Finney Rushes for 236 Yards in 46-12 Win at Northern Colorado

 
GREELEY, Colo.- Xavier Finney rushed for a career-high 236 yards, the third-best rushing performance in ISU history, to lead the Idaho State football team to a 46-12 win at Northern Colorado. The Bengals improved to 5-3 and 3-1 in Big Sky Conference play.

The win snapped the Bengals 48 game road losing streak and a 28-game road conference losing streak.

Finney rushed for his 236 yards on 22 carries and scored one touchdown while averaging 10. 7 yards a carry. Daniel McSurdy rushed 92 yards on 11 carries and a career-high three touchdowns. As a team the Bengals carried the ball 42 times for 348 yards. The Bengal offense passed for 303 yards as Justin Arias passed for 288 yards and two touchdowns and no interceptions.

The Idaho State defense held the Bears offense to 330 yards and only 55 in the first half. Madison Mangum had seven reception for 104 yards.

Mitch Beckstead led the Bengal defense with 11 tackles, one sack, two tackles for loss and one interception. The Idaho State defense had eight sacks in the game.

Taison Manu also had an interception and PJ Gremaud had a fumble recovery that was returned 53 yards to the one-yard line that set up the Bengals final score of the game.

Idaho State never trailed in the game and led 24-0 at halftime. The Bengals scored on their opening possession when Zak Johnson connected on a 25-yard field goal. Then with six minutes left in the quarter Finney scored on a 13-yard run to up the ISU lead to 10-0.

McSurdy scored his first of three touchdowns on a 41-yard run with 4:38 left in the first half and Tyler Graves tallied his first career touchdown on a 10-yard reception from Arias with 59 seconds left until halftime.

Northern Colorado managed two touchdowns in the third quarter but the Bengals countered every time Northern Colorado scored. CJ Hatchett had his first touchdown on a 21-yard pass from Arias with 8:44 left in the third and McSurdy had his second touchdown on a two-yard run with 2:21 left.

The Bengals fourth quarter touchdown came on a McSurdy one-yard run with 8:21 left in the game.

Idaho State returns to the field, Saturday, November 1 for a 5:35 p.m. (MST) kickoff at Portland State.
 
Game Notes
- CJ Reyes, Mitch Beckstead, Justin Arias and Michael Berger are today's game captains.
-Xavier Finney's 53-yard run on the first play of the game was a career-long run.  For the second straight week he had a career-high as he carried the ball 22 times for 236 yards, good for an average of 10.7 yards a run. The 236 rushing yards was the third-best rushing performance in program history. This is only the ninth time a Bengal has rushed for over 200 yards in a game.
- Tyler Graves and CJ Hatchett had their first career touchdown receptions.
- Daniel McSurdy's three touchdowns was a career-high.
- Since throwing a third quarter interception at Eastern Washington, Justin Arias has completed 98 passes on 152 attempts for 1,294 yards, 13 touchdowns and no interceptions.
- Idaho State's 45 touchdowns is the second most in program history, tied with the 2003 team. The school record for most touchdowns in a season is 52 by the 1981 National Championship.
- Xavier Finney has rushed for over 100 yards in a game seven times this season, the most in the Big Sky Conference.
- Xavier Finney became the first Bengal rusher to run for over 1,000 yards in a season since Josh Barnett in 2007, who had 1,022. Finney has 1,147 yards on the season. That mark ranks third on the all-time single-season Top 10 list for rushing yards. Alfredo Anderson holds the record with 1,192 yards in 1995.
 
Mike Kramer Post Game Quotes
Northern Colorado made it more of a nail bitter in the second half then we would have wanted to have it but it was a real through performance by our offensive line and Xavier Finney. Justin (Arias) just takes advantage of what he is told as a quarterback. He is not afraid to hand it off every single time. Our offensive front knocked them off the ball yet we made some timely catches and touchdowns.

Our defense played great in the first half only giving up 55 yards then just fell off the table in the second half. Defensively we are not where we need to be yet and we have a ways to go. We got good pressure in the second half we just didn't get the tackle.

We just played our game plan and won 46-12 on the road against a Big Sky opponent. It wasn't as great as we would have liked it to be because we have new standard of excellence and in the face of it after all that we have been through in the past is pretty Ludacris.

It is no longer just about the numbers. There was a time in this program we had to have the numbers because we weren't going to get the win. Now we are getting the win we don't care about the numbers.

We don't take ownership in. We take ownership in just this season. We are now 1-1 on the road in the Big Sky Conference.