The lights. The cameras. The action. It was all there before the fourth-largest crowd ever in Romney Stadium, 23,095, Saturday night. A superb Aggie defense and exciting offensive drive near the end of the game kept the "Light It Up" crowd standing under the new lamps despite a hard-driving rain that probably worked in favor of Baylor, a running team.
The Aggie lead was there, too, but Utah State left Baylor too much time after retaking the advantage, and the Bears, who beat Fresno State in much the same last-second manor two weeks ago, did it to the Aggies, who are all too accustomed to last-minute defeats.Baylor won 28-24.
"I don't know whether I'll live long enough to turn 45 years old," said first-year Baylor coach Chuck Reedy. "These fourth-quarter games are getting to me. It was quite a game against a great football team."
"We've just got to find a way to win these close ones," said Aggie coach Charlie Weatherbie, who sent his team out several minutes early after intermission, hoping to avoid the problem of a slow start in the second half that USU had suffered last week. It worked, but it still wasn't the answer to winning a close game. Weatherbie is sure that, too, is coming sometime this season.
Said USU defensive leader Jermaine Younger, a linebacker, "The defense played good but not well enough to win. We play hard, we stay in the game; we've got to learn to get over the top in crunch time. It's not the offense; if we stop them, they don't score."
"I'm very disappointed in my play, in not playing the full 60 minutes," said quarterback Anthony Calvillo, intercepted three times but 27-for-49 for 315 yards and a TD.
After USU took a 24-21 lead on a 38-yard touchdown reception by Mike Lee and a 13-yard two-point PAT conversion pass with 3:15 left, Baylor quarterback J.J. Joe directed an 80-yard scoring drive that ended with Brandell Jackson's second score of the game on 1-yard fourth-down run with :11 left.
On the crucial play, against a USU defense that had made a successful goal-line stand in the first half, Joe rolled right and pitched to Jackson, who stepped out of a shoestring-tackle attempt by Aggie cornerback Efrem Haymore, the only man he had to beat.
"We just missed a tackle," said Weatherbie. "It wasn't lack of effort. They found a way to win."
The big play of the drive was a third-down 43-yard pass from Joe to second-string split end Pearce Pegross. That put Baylor on the Aggie 27-yard line.
The Aggies lost by two points to Utah last week and missed winning the Big West title by two losses - by a total of three points - last year. This was the fourth time in 11/4 seasons USU tumbled by four points or less.
Utah State's first touchdown of the game came at 5:18 of the third quarter, a 3-yard run by James Dye. Quarterback Anthony Calvillo had converted a long third-down play with a 17-yard pass to Cotie McMahon and added a 35-yard pass on the next play to Lee. That put USU up 16-7.
But Joe brought Baylor back with a 53-yard third-and-10 pass that set up a 4-yard Jackson TD with :01 left in the third period.
A Calvillo pass intercepted in the end zone started the Aggies' fall. Baylor didn't convert the drive for a score, but the Aggies didn't move offensively on their next try, and Baylor took a 21-16 lead with 4:24 left in the game on an 11-yard run by Kalief Muhammad.
The Aggies have had another problem all season: Offensively they move well until they get to the 20 or so, then stall and are lucky to get field goals. They did it twice more in the first half and it spilled over into a drive early in the second half. Despite dominating for the first 25 minutes of the first half, they had only two Nate Morreale field goals to show for it. Despite a drive to the Baylor 22 on their first possession of the second half, they kicked another field goal for a 9-7 lead.
A couple things turned Baylor's way in the last four minutes of the first half, starting with Andrew Swasey's interception of Calvillo and 25-yard return to the Aggie 22.
On the drive prior to that, the Bears went to a triple-I stack offensive set that finally got them moving, but the Aggies made a tremendous goal-line stand as Baylor tried four times from the 8-yard line and in and got only to the 1. It was the first time all season the Bears had been halted when they had reached the so-called red zone (20 yards and in - the place that baffles the Aggies).