Second-half collapse ends Spartans’ season.
SJSU can’t contain McNichols after leading at halftime
SAN JOSE — A bowl game and Boise State running back Jeremy McNichols were within San Jose State’s grasp on Friday afternoon. And suddenly, both were gone.
McNichols eluded the Spartans defense three times for touchdowns in the second half and the Broncos ended SJSU’s hopes of becoming bowl eligible with a 40-23 victory in front of an announced crowd of 15,770 on a chilly day at Spartan Stadium.
“Very disappointing,” quarterback Kenny Potter said of coming up one victory shy of getting enough wins to possibly end a postseason drought that dates to 2012. “That was our goal coming in. In the second half, we kind of fell apart.”
The Spartans (5-7, 4-4 Mountain West) led 10-9 at halftime against a program they’ve never beaten. But Boise (8-4, 5-3) scored 31 points and racked up 329 second-half yards to improve to 12-0 all-time in the series.
“To make it such a close game early and let it slip is really disappointing,” senior defensive tackle Tony Popovich said. “It was definitely self-inflicted. We were in the right spots at the right times, and it was just missed tackles.”
The Spartans held McNichols to 27 rushing yards in the first half, then they seemingly couldn’t get him to the ground the rest of the afternoon.
He caught a 5-yard touchdown pass from freshman quarterback Brett Rypien with 2:51 left in the third quarter, capping a 97yard scoring drive and putting Boise in front 16-10.
Then, less than a minute into the fourth quarter, McNichols bounced off the pile at the line of scrimmage and raced 88 yards to the end zone for the longest run in Boise history for a 23-10 lead.
“We’ve got to be able to wrap them up and put them on their back,” said SJSU coach Ron Caragher, without a bowl game in his three seasons. “That’s where the game got away. I don’t think they did anything brilliant by any means.”
SJSU continued to battle, but the Broncos’ big plays kept coming. McNichols dashed 19 yards for a touchdown that made it 33-16, and Kelsey Young put an exclamation point on the victory with a 34-yard burst that made sure there would be no rally by the Spartans.
McNichols finished with a career-high 192 rushing yards. “He’s a really good runner,” Popovich said. “We were hitting him at the line of scrimmage, and he was just making plays.
Potter, who will return to lead the Spartans next season, completed 28 of 41 passes for a season-high 336 yards and threw three TD passes for the third week in a row. He connected with tight end Billy Freeman on a 35-yard scoring play to give the Spartans their first-half lead, then threw touchdowns of 13 yards to Hansell Wilson and 3 yards to Tim Crawley in the fourth quarter.
He also ran for 46 yards but was picked off twice in the second half after not throwing an interception in the previous four games.
Senior running back Tyler Ervin ripped off a 40yard gain the first time he touched the ball, then was held to just 12 more yards on his final 10 carries for his second-least productive game of the season.
Potter said Boise State didn’t gear its defensive specifically to stop Ervin, who entered the games with 1,417 rushing yards. “They just played better than us,” he said.
But Boise coach Bryan Harsin said Ervin was a priority. “We won that battle, and that’s exactly what we set out to do,” he said.
Ervin was more concerned with the big picture than his own numbers. Speaking for 18 seniors, he said, “Not being able to go to a bowl stings a little bit.”
The game might have been different had the Spartans taken advantage of scoring chances in the first half. They had plays of 42, 30 and 32 yards during their first three series, but came away with just one field goal.
“That was frustrating,” Caragher said. “We moved the ball up and down and only had three points to show for it. Maybe the halftime score could have been 17-9 or 24-9.”
Ervin finished his season with 1,469 rushing yards, second-most in school history behind Deonce Whitaker’s 1,577 in 2000. He totaled 2,410 all-purpose yards on the season, trailing only Sheldon Canley’s total of 2,513 in 1989.
Sophomore safety Maurice McKnight had a career-best 16 tackles for the Spartans.