UTSA Erases a 14-point Hole, Beats Navy 38-34
Navy ran 47 times for 297 yards, committed zero turnovers, and still lost. That is the kind of afternoon that makes a triple-option team question the point of arithmetic.
It started the way Navy wants. Jackson Gutierrez ran in touchdowns from 2 and 5 yards, and early in the second quarter the Midshipmen led 14-0. UTSA answered with three touchdowns in the rest of the half: Owen McCown found Mekhi Anderson from 46 yards, found Brandon Young Jr. from 14, and A'Marion Peterson punched one in from the 1 for a 21-14 lead. Gutierrez hit Jordan Collins for 25 yards just before the break and the missed extra point left it 21-20.
The fourth quarter was a trade. Collins caught a 92-yard touchdown for a 27-24 Navy lead with 12:47 left. Will Henderson III ran 31 yards to flip it back, 31-27. Braxton Woodson scored from 7 yards out to make it 34-31 Navy with 4:50 to go. Then McCown threw 41 yards to Peterson with 2:24 left for the last lead change (there were five of them). UTSA finished with 359 passing yards, 28 of 38 for McCown, and no giveaways. Navy took three sacks on defense.
UTSA is 6-1 and Navy drops to 2-4, a record that does not say how close this was. For fantasy, Gutierrez was the best quarterback of the week by a wide margin, and McCown quietly had his best day of the year.
Here is the part that stings for Navy: the Midshipmen were ahead three separate times and trailed at the end of the day anyway. They rushed for 297 yards, averaging better than six yards a carry, and Gutierrez alone had 139 of those. UTSA ran only 32 times for 110 yards, so the game was decided through the air, and the Roadrunners threw their way to six wins.