SAN DIEGO — Ryan Agnew threw a 29-yard touchdown pass to Parker Houston with 6:10 left in the game, as resilient San Diego State rallied for a gritty 21-17 triumph over Air Force on a rainy Friday night at SDCCU Stadium that featured a 67-minute delay due to lightning from passing thunderstorms.
With the victory, the Aztecs (5-1, 2-0 MW) completed their 20th second-half comeback under head coach Rocky Long and improved to 24-4 in their last 28 Mountain West encounters.
Despite limiting SDSU to a season-low 84 yards rushing, the Falcons (2-4, 0-3 MW) were unable to contain the heroics of Agnew, who converted two critical third downs on the Aztecs' go-ahead drive.
Pinned inside his own 10 with under 10 minutes to go in the fourth quarter, Agnew scrambled 32 yards down the left sideline on a 3rd-and-9 situation to help the Scarlet and Black dig itself out of a deep hole. Facing a 3rd-and-5 from the SDSU 44 three plays later, the junior signal-caller found himself under intense pressure once again, but still managed to escape disaster with a rollout to the right, before somehow threading a pass to a diving Kobe Smith down to the Air Force 24.
After the Aztecs lost five yards on a sweep, Agnew quickly regrouped on the next snap, connecting with a wide-open Houston over the middle, as the junior tight end left several Falcon tacklers in his wake en route to the end zone.
After forcing a punt on Air Force's ensuing possession, Parker Baldwin extinguished the visitors' final threat minutes later with an interception at the SDSU 45 with 3:10 remaining in the contest.
Despite completing just 9-of-25 attempts with one interception, Agnew finished with a career-high 213 passing yards, improving to 4-0 as the Aztecs' starting quarterback.
For the second straight game, Chase Jasmin led the SDSU rushing attack with 70 yards and one touchdown on 18 carries, while Fred Trevillion paced the receiving corps with three catches for 94 yards.
The Aztecs' stellar defensive effort was anchored by Kyahva Tezino, who led all players with a season-high 15 tackles, including 11 solo stops, while Baldwin finished with nine tackles of his own.
Perhaps foreshadowing the subsequent lightning display over Mission Valley, SDSU received the opening kickoff and drove down the field in a flash, needing just three plays to cover 65 yards for the game's first touchdown. After Trevillion hauled in a 55-yard pass from Agnew on the second snap of the evening, Jasmin plowed into the end zone from four yards out to give the Scarlet and Black a quick 7-0 advantage.
However, the game turned into a defensive struggle at this juncture, as the two teams combined for seven punts over the remainder of the period.
With the Aztecs mired deep in their own territory late in the quarter, Agnew back-pedaled into the end zone; however, the SDSU signal-caller got his foot caught in the turf trying to evade the rush, resulting in a safety that narrowed the gap to 7-2.
Buoyed by its good fortune, Air Force returned the ensuing free kick 66 yards to the Aztec 27, but came up empty on the drive after Jake Koehnke's 43-yard field goal attempt sailed wide left.
SDSU reached the Falcon 29 its first series of the second quarter, but a long pass to Trevillion in the left corner of the end zone fell incomplete, while Jeremy Fejedelem soon vanquished the threat with an interception of Agnew in the end zone two plays later.
Air Force responded with its longest foray of the night, marching 80 yards in nine plays, punctuated by Ronald Cleveland's 12-yard sprint around left end that put the visitors up 9-7 with 5:13 left in the second quarter.
Stung, SDSU advanced to the Falcon 26, but the drive stalled, and the normally reliable John Baron missed a 44-yard field goal with 2:29 left before intermission.
Unfazed, the Aztecs caught a huge break shortly thereafter when Kaelin Himphill crashed through and blocked Charlie Scott's punt. Trenton Thompson corralled the loose ball at the 19-yard line and bulldozed his way over the goal line, dragging would-be tackler Ross Connors the final seven yards to give the Scarlet and Black an improbable 14-9 edge at halftime. It was the first blocked punt for the Aztecs since Kameron Kelly vs. UNLV in 2014 and the first blocked punt resulting in a touchdown since Freddy Keiaho accomplished the feat against New Mexico in 2005.
Following the aforementioned weather delay, the game remained scoreless until the 9:25 mark of the fourth quarter when Cleveland took a pitch and cut left through the SDSU line for a four-yard touchdown burst, capping a 7-play, 40-yard drive. Cleveland also made a diving catch just inside the near-right pylon on the subsequent two-point conversion attempt, which propelled Air Force back into the lead at 17-14.
The Aztecs, who were plagued by poor field position all night, were pinned deep once again on the following kickoff after a illegal block in the back penalty, setting the stage for Agnew's late theatrics.
SDSU, which outgained Air Force 297-276 in total offense, improved to 33-4 since the start of the 2015 season when holding an opponent under 400 yards. The Aztecs also raised their record to 29-4 in the last 33 games they have committed one turnover or less.
NOTES
· San Diego State won its fifth consecutive game overall, tied for the 10th-longest active streak nationally.
· The Aztecs won their sixth straight Mountain West game, tied for the sixth-longest active win streak in conference games.
· Rocky Long now has 12 career victories against Air Force, which is the most wins against the Falcons by any active coach in FBS, six more than any other active coach.
· This marked Rocky Long's 99th game as the head coach at San Diego State. He is 69-30 (.697) since taking over the program in 2011 and amazingly 44-13 (.772) in conference play (46-13 (.780) if you count the conference championship games).
· SDSU has won 17 of its last 21 games (17-4), 23 of its last 29 games (23-6), 36 of its last 43 games (36-7) and 37 since the 2015 season (37-10).
· The Aztecs improved to 24-4 in their last 28 regular-season Mountain West games and 26-4 in their last 30 against Mountain West opponents (includes MW championship games).
UP NEXT
SDSU hosts San Jose State next Saturday night at 7:30 p.m. The Aztec-Spartan contest will air live on CBS Sports Network and Fox Sports San Diego XTRA 1360.