New Mexico State waited 57 years to return to the postseason and it’s pretty clear the team were fired up to play in the Arizona Bowl as they took a 13-all tie into halftime with their fellow Aggies of Utah State on Friday evening in Tucson.
It didn’t take long at all for NMSU to get on the board, as they marched right down the field for 91 yards on their first drive in the postseason over five decades before eventually settling for a short field goal.
Utah State responded however, needing just 14 seconds to take the lead back after Savon Scarver returned the kickoff 96 yards to the house. Not to be outdone, the other Aggies decided to play a little ‘Anything you can do, I can do better’ apparently. That’s because Jason Huntley followed the play up with a full 100 yd kickoff return touchdown to make it back-to-back and put his team back in the lead.
BACK-TO-BACK KICKOFF RETURN TOUCHDOWNS!!
— CBS Sports Network (@CBSSportsNet) December 29, 2017
The @novaAZBOWL is off to a RIDICULOUS start... pic.twitter.com/kwFrHYX4KK
Things settled down in the game after that brief bit of excitement as both sides exchanged field goals down the stretch and both defenses appears to find their legs.
USU signal-caller Jordan Love found some success through the air with 136 yards on 24 attempts through two quarters but it was mostly the result of the Aggies ground game unable to find much after five different players recorded a carry but could only muster 45 yards.
New Mexico State was much better in that department as tailback Larry Rose III averaged just over eight yards a carry and had 66 total yards going into the break. He formed a nice balanced attack with quarterback Tyler Rogers, who had 82 yards in the air but did toss an interception.
Given some of the skill position players involved in this game you probably could have expected a few more points in the first half but there’s still plenty of time left in one of the few remaining non-New Year’s bowls left on the docket between a pair of Aggies hoping to grab one more win in 2017.