Cal Poly football gets first Big Sky win of the season, 24-17 over Northern Colorado
For weeks, the Mustangs have talked about how they needed to come out with more confidence to win games.
In their best offensive showing of the season, in which the team accumulated 508 yards to Northern Colorado’s 260, Cal Poly got its first Big Sky win of the season, 24-17 over Northern Colorado on Saturday.
Both the ground and passing games clicked for the Mustangs on Saturday.
The team put up a season-high in rushing yards with 175, while quarterback Sam Huard made history by throwing for 31 completions, second all-time in Cal Poly history.
If it wasn’t for the Mustangs trying to run out the clock in the fourth quarter, Huard would’ve had a chance to surpass Seth Burford’s record of 34 completions in a game in 2000.
It’s a sign of how drastically the program has changed since going from the triple-option offense to the Air Raid scheme.
Senior running back Mark Biggins set his own career-high in rushing yards with 77 yards on 15 attempts and a touchdown.
“This game means the world,” Biggins said after his performance. “I try to tell myself before every game you try to treat every play like it’s your last.”
Biggins has experienced firsthand missing time on the field. The now redshirt senior has dealt with multiple injuries that cost him seasons.
As a team Biggins said the Mustangs played “tough, gritty” football.
How playing top FCS teams have prepared the Mustangs
After weeks of taking on some of the strongest teams in all of FCS from No. 2 Montana State to No. 8 Idaho to No. 23 UC Davis, head coach Paul Wulff pointed out the Mustangs’ inconsistency tends to surface against the elite teams.
While the Mustangs didn’t play a perfect game against the Bears, the team bounced back from adversity, which is something they haven’t done in previous week.
The Bears scored immediately on the first drive, a common trend for the Mustangs’ defense. But after than, the Bears only managed to put up one more touchdown the rest of the day.
Even with Huard’s career day, he also threw two interceptions. But the offense still put up a season high in total yards and went on to close out the game.
The Mustangs cleanly put the game away after letting the last drive run off the last 8:12 remaining in the game.
Even if the score didn’t show it in previous weeks, the Mustangs believes they showed some positive indicators on both sides of the ball against Montana State and Idaho. Their glimpses of strong play carried over against Northern Colorado as the team now has won the most games in a season since 2019.
Biggins got Cal Poly on the board in the first quarter when he punched in a one-yard goal line run, celebrating the score by flipping the ball over the cross bar of the goal post as if he was doing a finger roll layup in basketball.
In the second quarter, sophomore Logan Booher added a touchdown reception for eight yards on a slant.
After a 36-yard field goal by Noah Serna, Bryson Allen finished the scoring with a game-winning 4-yard touchdown catch one minute into the fourth quarter.
Allen led the way for the receivers with seven catches for 90 yards, followed Giancarlo Woods with six receptions for 41 yards.
On defense, redshirt junior linebacker David Meyer led the team with eight tackles. Redshirt junior defensive back Xaiver Oliphant and sophomore defensive back Donovan Saunders had two pass breakups each.
Redshirt sophomore Elijiah Satcher had an interception in the second quarter.
The Mustangs (3-5, 1-4 in conference) have a bye next week, followed by two away games at Eastern Washington and Sacramento State before, before Cal Poly returns home to close out the season against Weber State.
