BROOKLINE – Fifth-ranked Georgia Southern sat in an unlikely situation for any football team so deep into a game Saturday at Parsons Field. The Eagles faced fourth down, with 1:05 left on the clock, and trailed Northeastern 38-31 – despite having completed just two passes for 31 yards.
And one of those completions had come just minutes before when starting quarterback Jayson Foster threw a 27-yard pass in another fourth down situation to keep the drive alive.
But instead of continuing to run the ball – the only thing they had been able to do with any success (an astronomical 474 rushing yards for the game) – the Eagles put in backup quarterback Darius Smiley, who promptly tossed a 15-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Rob McCutcheon to tie the game at 38, catching most of the 5,354 in attendance off guard and sending the game into overtime.
And at that, the tide had shifted. Northeastern lost the toss in overtime and GSU chose to kick off. The Huskies set up a 39-yard field goal attempt for senior kicker Miro Kesic, but he misfired. The Eagles promptly ran the ball down the Huskies’ throats, finally kicking a 24-yard field goal to win, 41-38.
“It’s bitter to bite,” said Huskies head coach Rocky Hager after the game. “It’s just tough to swallow when you’ve had your opportunities. You’ve got to give Georgia Southern some credit. Their belief in their tradition had a bit of a difference when it came down to crunch time in the fourth quarter.”
The back-and-forth struggle dropped the Huskies to 0-1. GSU never led in regulation, but the teams were tied five times.
“Five times,” said Eagles head coach Mike Sewak in wonderment. “Usually our defense plays better than that.”
After the Eagles tied the game for the fourth time with less than eight minutes remaining, it began to seem like the momentum had already shifted in their favor.
But before GSU could celebrate the tie, Northeastern running back Alex Broomfield had already caught the following kickoff en route to a 94-yard return. On the way, his shoe popped off at midfield, but that didn’t keep Broomfield from the end zone. It was sweet redemption for the Husky kick returner. In the third frame, on a kickoff following a Jermaine Austin 60-yard rushing touchdown, Broomfield caught the ball and took a knee, believing he was in the end zone. Instead, he looked down in surprise to find himself on the three-yard line, subjecting his team to awful field position.
“[The kickoff touchdown] made me feel a whole lot better,” Broomfield said. “I had a chance to make it up for my teammates. I did it the best way I could that next time by being in the end zone.”
The Huskies’ effort to pull an upset took a hit when the Eagles managed to convert their second fourth down opportunity of the game to tie it at 38.
“I have to be honest, it was a little bit of an unnerving evening for me,” Hager said. “But our guys lined up and did some very nice things for us. In particular, the kickoff return.
“I think you saw one of the best I-AA football games you could see on an opening day game. Two very good football teams. Two football teams that played very hard, and with a great deal of class. Our team is better off on opening day 2005 as a football team than we were after opening day 2004. [And that is] because we chose to play somebody that is a good opponent and identifies the things that we need to work on to have an opportunity to win games later on in the season.”
The game began in a shootout with both teams looking unstoppable on offense, scoring every time they got the ball. Speedy wide receiver Pat Graham highlighted two of those drives with touchdown catches.
“I’m not surprised with how myself or the offense played,” Graham said. “We knew as a team we could come in and compete with [the Eagles]. We’re out here on a mission to get respect. We showed today, I think, that we can play with any team in the country.”
Redshirt freshman quarterback Anthony Orio also downplayed how impressive his team looked.
“We got into a rhythm, passing and running the ball,” Orio said. “I never thought of this as a shootout, we were scoring a lot of points. Our offense was clicking well, and theirs was too.”
Austin, the GSU tailback, dominated the Husky defense with two runs of at least 47 yards, including a 60-yard TD. He finished one yard shy of 200 on the afternoon, averaging 9.9 yards per carry.
Although Foster didn’t toss the ball well, he notched a career-high 142 yards rushing and two touchdowns himself, which more than made up for his struggles passing the ball.
