Lauren RabainoUC Davis knew that Jonathan Dally could beat teams with his arm. Cal Poly’s senior quarterback has been doing it all year.
The Aggies may not have anticipated he could also beat them with his feet.
Dally, the highest-rated passer in the Football Championship Subdivision (formerly Division I-AA), rushed for a season-high 173 yards and a touchdown on 22 carries in the No. 3 Mustangs’ 51-28 win over UC Davis in the Golden Horseshoe Classic on Saturday night at Alex G. Spanos Stadium.
“The ball is in my hands every play,” Dally said. “I knew I had to step it up.”
With the win, Cal Poly (8-1, 3-0) won not only the Golden Horseshoe but also captured the Great West Conference championship and likely an at-large playoff berth.
“It felt great, the whole season,” Dally said. “I know it’s not over yet, but it’s starting to pay off. The locker room was all pumped up.”
Early on, however, all was not rosy for Cal Poly, as the Aggies (5-6, 2-1) came out firing on all cylinders on their opening possession, capping a six-play, 81-yard drive with a spectacular one-handed, 5-yard touchdown reception by Brandon Rice.
On the first play following a Cal Poly three-and-out, safety Greg Francis recovered a fumble by Aggies receiver Chris Miller and returned it to the UC Davis 26-yard line. Three plays later, Dally called his own number on an option run busting straight up the middle for a 14-yard touchdown to tie the game.
But the Aggies came right back on an 18-yard touchdown reception from quarterback Greg Denham to tight end Brad Bispo to take a 14-7 lead with 5:55 remaining in the opening quarter.
Dally again showed off his own running prowess on the ensuing possession.
Just moments after a 29-yard run, on third-and-seven, Dally deftly evaded pass rushers and scrambled for a first down to keep the drive alive inside the red zone.
Two plays later, junior running back Jono Grayson capped the 12-play, 80-yard drive with a 7-yard touchdown run knotting the game 14-14.
The Mustangs began asserting themselves in the second quarter after forcing a three-and-out on the next UC Davis drive. Senior receiver Ramses Barden caught a 3-yard touchdown pass, giving him a touchdown reception in 18 consecutive games, breaking Jerry Rice’s all-time FCS record of 17.
“The record will mean a lot more a few years from now,” said Dally, who threw all of the touchdown passes during the record-breaking span. “I went over and told him congratulations and he told me congratulations. It’s been fun. The ride’s been great, but it’s not over.”
After a Cal Poly missed field goal, a 46-yard pass to Brandon Rice put the Aggies in scoring position. On the next play the combination hooked up again on a 16-yard strike to tie the game with just 12 seconds left in the first half.
Ryan Mole opened the second half with a 45-yard touchdown run. The extra point was blocked, leaving the Mustangs with a 27-21 advantage.
The Mustangs started to put pressure on Denham, who had 332 yards passing, but only 98 in the second half.
Denham was pressured into an attempted throwaway that was intercepted by end Gavin Cooper and returned to the Aggies 16-yard line. Four plays later, the Mustangs capitalized on the turnover as Barden made his second touchdown catch of the game, a 2-yarder in the left corner of the end zone.
Cal Poly head coach Rich Ellerson said that the team’s halftime speech centered more on mental adjustments than specific game-planning.
“I thought the guys made a great emotional adjustment at halftime, as well as some real technical things that I thought really affected the second half,” he said.
Junior safety David Fullerton agreed that with so much at stake, the Mustangs needed to make an emotional adjustment.
“We’ve got too much on the line – playing for a conference championship,” Fullerton said. “We came out (in the second half) and we were a totally different defense.”
The defense was aided by a resurgent pass rush that recorded two sacks and multiple hurries in the second half.
“They did a lot better job of getting pressure on the quarterback,” Fullerton said. “(Denham) made some bad throws and that did a lot for us.”
Cal Poly put the game out of reach midway through the third quarter as sophomore fullback Jordan Yocum ran straight up the middle for 43 yards. After a 29-yard field goal was taken off the board due to a UC Davis personal foul, Yocum finished the drive with a 6-yard touchdown run to give the Mustangs a commanding 41-21 lead.
The Aggies tried to claw their way back into the game on a 28-yard touchdown pass to Rice, his third of the night, to cut the lead to 41-28.
But the Mustangs’ pressure got to Denham again. After hurrying a throw to avoid being sacked, Denham’s errant pass was tipped and intercepted by Fullerton, who returned it 38 yards for a touchdown to complete the scoring.
“It was a ball that got tipped right into my hands,” Fullerton said. “It was open right to the end zone.”
Ellerson acknowledged that once the Aggies fell behind, it allowed his defense to change its play calling.
“Defensively, when they got a little behind, you pin your ears back a little bit,” Ellerson said. “You’re going to call it a little more aggressively.”
Cal Poly will face its toughest test of the season at Wisconsin (6-5, 3-5 Big Ten Conference) on Saturday at Camp Randall Stadium, which averaged attendances of more than 80,000 last season.
“It’s kind of a once-in-a-lifetime experience for us to go into an environment like Camp Randall,” Ellerson said. “It’s a chance to test yourself as an athlete. It’s an uphill fight, obviously, but we do some stuff that’s goofy enough, maybe we’ll give them some problems.”