Sept. 26, 2009

Final Stats

FAYETTEVILLE - Fayetteville State head coach Kenny Phillips sat down, put his head in his hands and let out a deep sigh after the Broncos' 25-20 loss to Virginia State on Saturday.

"This is a tough one to swallow here," said Phillips. "We outplayed that football team in every aspect of the game except turnovers. If they score 21 points on three touchdowns on turnovers... you're not going to beat anybody when you have that many turnovers."

The loss to the Trojans dropped FSU to 0-3 at Luther "Nick" Jeralds Stadium in 2009. FSU's last home win was a 55-20 win over Livingstone on Nov. 1, 2008.

"I told them `this is on you guys'," Phillips said of his post-game message. "This had nothing to do with coaching. When you're put in the position to make football plays... when the opportunity comes you've got to make the football play. My big thing is to not turn the football over."

The FSU (2-3, 1-1 CIAA) defense surrendered just 93 yards of total offense and only nine yards passing - both season lows - to VSU (3-2, 1-1 CIAA). The Broncos' offense ran 80 plays and racked up 380 total yards - 191 passing and 189 rushing.

"We didn't do enough, we could've done better," said senior linebacker Joseph Brown. "I've got some soul searching to do to see what we're going to make of the rest of the season."

With the Broncos trailing, 7-6, late in the third quarter and deep in VSU territory, Trojans defensive back Alfred Ngauja returned a Benjamin Williams fumble 95 yards for a touchdown.

The fumble recovery for a touchdown was the longest in CIAA history.

"Mental mistakes, I stress it every time we play a football game to eliminate the mental mistakes," Phillips said. "Don't let mental mistakes beat you as a football team. There are a lot of mental things that happened in that football game that cost that football game for us tonight."

With 13:12 remaining in the game, Williams connected with Tyshon Gurley on a nine-yard touchdown pass, tying the game 13-13.

After a hold by the FSU defense, Kevin Allen intercepted an errant Williams pass and returned it 58 yards for a touchdown.

"I shouldn't have thrown it," Williams said. "I should've thrown it away."

Both teams tacked on touchdowns in the game's final 2:24 minutes to finish the scoring.

Senior linebacker Gerard Atkinson had a career-high 17 tackles while Marcos Esquivel tallied 11 tackles, 1.5 sacks, 4.5 tackles for loss and a forced fumble.

Despite the gaudy numbers, Phillips wanted more from his defense.

"We forced no turnovers tonight to offset the turnovers Virginia State forced on us," Phillips said. "That's one of the things we try to stress is to always try and force turnovers."

Williams finished 16-for-29 for 191 yards with a touchdown and two interceptions. FSU running back Richard Medlin recorded 188 all-purpose yards (106 rushing), but was held without a touchdown for the first time this season.

Since 2005, the Broncos are 9-13 at Jeralds Stadium. FSU last beat VSU at Jeralds Stadium on Oct. 19, 2002.

"It's been tough, to be 0-3 at home when you're losing games like we're losing at our home stadium," Phillip said. "You have to win your home games." FSU's three home losses have come by a combined 13 points.

On Saturday, the Broncos face winless Chowan in Murfreesboro. Kickoff is set for 6 p.m.

"We can't do anything about this game," Williams said when asked how he and his teammates would move on after the loss. "If it was a win there'd be no need to harp on it because it's in the past. That's how I look at it."