovers. The Aggies out gained the Rams 367-232 in total yards, but two fumbled punts proved to be their undoing. The Aggies put up another hefty 281 rushing yards for the game. The Rams managed 124 yards on the ground, but a weak 2.6 yards per carry. Watching the game you got the feeling it was more the Aggies losing then the Rams winning. Which is true, but the Rams still took advantage of the mistakes and made the plays that the Aggies didn't.
The Rams offense came up big when it needed scoring touchdowns to tie the game, along with a two point conversion, and two touchdowns in overtime. The defense bent but didn't break coming up with two forced fumbles and three sacks. Nordly Capi had a tackle for a loss on the quarterback, it wasn't recorded as a sack on some stat sheets. The CSURams.com webpage has him getting a sack for number seven on the year, leading the nation. The big play was Orakpo's tackle on Robert Turbin on the two point attempt from the one yard line after a penalty on Utah State's first attempt. Turbin had burnt the Rams for 114 yards and four touchdowns.
The Rams are now half way to a bowl game at 3-1 and sit atop the Mountain West with TCU for the moment. Forget the Utah St mistakes, the Rams made plays when they needed to and are sitting pretty at 3-1 instead of 2-2 on a losing streak. This was the biggest win since 2009 when they beat CU at Folsum Field. A Steve Fairchild twitter summed it up best, "What a game! I'm so happy for the kids because they kept believing. It's such a fun team to coach, especially when they believe." The Rams of old seem to give up. The Rams kept fighting in Logan, Utah last night and ruined a homecoming game while keeping their bowl dreams alive. It was a good night to be a CSU Ram.
Next week the Rams get San Jose State at home. The Rams get a bye week before they take on the possibly the highest ranked team to ever visit Fort Collins when Boise State rolls in on Oct 15th.
If you got time to waste check out the replay on ESPN. At worst check out overtime cause it was very exciting. As noted in the game thread it was the worst camera work I have ever seen, ever. It looks like some guy was taping it under his jacket then made 12 copies of copies and then put it to broadcast.