San José State Beats Winless Northern Illinois 30-19
Northern Illinois is 0-9, and this was not the game that fixed that. San José State won 30-19 and moved to 5-5.
San José State scored first and kept scoring. Viliami Teu ran 5 yards for a touchdown in the first quarter, and Trajan Sinatra kicked field goals of 25 and 46 yards to make it 13-0. Northern Illinois pulled even at 13-13 in the second quarter: Telly Johnson Jr. ran 4 yards for a score (the extra point failed) and Taron Dickens threw a 19-yard touchdown to Zaire McKinney. That was the only tie of the game, and it did not last long. San José State scored the next 17 points: a 22-yard Sinatra field goal, a 1-yard Teu run and a 29-yard touchdown from Daniel Rolovich to Dominique McKenzie.
Northern Illinois got a late 1-yard Dickens touchdown run with 3:55 left, and the two-point try failed, leaving it 30-19. Northern Illinois out-gained San José State, 400 yards to 317, but threw an interception and lost a fumble while San José State turned it over zero times and sacked Northern Illinois five times. Dickens completed 26 of 36 passes for 259 yards.
Winless teams find ways to lose, and this one found a few. Take the interception and the fumble away and the yardage edge might have meant something. As it was, the two-point miss at the end left the margin at 11.
Sinatra accounted for nine of the points with three field goals, which is a kicker earning his keep. Fantasy-wise, Dickens led everyone with 23.3 points in a loss, his best game of the year.