LARAMIE, Wyo. — There would be no Boise Bounce in the Battle for the Bronze Boot.
Trailing by nine points and driving, momentum finally at Colorado State’s collective backs, any good mojo went kabloeey on one crazy snap. Rams quarterback Brayden Fowler-Nicolosi, who had driven the visitors to the Wyoming 24 with 3:24 left, misplayed a knuckleball from center Jacob Gardner and let it squirt five yards past him.
Pokes defensive end Tyce Westland beat everybody to the loose ball and ran it back 61 yards the other way before being taken down at the CSU 3.
The Rams held the hosts on four downs, but enough time came off the clock that the Pokes hung on to win a CSU heartbreaker in the Border War, 24-15.
The Cowboys (6-3, 3-2 Mountain West) have won three straight Boot games and seven of the last eight showdowns between the two longtime rivals.
CSU (3-6, 1-4 Mountain West) must win out — two of its remaining three games are at home, and the regular-season finale is at Hawaii on Nov. 24 — to reach six victories on the season.
“(It was a) disappointing second half (for) a second week in a row,” Rams coach Jay Norvell said after falling to 0-3 in rivalry games this season and 0-5 over his first two campaigns in Fort Collins. “And I told the kids, I totally take responsibility for us not executing as well as we needed to.”
The fumbled snap was the third second-half turnover for Fowler-Nicolosi, and each hit the Rams’ mojo straight in the solar plexus.
On a chilly November game on the Plains in which possessions figured to be sparse and critical, the first turnover of evening landed midway through the third quarter.
With 8:13 left in the third quarter of a game Wyoming led 10-7, the Rams signal-caller dropped back on third down at the CSU 40 with two Cowboys rushers closing in. The Texan appeared to fire blindly across the middle of the field in the direction of Dallin Holker, who was blanketed at the time. Pokes linebacker Easton Gibbs read the flailing throw, intercepted it and returned the rock to the CSU 38.
The hosts scored six plays later when Wyoming quarterback Andrew Peasley found Ayir Asante in the upper right back of the end zone with 5:53 left in the stanza, extending the Pokes’ lead to 16-7 before the extra point.
The second came not long after. And stung the Rams even more.
On the third play of CSU’s ensuing drive, Fowler again looked for Holker on first-and-10 from the Rams 40. But whatever window there was closed quickly. Yet again, a Pokes linebacker made the Rams quarterback pay for going over the middle, as Wyoming’s Shea Suiaunoa picked it off and gave the hosts another crack with the ball at the CSU 46.
Again, the Pokes didn’t mess around with a short field. Wyoming capped a eight-play drive on a 6-yard Sam Scott TD run that pushed the cushion to 23-7 with 1:08 left in the third quarter.
“We were in fighting distance, just like a week ago (against Air Force),” Norvell reflected. “And a couple of mistakes early in the third quarter put us in the hole. And we can’t make them. And so I take the responsibility for that.”
Trailing 24-7, the Rams turned the tables at the start of the fourth stanza when CSU corner Dom Jones stymied a Wyoming drive by intercepting a Peasley pass and taking it to the Pokes’ 23.
The offense took advantage of the charity, chugging 38 yards on three played in just 92 seconds, as Fowler-Nicolosi’s 9-yard touchdown toss got CSU to within 24-13 with 11:07 left in the game. Coach Jay Norvell brought out the razzle dazzle for the 2-point conversion attempt, with wideout Tory Horton running the “Philly Special” and finding his QB in the end zone on a wide-receiver pass that sliced the lead to nine points late.
Some timely Rams defensive stops — and conservative Craig Bohl calls — kept the game closer early than the yardage count would’ve dictated. Of Wyoming’s first six possessions, two ended on long missed field goals, a 55-yarder early in the second quarter that fell well short, and a 52-yarder early in the third quarter that veered wide right.
CSU’s defense struggled most of the evening to contain Peasley’s legs more than his arm. The Utah State transfer took advantage of rollouts and congestion in the pocket to turn scrambles into 49 net rushing yards on 11 carries for the evening.
The Rams got a scare when star wideout Tory Horton appeared to roll his ankle while crouching for a pass near the home sideline with 14:24 to go until halftime. The CSU star stayed down for several minutes but walked away under his own power, eventually. He didn’t return for the first play of the Rams’ next offensive series.
Yet CSU found its first semblance of rhythm without him. Down 10-0, the Rams took their second drive of the second quarter 62 yards the other way on just seven plays, capping a 2:40 drive on an 18-yard scoring rainbow from Fowler-Nicolosi to Louis Brown IV to get the visitors on the board and cut the host’s lead to three after the extra point.
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