CEDAR CITY, Utah (November 18, 2017) – The No. 23/23 Northern Arizona football team allowed 24 second quarter points and fumbled away a pair of kickoffs to allow No. 18/15 Southern Utah to walk away with a 48-20 victory and a share of the Big Sky Conference regular season championship on Saturday at Eccles Coliseum.
The loss drops the Lumberjacks to 7-4 overall and 6-2 in Big Sky action, while Southern Utah improves to 9-2 and 7-1 in the conference.
NAU quarterback
Case Cookus finished with 246 passing yards and completed 23-of-44 attempts.
Cory Young paced the Lumberjacks on the ground with 99 yards on 14 carries and a touchdown. Senior receiver
Elijah Marks hauled in five passes for 86 yards. Northern Arizona finished with 379 yards of total offense in the loss.
Sophomore linebacker
Taylor Powell posted 11 tackles, including 2.5 tackles for loss and a sack to lead the Lumberjack defense.
The Thunderbirds' offense totaled 442 yards (238 rush, 204 pass) and was led by quarterback Tyler Patrick who finished 20-of-30 while compiling 238 yards. Patrick was also a threat on the ground as he recorded 31 yards and a pair of touchdowns as a runner.
Jay Green Jr. tallied a game-high 134 rushing yards on 25 carries for a 5.4 per carry average and posted three scores.
Southern Utah took the game's first lead at 3-0 on a 21-yard field goal by Manny Berz, which capped a 17-play, 74-yard drive that took 6:33 off the clock saw SUS's Patrick complete 7-of-10 passes for 66 yards.
Northern Arizona answered with a field goal of its own at the 4:53 mark of the opening quarter as sophomore
Griffin Roehler connected from 27 yards out to deadlock the scoreboard at 3-3. The drive was keyed by a 38-yard completion from Cookus to Marks.
Following an interception by
Khalil Dorsey, his third of the season, Roehler put another three points on the board for the Lumberjacks as he ripped a career-long 46-yard field goal to give NAU its first lead of the game at 6-3 with 1:13 remaining in the opener quarter.
Isaiah Diego-Williams ran back the ensuing kickoff 54 yards to set up a 41-yard field goal by SUS's Berz to tie the game for a second time at 6-6 with 13:48 remaining in the second.
NAU's Dorsey fumbled the following kickoff following a hit by Southern Utah's Alan Holsten and it was recovered by SSU's Logan Baker at the 'Jacks 15-yard line. Patrick punched it in for the score on a quarterback draw from two yards out for the game's first touchdown and a 13-6 edge for the Thunderbirds with 11:59 left in the second quarter.
The special team's miscues continued for NAU on the following kickoff as a squib kick bounced off the helmet of NAU upback
Tristen Vance and was recovered by the Thunderbirds. Two plays later Patrick sprinted 21 yards to the end zone for his second rushing score of the game and extended the SSU lead in the process to 20-6 at the 11:06 mark of the second.
Following a punt on the next NAU drive, Southern Utah rumbled 48 yards over 10 plays for another touchdown on a three-yard run by Green Jr. to open the Thunderbirds' lead to 27-6 with 5:22 left before halftime.
NAU trimmed the margin to 27-13 with 48 ticks before half on a one-yard burst by
Cory Young for his team-leading eighth rushing touchdown of the season. The 12-play, 75-yard scoring drive was keyed by a 31-yard completion from Cookus to Young as well as a 19-yard strike from to
Terrell Brown.
The Thunderbirds picked up right where they left off in the second half as Patrick hit Diego-Williams with a 46-yard strike to put SUS at the NAU 1-yard line and Green Jr. followed three plays later with a one-yard plunge for his second score of the day and up the Southern Utah advantage to 33-13 with 6:34 left in the third.
Diego-Williams added another score on an end-around run from four yards out to extend the lead to 41-13 with 1:16 left in the third.
Green Jr. added his third touchdown of the game, his team-leading 13
th rushing score of the season, on a 10-yard jaunt with 10:32 left in regulation to put the Thunderbirds up 48-13.
Cookus connected on a three-yard pass to
Matthew Kempton at the 6:41 mark of the fourth quarter for the 'Jacks lone points of the second half.
The Lumberjacks will find out their potential postseason fate on Sunday at 9 a.m. MST during the 2017 NCAA Division I Football Championship Selection Show which will be televised on ESPNU and the ESPN Watch App.
Postgame Notes – at Southern Utah
- Saturday's game marked the 21st all-time meeting between Northern Arizona and Southern Utah in the sport of football – following today's 48-20 setback, NAU leads the series 12-9.
- Saturday's loss marked NAU's fourth consecutive setback vs. Southern Utah as the Thunderbirds claimed the Hinton Burdick Trophy for the fourth consecutive season.
- The crowd of 10,842 marked a new record for Eccles Coliseum
- NAU kicker Griffin Roehler's 46-yard field goal in the first quarter marked a career long.
- Two special teams' turnovers by Northern Arizona resulted in 14 Southern Utah points.
- The 24 points allowed by NAU in the second quarter is the most it has allowed in any quarter this season.
- Junior Cory Young's second quarter touchdown run marked his team-leading eighth of the season.
