Special teams breakdowns and major penalties cost the Colorado Mesa football team Saturday in a 30-10 loss to Texas A&M-Kingsville at Stocker Stadium.
The loss ended a 10-year streak of the Mavericks winning their season opener. They had chances, especially with the defense not allowing a touchdown until late in the game, but CMU gave up one touchdown on a kickoff return, one on a blocked punt and another on an interception return to wipe out an early 10-3 lead.
"Whenever you give up big plays by mistakes and penalties or kicking the ball out of position and not doing a good job covering and give up two special teams touchdowns, they're gonna put you in a hole, right?" CMU second-year head coach Miles Kochevar said. "The guys knew we had an opportunity there and we let it slip away. And, you know, we've got a lot to learn as we continue to progress through this season and where we're at, we've come a long way. I'm proud of this group, I'm excited for what this group can do, but anytime you get yourself into trouble, it makes it hard."
The Mavericks took advantage of a shanked punt late in the first quarter and starting quarterback Gavin Herberg found Keenan Brown for a 48-yard completion to the Javelinas' 2-yard line, and Herberg took it in from there for a 7-3 lead.
Henry Katleman's point-after kick not only split the uprights, it left the stadium and landed in the west-bound lane of North Avenue for a 7-3 lead. Katleman is a senior transfer from Colorado State.
His 22-yard field made it 10-3 with 4:27 left in the first half, capping a 13-play, 71-yard drive. The ensuing kickoff, though, was returned 93 yards by Amos Coleman III, who broke out of a scrum around the 30 and found open field down the sideline for a 10-10 tie.
Back-to-back three-and-out series by CMU's offense led to the Javelinas taking the lead for good in the final minute of the first half.
Ben Sargent's punt was blocked by Blake Jaques, who returned it 10 yards to the end zone, and after the PAT, it was 17-10 at the half.
Leslie Richardson took over at quarterback in the second half and was intercepted on his first series, with Caden Ochoa scoring from 25 yards out for a 23-10 lead after the PAT was wide left.
The coaches planned to split the quarterback duty, with Herberg and Richardson battling throughout camp. Each played one half, and, Kochevar said, both will likely play next week when the Mavericks travel to face the University of San Diego.
Herberg completed 6 of 21 passes for 91 yards. He ran for another 20 yards, including the touchdown. Richardson, a transfer from CSU-Pueblo, completed 11 of 21 passes for 111 yards, but was intercepted twice.
"We've got to get a flow and get some things going with our rhythm on offense," Kochevar said. "And it shouldn't matter who's in at quarterback, we need to be able to know which quarterback is in and be able to adjust the offense to him accordingly. We know what we've got to improve on; we're gonna be able to learn from this film a great deal."
Mesa's ground game generated only 28 yards on 20 carries and the Mavs threw for 202 yards. Defensively, CMU's secondary forced the Javelinas to turn to their running game, rushing 39 times for 135 yards; they threw for 161 yards, completing 17 of 25 passes.
Both teams were heavily penalized, Kingsville 11 times for 95 yards and the Mavericks 10 times for 104 yards.
The Mavericks had what appeared to be a touchdown wiped out late in the third quarter. Ben Bogan blocked a Kingsville field goal attempt and the Mavs let the ball roll to the end zone, where Cam Nathan scooped it up and raced down the sideline for a crowd-pleasing 100-yard touchdown that could have cut the deficit to 23-17. After a lengthy discussion, the officials ruled that since the ball reached the end zone, it was a dead ball and a touchback, giving CMU the ball at the 20.
Levi Krebs led CMU with 10 tackles, with Liban Shongolo and Kash Bradley recording eight each. Bradley also had an interception and Hudson Metcalf forced and recovered a fumble.
"The defense did a good job and for a lot of that game that kept them off kilter, they couldn't really get in a flow, either," Kochevar said. "We had everything that we wanted to see, it was playing out exactly the way that we thought. We thought we would be able to wear them out a little bit up here at elevation. We just weren't able to do our part and finish some things and get some rhythm offensively.
"We wanted to stay on the field and obviously we weren't able to do that. We've got to establish the line of scrimmage better, be able to run the football, control that thing and we weren't able to do that."
