LOGAN — Losing, no matter how many times it happens, always stings.
Utah State's football team, which has come up with plenty of ways to lose games over the past few years, found a new one Saturday against Fresno State. And this one, a 30-28 heartbreaker, packed a special punch to the gut.
After marching 65 yards for a go-ahead touchdown with just 38 seconds remaining, Utah State saw the Bulldogs' kicker drill a school-record, 58-yard game-winner as time expired to snatch a win away from the victory-starved Aggies.
This was the same guy who had earlier missed a 22-yard chip shot and missed a pair of game-saving field goals three weeks earlier in a loss to Hawaii.
"It's definitely harder to swallow," USU senior linebacker Jake Hutton said of losing a close one instead of getting blown out. "Ones like these are probably the hardest."
Kevin Goessling's kick let the air out of a crowd that was just waiting for a reason to exhale and celebrate.
"This is a tough, hard loss for this football team to take," USU coach Brent Guy said. "Football gives us lots of lessons in life, and that one was just a tough one to swallow."
Utah State came out hungry. After three straight losses — none closer than the 34-14 loss to BYU three weeks earlier — the Aggies needed to prove something to themselves and the 14,071 fans who came out for the homecoming game.
Fresno State (5-2 overall, 2-1 WAC) seemed to be the perfect opponent for such a goal despite the Bulldogs being the preseason favorite to win the conference. After all, it had been 19 years since FSU had won in Romney Stadium, and the 'Dogs' last visit to Logan (2006) resulted in a 13-12 win that was USU's only victory of that season.
With less than a minute to play on Saturday, it looked like the Aggies just might get their second win of this season.
Guy said the Aggies (1-7, 1-3 WAC) executed their game plan well but couldn't come up with one final play when they needed one most.
"I hope that we proved to ourselves today," he said, "that we can be a good football team someday. ... My basic talk to the team was (FSU) made one more play to win the game. We made a lot of plays ourselves, but they just made one more."
After taking the lead, the Aggies hoped to prevent Fresno State — which had burned all of its timeouts on USU's final drive — from moving inside field-goal range. After the kickoff, the Bulldogs worked the sidelines while USU tried to keep the ball inbounds. But FSU quarterback Tom Backstader connected on three of four passes and overcame a penalty to get the ball to the USU 41 with three seconds left on the clock.
The Aggies called a timeout hoping to ice the jittery kicker, but Goessling's kick was true — splitting the uprights with plenty of distance to spare.
"It's not about style points," said FSU coach Pat Hill, happy to get out of Romney Stadium with his first-ever win in Logan. "It's about wins, and we're 5-2."
Utah State shook things up with a new starter at running back (true freshman Marquis Butler) and an entirely new starting offensive line (which had four freshmen and a junior) and moved the ball remarkably well.
With 399 yards of total offense — 206 on the ground, 193 in the air — the Aggies were never out of the game and scored a pair of fourth-quarter touchdowns to take the lead. But even though the USU defense kept the Bulldogs out of the red zone for the final 27 minutes of the contest, Goessling connected on three field goals to save Fresno State.
"I say kickers save games," Goessling said, "they don't win them."
The Aggies, however, might beg to differ.
Guy, who at times during the postgame press conference appeared to be fighting back the emotions of losing something precious that was in his grasp, said he didn't care if it was a blowout or a nail-biter.
"It's the same pain as losing it the other way," he said. "I just hoped we learned a lesson."
E-mail: jeborn@desnews.com