Questions answered: Mike Bobo on why he didn't let Nevada score late

The inaugural NOVA Home Loans Arizona Bowl was a dandy, a fun one until the finish, with the Nevada Wolf Pack edging out the Colorado State Rams 28-23 thanks to a last-minute drive and touchdown.

With the Rams down nine and 3:55 to play in the third quarter, they marched down field using a mainly run-first attack, grinding on the Nevada defense and wearing them down. Eventually, Jasen Oden ran the ball over the goal line and Colorado State was suddenly within two points of the Wolf Pack. More than a quarter later, the Rams went ahead when Wyatt Bryan booted home a 38-yard field goal for the 23-22 lead.

With only 3:40 to play, it seemed like Colorado State would assuredly win the contest and take home the first Arizona Bowl win. But, not so fast.

The Wolf Pack ran like wild — catching the Rams off guard — and pushed themselves quickly into scoring position.

“They came out with something different,” Kevin Pierre-Louis said. “We thought they were going to throw the ball because they needed to get down there. But, they started running it…It more shocked us how quick they went down there and scored.”

Nevada moved the ball quickly indeed; they took only four plays to go 52 yards and were down to the Colorado State 20 yard line with 2:05 to play. Some thought they should let the Wolf Pack score. Head coach Mike Bobo, though, thought otherwise.

“I just have a hard time letting someone score when you have the lead,” Bobo explained after the bowl loss.

While some may not, I side with Bobo. Why let a team walk into the end zone when your team could force a fumble, block a kick or even simply allow the other team to make a mistake in the kicking game? A botched snap, a bad hold, a mis-kick; these are all possibilities, too.

What really burned Bobo and the Rams was their lack of all three timeouts. With around 10 minutes to play in the game, the offense was forced to call a timeout on a crucial 3rd and 11. The result of the next play was an incomplete pass and a punt on fourth down.

To have all three timeouts at that key juncture would have meant saving more time on the clock.

How it all ended up, though, was the game’s MVP James Butler pushing his way into the end zone and pushing Nevada up 28-23.

So, with 58 seconds to play, the Rams had to go 88 yards for a touchdown to win. Or lose the game.

On the drive, quarterback Nick Stevens came alive. He hit Jordon Vaden for 15 yards, then Steven Walker for 17 and after an incompletion, found Rashard Higgins for another six yards. After an offsides penalty by the Wolf Pack, CSU had only 45 yards to go to a win, Stevens found Dalyn Dawkins and then Walker again, but they were both in the middle of the playing field.

Luckily, in college, the clock stops for a timeout, which is why Bobo didn’t have his team spike the ball to stop the clock. He explains, here:

Finally, Vaden caught a pass near the sideline, and instead of going out of bounds to stop the clock — with what would have been 15 seconds — he turned upfield and was tackled in bounds.

As those final, precious seconds ticked off the clock, it brought the end of the game, the end of Colorado State’s season.

Simply, this is Bobo’s team and he knows what he’s doing. No, Colorado State didn’t win the game, but they were oh-so-close once again.

It shows how far they’ve come in such a short time — this being Bobo’s first season as head coach — and is a sign that with a little more time, they’ll be able to execute extremely difficult, one-minute drives.

And maybe, they’ll be able to win close games like tonight in the near future.