Nov. 23, 2002
Box Score
Cedar City, UT---Idaho State scored 28 points in a 17-minute span of the first and second quarters to put the game away early and with a Montana State victory over Montana the Bengals earned a share of their first Big Sky title since the 1981 season with a 42-17 victory over Southern Utah Saturday at Eccles Coliseum.
Now the Bengals will have to wait until Sunday morning to find out if they will advance to the Division I-AA playoffs. With the Bobcats win over the Grizzlies the two teams tied with ISU for the Big Sky title, however MSU picks up the Big Sky's automatic berth into the playoffs. Defending National Champion Montana is likely to receive an at-large berth, leaving the Bengals to wait for the 11 a.m. Sunday annoucement (ESPN News) of the 16-team field.
Quarterback Doug Baughman led the way, hitting on 19-of-32 passes for 302 yards and three touchdowns against no interceptions. Shack Okoebor was Baughman's favorite target, catching six passes for 129 yards, including a 70-yard bomb from Baughman that iced the game in the fourth quarter for the Bengals.
Isaac Mitchell, who was trying to become just the fifth Bengal to reach 1,000 yards in a season, failed in his quest, but had two touchdowns and 68 yards on 14 carries.
With their option-attack the Thunderbirds controlled the clock, holding the ball for 41:20 in the game, compared with 18:40 for the Bengals. But the ISU defense used the "bend, but don't break" philosophy to perfection, holding SUU without a touchdown until 3:19 was left in the third quarter. The Thunderbirds gained 367 yards against the Big Sky's top defense, but picked up just 4.1 yards per game, compared with 7.5 yards per play for the Bengals.
Jared Allen had another outstanding game, picking up six tackles, 1.5 sacks and his third career interception. The sack gave him 9.5 for the season.
Southern Utah had success on its first drive against the Bengal defense, driving 73 yards in 13 plays before ISU held the Thunderbirds to a 25-yard Dave Pretzer field goal for a 3-0 SUU lead.
After each team was forced to punt, the Bengals took advantage of a short Thunderbird punt and drove 35 yards in six plays, finishing with a 1 yard run by Mitchell to take a 7-3 lead. After forcing another three and out the Bengals went back to work, driving 65 yards in five plays, culminating with a 21-yard touchdown strike from Baughman to Jeff Davenport.
Another three and out for SUU led to another touchdown for the Bengal offense. This time it was an eight-play, 69 yard drive with Baughman throwing a scoring pass to Shack Okoebor to put ISU up 21-3. ISU finished off the nearly flawless first half by running the two-minute drill to perfection with Mitchell scoring his second touchdown on a one-yard run to put ISU up 28-3 at the half.
