It wasn’t the most devastating loss in San Diego State history.

Heck, it wasn’t even SDSU’s worst loss to UNLV.

But make no mistake, the Aztecs’ 27-24 loss Saturday night at SDCCU Stadium was stunning. Shocking. Sickening. The Rebels, after all, were 23-point underdogs in the midst of a six-game losing streak playing without their starting quarterback.

What it wasn’t was surprising.


“I wasn’t surprised because that’s the way we’ve played all year,” SDSU head coach Rocky Long said. “Except for a couple of games this season … we’ve been playing just like you saw tonight all year long. … That’s the way our team is.”

The takeaway is this: SDSU’s loss makes the Aztecs’ road to a Mountain West championship filled with potential detours that wouldn’t have been there had they won.

When a reporter mentioned that SDSU no longer controls its destiny to win the conference’s West Division and play for its third conference title in three years, Long corrected him and said, “We still do.”

Well, not really.


The best case scenario for SDSU (7-3, 4-1 MW) is winning its two remaining regular season games, Saturday at Fresno State (8-2, 501) and Nov. 24 vs. Hawaii (6-5, 3-3), but the Aztecs still would need help to reach the championship game. Nevada (6-4, 4-2) would have to lose one of its remaining games — at San Jose State (1-9, 1-5) or at UNLV (3-7, 1-5) — because it holds a head-to-head tiebreaker edge over the Aztecs (by virtue of SDSU’s 28-24 loss at Nevada).

If SDSU finishes in a three-way tie with Fresno State and Nevada, it loses out on a tiebreaker because of a worse record within the division.

There are other scenarios for the Aztecs to advance, but they require multiple losses by the other teams.

How did it come to this? Good question.


“They deserved to win because they outplayed us,” Long said. “There’s always a misconception when you play a team that doesn’t have a good record that they don’t have athletes. I think the media makes the mistake dramatically most of the time. They have some athletes, but the truth of the matter is they controlled the line of scrimmage. …

“They controlled the line of scrimmage on defense because we didn’t block them, couldn’t block them and we weren’t able to run the ball.”

SDSU rushed for just 89 yards on 34 carries. Running back Juwan Washington gained 66 yards on 21 carries. Wide receiver Tim Wilson Jr. had the biggest night, catching five passes for 123 yards and two touchdowns.

Just when it seemed SDSU had taken control against UNLV — going ahead 24-13 after collecting two turnovers in the third quarter — the Rebels rallied for 14 points in the fourth quarter before an announced crowd of 24,986 at SDCCU Stadium.


The clincher came when UNLV running back Lexington Thomas broke free for a 75-yard touchdown run with 3:27 remaining in the game, and the Rebels passed for a two-point conversion and a three-point lead.

SDSU had one last drive downfield for a potential winning touchdown or a game-tying field goal by John Baron II. But UNLV’s Jericho Flowers intercepted a Ryan Agnew pass at UNLV’s 35-yard line to seal the victory for the Rebels.

Long said he felt like the SDSU defense played too soft in the first half. The Aztecs were successful blitzing more in the second half and fared better.

“Until they split a blitz and the guy went 75 yards for the winning touchdown,” Long said.


It was arguably the biggest loss of the Rocky Long era.

Longtime Aztecs fans will recall a bigger loss against the Rebels, however. That would be a 44-42 loss to a UNLV team that came into the game with a 0-10 record. Holiday Bowl officials in their red jackets were on hand at Sam Boyd Stadium that day to extend an invitation to the bowl game to SDSU. It never came, and the Aztecs stayed home with an 8-3 record.

That doesn’t take the sting out of this one, though.

“It’s not good,” Agnew said afterwards. “You never want to lose a game, no matter who the opponent is, especially at this point where we controlled our own destiny. We’ve got to come in on Monday and have a great attitude, we’ve gotta have great leadership, because the season is not over yet. We still have games in front of us, and we need to come out with the right mindset.”


How did they allow a double-digit lead with 10 minutes to play slip away?

