Anyone who felt the Utah Blaze had hit its low point when it was outscored by 33 points in the first half at Kansas City a week ago was sorely mistaken.
Losing at home to the lowly Las Vegas Gladiators on a last-second field goal, 55-54, is worse.
Much worse.
"That's just embarrassing," said Blaze coach Danny White.
Las Vegas entered the game on a nine-game losing streak and with an AFL-worst 1-10 record. The Gladiators' roster is filled with low cost rookies. Their coaching staff has already been fired, although they are finishing out the rest of this lost season. They played an inexperienced quarterback making his first start of the season.
Yet they rallied from 21-points down to beat the Blaze in front of 14,305 fans at EnergySolutions Arena.
"Wow," said Blaze lineman Hans Olsen, shaking his head after his team dropped to 5-7 with its fifth consecutive loss. "That might be one of the most disappointing losses in my entire football career. I don't know how to explain that loss. I don't know where things went wrong."
While it should have never come to this, one problem the Blaze had was with the hometown scoreboard operator. Utah's Steve Videtich kicked a 17-yard field goal with 36 seconds left to play to give the Blaze a 53-51 lead. Las Vegas got the ball and moved it to the Utah 7-yard line with 7.1 seconds left. Gladiators quarterback Nick Rolovich then went back to pass, rolled out to his left to buy some time and threw into the end zone where there was a battle for the ball and it eventually fell incomplete. The Blaze felt the clock could have easily expired on the play — which would have given Utah the victory.
Instead, the clock was stopped with under a second to play — .9 on the clock to be exact. Las Vegas kicker Steve Azar then split the uprights for the game-winning field goal on the final play.
"How do they stop (the clock) with .9 seconds left?" Olsen said. "That's a tough pill to swallow."
The Blaze actually got off to a fast start, jumping out to a 21-0 lead at the end of the first quarter thanks to three touchdown passes by quarterback Joe Germaine, two of which went to Siaha Burley.
Las Vegas, aided by a Germaine interception, climbed back into the game in the second quarter with three TD passes from Nick Rolovich to ex-Ute receiver Travis LaTendresse. Utah still led by two scores, 35-21, at the halftime break, however.
The Gladiators continued to cut into the margin in the third quarter, outscoring the Blaze 14-7.
"We played a little bit too conservative in the third quarter," Blaze receiver Tom Pace said. "We just lost it in the end. It's disappointing."
Utah still led 42-35 entering the fourth quarter when the Gladiators came up with the play of the game. After holding the Blaze deep in their own territory, Utah was attempting a field goal out of its own end zone — as more of a punt than an actual field-goal attempt. But the kick was blocked for a Las Vegas safety, cutting the gap to 42-37.
The Blaze then had to kick the ball off after the safety and the Gladiators scored on a 32-yard pass to Marlion Jackson — giving Las Vegas its first lead of the game at 44-42 early in the fourth quarter.
From there, both teams scored one more touchdown and one field goal.
"We're obviously not a very good football team," White said. "We played at their level all night."
Germaine finished with 322 yards and six touchdowns through the air and one running score. Pace and Burley each caught 11 passes with three scores each.
The Gladiators were led by Rolovich's 28-of-42 passing for 329 yards and seven scores. LaTendresse had nine catches for 117 yards and four scores, while Thabiti Davis caught 12 passes for 114 yards and two TDs for the 2-10 Gladiators.
White strongly hinted that there will be some roster moves on the horizon.
"We have some hard decisions to make," the veteran coach said.
Utah will be back in action next Friday night when they travel to Florida to face the Orlando Predators. The next Blaze home game is June 4 when they host the Colorado Crush in an ESPN2-televised Monday night game.
BLAZE BRIEFS: Utah's Manaia Brown, the former BYU lineman, left the game in the first quarter with a sprained knee and didn't return to action. ... It wasn't the first time Rolovich had a huge game against a team from Utah. He was Hawaii's quarterback in 2001 when he ended BYU's undefeated season on the final game of the regular season by passing for 543 yards and eight touchdowns in a 72-45 win. ... LaTendresse was named the offensive player of the game ... Utah's defense pitched its first shutout first quarter of the season.
E-mail: lojo@desnews.com