With a late missed field goal and a failed two-point conversion, San Diego State snapped a seven-game winning streak against Hawai’i on Saturday at SDCCU Stadium.
The Aztecs (7-5, 4-4 Mountain West) lost to the Rainbow Warriors 31-30 in overtime. SDSU had two chances to escape with a win and miffed both times.
After Hawai’i (8-5, 5-3) scored first in overtime on a Cole McDonald’s 10-yard pass to JoJo Ward. The Aztecs answered back with a Juwan Washingon’s 25-yard touchdown dash on their first possession. Coach Rocky Long decided to go for a two-point conversion for the win, but Ryan Agnew’s pass went high and sailed passed Kahale Warring’s hands for an incomplete.
“We scored on the first play, that gives you a big-time momentum and we have a two-point play that we’ve worked on for about half the season that is really difficult play to stop, so I thought we had decent chance to win the game right there and there was no reason not to try to win it right there,” Long said. “And then obviously we executed the way which we’ve practiced for the last five or six weeks, we executed the play poorly. We even got a penalty being in the wrong formation. So that’s a lack of concentration on some people’s part.”
The Aztecs could have won it all at the end of the fourth quarter after SDSU went 65 yards in 10 plays to set up a field goal attempt that would have broken the tie for a win. John Baron II, one of the most accurate kickers in college football, however, went wide right and missed a 32-yard kick.
SDSU got on the scoreboard first and led Hawai’i 14-3 at the end of the first quarter but then squandered the lead in the second. The Rainbow Warriors scored 21 unanswered points to make it 24-14 to close the half.
Despite the loss, the Aztecs are bowl-eligible, however, SDSU could still be left out of the postseason. There 81 teams that are bowl-eligible and three could be left out and not get an invite.
“Yeah, I think we could get left out,” Long said. “I’ve been there before, a couple times.”
