After a back and forth first half UC Davis finally got the separation it desired so greatly with some no huddle mastery, putting together two touchdown drives in eight minutes of possession to jump out to a 14-point lead.
Cal Poly had been staring down No. 7 UC Davis throughout three quarters, but Caiden Pinnick finally made the Aggies offense look as advertised. A scrappy 20-20 rivalry game at Mustang Memorial field quickly turned into 34-20 with time not on the Mustangs side.
READ MORE: Cal Poly Football falls short of reclaiming Golden Horseshoe trophy in loss to UC Davis
Cal Poly needed to score, fast. But two quick incompletions and a five-yard scramble left the Mustangs staring down a fourth and five with just under six minutes to play. What to do, what to do?
In the end after some delay, Cal Poly sent out the punt team to the shock of both commentators on ESPN and to the dismay of some of the home crowd.
The Mustangs did have all three of their timeouts, and approaching a fourth and medium deep in their own territory is not the greatest situation to find yourself in.
After the game head coach Paul Wulff gave a great reason as to why you punt it away.
“We had timeouts and felt if we gave the ball up on our own 30 they have an opportunity to kick a field goal at minimum,” Wulff said. “That puts them up three scores and at that point the game would be over.”
The worry of going down three scores is reasonable, at that point the game is absolutely over barring chicanery. With timeouts stop-score-stop-score is a feasible reality.
But with six minutes to play you are not guaranteed the ball back twice, heck you are not guaranteed to even get the ball back again at all. Later that Saturday, Nevada punted it away with all their timeouts and over eight minutes left. They never possessed it again.
The Cal Poly offense averaged 4.9 yards per play, which would have been just inches short but surely not an impossible task for the offense. There was so little time left in the game, being down three possessions or two possessions without the ball is practically the same thing. ESPN analytics had a 99.5% chance of UC Davis winning after punting it away, why not roll the dice?
Where the chips fell
But they did not go for it, and to the credit of Wulff the defense got a three and out with only one timeout having to be used.
Well at least it should have been, an incredulous roughing the passer call in favor of UC Davis gave them 15 yards and a fresh set of downs and Wulff’s rightful reaction earned another 15-yard flag.
If you have access to the broadcast of the game, I implore you to watch it. It was not a late hit or even a solid hit on the quarterback. If that is going to be called roughing the passer we might as well make quarterbacks wear red pennies and make it two-hand touch behind the line of scrimmage.
UC Davis did end up punting it back, and Bo Kelly ended up the recipient of a touchdown pass after the two-minute timeout to bring the deficit to seven. It was too little too late, the Mustangs could not recover the onside kick and the Aggies kneeled it down.
After knocking off No. 21 Sacramento State, Cal Poly was running with house money against UC Davis. A team that the Mustangs haven’t beaten since October 2016. Would going for it have been successful or even changed the result of the game? Maybe not, but looking back at it now it feels like a missed opportunity.
This story was updated to reflect Mustang News’ graph style guide.
