Jayhawks, the streak is now on you.

Powered by sophomore running back Larry Rose III's 212-yard, four-score performance, the New Mexico State Aggies snapped the FBS' longest active losing streak with a thrilling, improbable 55-48 overtime home win over Idaho.

After 17 consecutive losses, most of them unsightly, there was finally joy in Las Cruces.

Highlights of the Sun Belt matchup focused rightfully on the game-ending interception Terrill Hanks caught with his ankles. Watch it 10 times, and it's still impressive.

"As it came around, I knew T-Hanks had it," Rose said. "I call him a little ball magnet."

Then there was backup quarterback Nick Jeanty's 23-yard completion to Josh Bowen on 4th-and-22 in overtime.

But each of those plays have a flavor of cosmic implausibility to them, whiffs of irreplicable luck.

Rose's plays did not.

AP Photo/Andres Leighton

The 212 rushing yards he took from the Vandals were more than anyone else in the FBS during Week 9. He found the end zone three times during the last four minutes of regulation and overtime, including a gutsy fourth-down dive over the pile by the 5-foot-11 back that tied the game with less than a minute to play in the fourth quarter.

"I honestly didn't even know it was 4th-and-goal," Rose said. "We had run the play a lot, and I always hoped I didn't have to go over the top. I just hoped the linebacker didn't meet me up there."

In overtime, he punched in the game-winner from 2 yards out, his fourth score of the day, and then watched Hanks put the cherry on top.

If you're wondering why such an overtime win over Idaho is a big deal, consider the state of football in Las Cruces.

A confluence of issues weigh down the program. Relentless losing begets anemic attendance numbers, which beget budget deficits. It's been 55 years since the Aggies played in a bowl game, for example.

It's fair to wonder why NMSU remains so committed to the FBS, especially when its program is getting actively recruited by the commissioner of a thriving FCS conference.

But players like Rose give the program glimmer of hope. He's the first Aggie in almost 20 years to have back-to-back 1,000-yard rushing seasons, and he'll almost certainly be the title author of the program's record book if he stays for four years.

AP Photo/Andres Leighton

Rose's ESPN RecruitingNation page is sparse. No photo, no Insider analysis. Very Joe Friday. He's from Fairfield, Texas, a community of about 3,000 adrift in the Texas Triangle of Dallas, Houston and San Antonio. It's a place where recruits can get lost among the tremendous prep talent and competition.

"I felt overlooked, a little underrated," Rose said. "I knew coming out of high school I could play at any level. But for whatever reason, nobody else saw the talent."

Rose backed that up with highlight-reel plays earlier this season in the Aggies' sacrificial paycheck losses to Florida and Ole Miss.

"When we played [the SEC], I had a little bit of a chip on my shoulder," Rose said. "Those games meant a little more and the Texas games, because it's home. Everyone wants to stay in their backyard."

NMSU head coach Doug Martin took a chance on Rose -- something for which the sophomore is effusively grateful -- and now he's on a first-name basis with the Sun Belt Conference.

After the game, Rose said it was the first time his mom, Yvonne, got to see him play collegiate football.

"This is the first game that my family got to see in person,” Rose told the Las Cruces Sun-Times. "She told me before the game, 'Ya’ll going to get this win. You have just been waiting for me to come.' Mom is always right."

If you were watching on TV, you may have been able to see Yvonne and the rest of Rose's family. The announced attendance of 7,546 had thinned out after Idaho jumped to a 40-21 lead. It looked like a rerun from any of the Aggies' last two years worth of dreary episodes. The brave remainders dotted the stands in their Halloween costumes -- the crew from 'Hey, Arnold!' here, a clumsy Frankenstein there -- and they were rewarded.

"Doesn't matter where you are," Rose told ESPN.com after the Aggies' win. "If you're talented and work hard, you're gonna be seen."