“Just complacency,” safety Parker Baldwin said. “We got up by 11 and felt like the game was in our hands and just got complacent. Bad tackling at the end. That’s partly on me. We lost it.”

UNLV led most of the first half, but SDSU took a 14-13 halftime lead on a 2-yard run by running back Juwan Washington with 28 seconds remaining in the second quarter. An interception by SDSU’s Trenton Thompson and a fumble recovery by Baldwin thwarted UNLV in the third quarter when the Aztecs defense took control of the situation.

The Aztecs built their advantage to 24-13 after a 33-yard field goal by Baron and a 34-yard touchdown pass from Agnew to Wilson on the last play of the third quarter. UNLV closed within 24-19 when quarterback Max Gilliam hit Brandon Presley with a 10-yard touchdown pass with 9:19 remaining, setting the stage for Thomas’ big run a few minutes later.


The Aztecs expected to get a boost with quarterback Christian Chapman and Washington returning to starting roles against the Rebels. Neither player provided much spark in the opening minutes against UNLV, however.

In fact, Chapman threw an interception — the first in the past 120 passes for the Aztecs — on his third pass attempt of the game. Chapman completed 8 of 10 passes in the first half for 92 yards. It included a 13-yard touchdown pass to Wilson in the second quarter.

Agnew entered the game by design in the second quarter right after the scoring drive, and he remained in the game in the second half because Long said the coaches felt the offense was moving better with him than with Chapman.

Washington fared little better than Chapman in the early going. He did not gain positive yardage until his fourth carry. And even that was but a 1-yard gain on a third-and-2 play. Washington had minus-3 yards rushing until a minute remained in the first half and he carried nine yards to the UNLV 2-yard line. That set up his TD run, which came on fourth-and-1 and required a second effort to reach the end zone.


Chapman and Washington were sidelined half the season before subbing in last week at New Mexico in the second quarter.

After a few series to get reacclimated, they sparked the Aztecs to a comeback victory. Washington rushed for 34- and 50-yard touchdowns in the game. Chapman guided the Aztecs to three fourth-quarter scores in a 31-23 comeback win.

There was no carryover for the pair, at least not early on, against UNLV.

SDSU went three-and-out on the opening possession of the game. Punter Brandon Heicklen got a favorable roll on his punt, pinning UNLV back to its own 13-yard line.


No matter. The Rebels were deep in SDSU territory two plays later.

Gilliam hit wide receiver Darren Woods Jr. on a short inside pass that Woods turned into a 77-yard gain. It was the longest play against the Aztecs since an 80-yard touchdown pass by Stanford in the season opener.

The pass play gave the Rebels the ball at SDSU’s 5-yard line. SDSU’s defense kept UNLV out of the end zone, forcing the Rebels to settle for a 21-yard field goal and a 3-0 lead four minutes into the game.

UNLV got the ball back shortly thereafter when Rebels defensive back Dalton Baker stepped in front of a Chapman pass for an interception at the SDSU 44-yard line.


SDSU’s defense limited UNLV to another field goal, this time a 45-yarder that provided a 6-0 lead midway through the first quarter.

The Aztecs erased the lead two minutes into the second quarter when SDSU Wilson leaped high over the middle of the end zone for a 13-yard touchdown pass and a 7-6 Aztecs lead. Wilson, who has been slowed in recent weeks by a nagging injury to his right foot, had the biggest game of his Aztecs career.

After SDSU went ahead by a point, UNLV came right back with a a 75-yard scoring drive capped by running back Lexington Thomas’ 2-yard touchdown run for a 13-7 lead with 10:35 remaining in the first half.

Washington had six carries for minus-3 yards midway through the first half, when backup Chance Bell subbed in for him. He didn’t get into positive yardage until the final drive of the first half. Midway through the third quarter Washington had rushed for 22 yards on 14 carries before he more than doubled his total with a 27-yard run that set up Wilson’s second touchdown catch of the game.


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kirk.kenney@sduniontribune.com / on Twitter: @sdutkirKDKenney