Ryan ChartrandSure, there was a chill sharp enough by California standards to force the shirtless, chest-painted fans in the Alex G. Spanos Stadium student section to cover up, and enough fog to make out-of-state observers assume San Luis Obispo was adjacent to either Los Angeles or San Francisco, not somewhere in between.
But despite elements that suggested otherwise, the Mustangs’ football game against Southern Utah on Saturday had enough scoreboard updating to feel like another sport.
It wasn’t just that David Fullerton’s school-record, 90-yard return of a fumble recovery in the fourth quarter mimicked a coast-to-coast steal and layup when he stepped in front of a pitch in a play of once-in-a-lifetime peculiarity.
By the time his touchdown turned a potentially two-possession question mark into a four-possession resolution, enough had already been done to remind of basketball.
Ramses Barden snatched first downs out of the sky like a power forward crashing the glass. Jonathan Dally scurried around the baseline looking to rifle outlet passes and routinely found Tre’dale Tolver on the fast break. Ryan Mole and Jono Grayson sliced through clusters of defenders stumbling next to their crossovers.
The final score was 69-41 – just four points fewer than the Cal Poly and Southern Utah men’s basketball teams combined to score at Mott Gym last season.
Although the Mustangs’ points were a single-game record for the program since it moved to the Division I level in 1994, other numbers may be more impressive.
Dally’s passing efficiency rating of 211.1 is the best in the Football Championship Subdivision (formerly Division I-AA), safely ahead of the runner-up 181.3 of Montana’s Cole Bergquist.
Barden’s 147.2 receiving yards per game are easily the most in all of Division I.
Dally and Barden shared The Sports Network’s National Offensive Player of the Week honors Monday.
Perhaps most tellingly, the Mustangs’ 44.8 points per game also lead the FCS.
That’s a far cry from an offense that in 2006 failed to score more than 18 points in seven of 11 opportunities.
“We’ll take (wins) any way we can get them,” said Cal Poly head coach Rich Ellerson, an architect of Arizona’s “desert swarm” defense in the early 1990s. “I can love winning 69-41, I can love winning 2-0. It’s an interesting year that way because it really is explosive.”
It’s a culmination-in-process for a triple-option scheme that returned 10 starters from last year’s unit that finished behind only national champion Appalachian State in total offense.
“It became pretty apparent to us that we had gelled pretty well,” Tolver said. “The only thing I felt could increase our chemistry was experience. Entering the season with a group of guys already accustomed to what we do, anything was possible.”
Tolver, who caught six passes for 106 yards and two scores Saturday, is one of seven Mustangs who’ve amassed at least 200 all-purpose yards this year.
“I think we have a very unique collection of individuals,” Tolver said. “We all contrast and complement each other. We’ve got special players at every position.”
Even without senior running back James Noble – the third-leading rusher in program history who’s recovering from surgery on a broken left hand that’s sidelined him for two straight games – the Mustangs have rushed for a combined 477 yards over that span.
“We’re not trying to force the ball into anybody’s hands,” Ellerson said. “All those guys are a little bit different and all have their own little unique styles.”
Ellerson pointed to ball security and blocking as areas left to fine-tune.
“We were exposing the ball at times we need to not be,” he said. “We have some margin for error out there. A pretty good block is enough sometimes, but as we go forward, that margin for error is going to go away.”
Going forward figures to be a slight incline leading up to a trail at the foot of a mountain.
Two more home games, against Idaho State and North Carolina Central – which have combined for one win – will be followed by another home date, against UC Davis (which has won four straight) and a regular-season finale at Wisconsin.
Cal Poly (5-1) – now ranked third in the FCS coaches poll and fourth in the media’s – was left with three byes over a five-week period when McNeese State canceled the teams’ third-week meeting due to Hurricane Ike.
That stretch ended two weeks ago.
“It was so fueling for us just to be able to play twice in a row,” Tolver said. “That’s probably why we looked like kids in a candy store out there (against Southern Utah).”
That kind of enthusiasm has seemed to go hand-in-hand with such a relentless scoring mentality.
Would Ellerson consider slowing things down, if not to make the scoreboard look less like one from Mott Gym, to steadily move the chains, get first downs and give his defense a rest?
“I think we’re better than that,” Ellerson said. “I think we expect to score when we snap the ball.”
Editor’s note: For a preview of the Cal Poly football team’s Saturday game against Idaho State, see Friday’s Mustang Daily.