History was against the Fort Lewis College football team Saturday just as it was all season. Once again, the Skyhawks proved to be a different team than in so many years past.
Fort Lewis traveled to Chadron, Nebraska, to play the Chadron State Eagles. The Skyhawks hadn’t won in Nebraska since 1971 and hadn’t beaten Chadron State since 2005, trailing the all-time series 27-3.
It looked as though the Skyhawks would once again be nipped by the Eagles after going down 15-0 in the first quarter, but Fort Lewis kept plugging away to cut the deficit to 22-14 at halftime.
FLC went on to score 26 unanswered points and held off the Eagles 47-34 to cap off the season with a big road win to put an exclamation point on the team’s first winning season since 2006, matching that team’s overall record of 7-4.
“Gosh, I’m really proud of our guys,” said FLC third-year head coach John L. Smith, who has taken the Skyhawks to new heights since coming to Durango following stints at premiere Division I programs such as Arkansas, Louisville and Michigan State. “We pretty much automatically went down 15 points, but we didn’t get shaken, weren’t worried and kept at it.
“Once we took the lead, it felt like the worm had turned. Control shifted to us. It’s a great team win that makes a great year for us. 7-4, we did some things that hadn’t been done in a long time.”
Chadron State marched all over the Skyhawks in the first quarter with a six-play, 70-yard scoring drive and a 10-play, 80-yard touchdown drive. Quarterback Chris Conroy hit Matt Reader on a 15-yard pass for the first score, and Robert Jackson busted a 30-yard run for the Eagles’ second touchdown.
But FLC answered in the second quarter with a pair of 1-yard touchdown runs by sophomore running back PJ Hall, who finished with 94 rushing yards on 30 carries.
Matt Vinson came on at quarterback and had success, going 24-of-47 passing for 283 yards and three Chadron State touchdowns.
He pushed the Eagles lead to 22-14 on a 4-yard scoring pass to Reader, who finished the day with four receiving touchdowns on five catches that went for 60 yards.
But FLC quarterback Allen “AJ” Thigpen, who started his second consecutive game after senior Jordan Doyle’s season was ended because of a fractured elbow, got hot in the second half in a big way.
Thigpen hit senior wide receiver Juquelle Thompson on a 44-yard touchdown pass with 4 minutes, 34 seconds remaining in the third quarter to get FLC within 22-20 after a failed two-point conversion.
Then Thigpen busted a 31-yard touchdown run to open the fourth quarter, capping off a nine-play, 88-yard scoring drive that gave FLC the lead at 26-22 after another failed two-point try.
Thigpen again found Thompson for a touchdown pass on FLC’s next drive, linking up on a 30-yard score to push the FLC lead to 33-22.
Running back Drake Griffin added an 8-yard touchdown for the Skyhawks to give FLC a commanding 40-22 lead with 2:48 remaining.
But Chadron State wouldn’t go quietly in the season finale. Vinson hit Reader on an 8-yard touchdown pass to cut FLC’s lead to 40-28. The Eagles recovered an onside kick and marched down the field to score on another 10-yard pass from Vinson to Reader, but the Skyhawks made the Eagles earn every yard while burning 1:12 of game clock.
“You hate to ever let them get down there and score, but they had to use clock,” Smith said. “That was the good thing about it. We were making them work for first downs and weren’t giving up the easy one.”
Chadron State again tried an onside kick, but Thigpen was there to snatch the ball out of the air and had running room in front of him. He returned the kick 45 yards for another Fort Lewis touchdown to give FLC the 47-34 victory.
“Pretty exciting play,” Smith said of Thigpen’s return. “He made a ton of big plays. If he will just let the offense work for him, he could be something very, very, very good for us next year. He has a tendency to maybe want to do too much. If he lets the offense work for him, he’s going to be special.”
Thigpen finished 9-of-12 passing for 200 yards and two touchdowns while taking two sacks. He also led the team rushing with 157 yards and a score on 17 carries.
FLC limited the Chadron State rushing attack to 144 yards, led by Jackson’s 40 yards. FLC rushed for 299 yards and four total touchdowns.
Thompson again was a force in the return game but had a huge day receiving with 105 yards and two scores on five catches. Esley Simmons III added 79 yards on two receptions.
Thompson also broke a 51-yard punt return as part of 90 return yards on three opportunities.
“He’s a talented kid,” Smith said of Thompson. “He made big plays (Saturday) and all year long. That long punt return, he had nobody blocking for him, and he must have made six guys miss.”
Linebacker Andrew Ike had nine tackles and forced a fumble, and defensive back Ryneal Lewis-Adams also had nine tackles. Senior defensive linemen Sione Folaumoeloa and Dalten Lane combined on one sack for FLC, a fitting end for a defensive line that dominated opponents most of the season.
FLC will lose 19 seniors who helped build the team into a winning program after an 0-10 season in 2012 during many of those seniors’ freshman season.
“It’s a sad day when the clock runs out on those kids and they have to leave and there’s no more football,” Smith said. “But I’m happy from the standpoint of sending them out the right way. Seven wins, winning on the road, winning at Nebraska which we haven’t done in ages. With all of that, hopefully they’re leaving the game the way you want to leave a game, going out as a winner.”
A few big wins a year ago had FLC believing it could be a winner. This year, the team proved it with a winning record with the only losses coming to three nationally-ranked conference foes in CSU-Pueblo, Colorado Mines and Colorado Mesa as well as a loss to Division I Montana State in the opening week of the season.
Smith said the home loss to Colorado Mesa is the one game that will bother him the entire offseason, but the next step is to take this winning team and turn it into a championship team, he said.
“We accomplished a lot of things, and it’s going to be a great springboard to work with in the future,” he said. “We need to recruit, and now we have a great foundation to build on. We have a lot of things we can sell recruits on now.”
jlivingston@durangoherald.com
