It was the (nearly) perfect final regular season game for Cal Poly quarterback Dano Graves. With the exception of a single incomplete pass and a play off after he appeared to have the wind knocked out of him, the fifth year Cal Poly senior led Cal Poly to touchdown drives on eight of their first 11 drives en route to a tight 55-48 barn-burner win over Northern Colorado.

Graves was 14-15 passing in the game for 191 yards and a pair of touchdowns. None was prettier than his 26 yard touchdown strike to Kyle Lewis. Lewis, playing for the first time in about a game and a half, had only six touches which included the touchdown. His presence in the lineup, perhaps, was just as important, giving the Bears something else to think about and plan for.

Mix it around

Carson McMurtrey caught four passes last Saturday. By Owen Main

Cal Poly saw high useage and touches from a number of guys who haven’t got their number called very often this season. DJ Peluso, a senior who sees a lot of time blocking, rushed the ball six times for 88 yards and also caught two passes. Carson McMurtrey, another senior, caught four balls for 50 yards, including a few big third down conversions. Kori Garcia, who is a higher useage guy, rushed the ball 12 times for 88 yards and seemed like he had a good game reading the defense and cutting sweeps and option pitches upfield when needed.

In all, Cal Poly had four players with 95-plus yards of total offense and six players with 50 or more yards en route to 634 yards as a team for the game.

Pass Defense woes

Northern Colorado found some areas in Cal Poly’s defensive secondary and did a good job exploiting their coverage, especially in zone. Bears quarterback Kyle Sloter threw for 438 yards and six touchdowns in the game. If there’s something the Mustangs need to clean-up going into the playoffs, it’s their pass defense.

Speaking of playoffs

Cal Poly will host a playoff game on Saturday for the first time in Tim Walsh’s coaching tenure. Their opponent is San Diego, who Cal Poly beat 38-16 in their home opener this year.

USD is a school that doesn’t give athletic scholarships for football, but they haven’t lost except to Cal Poly this season and won’t be coming up to SLO to lose.

Bison Lurking

North Dakota State is the top-ranked team in the playoff bracket and the winner of Saturday’s game at Spanos will travel to the FargoDome to play the Bison.

Find photos from the Northern Colorado game here.

Kori Garcia may continue to shoulder a lot of carries on Saturday. By Owen Main

Win, and you’re in. Probably.

Despite a pair of late-season losses, Cal Poly football could still make the playoffs. Heck, they could even host a first-round game. According to Craig Haley of STATS FCS Football, Cal Poly is still the 21st ranked team in the nation and would even be in line for a possible home game in the first round.

Cal Poly hasn’t played a home playoff game in nearly a decade, but they have a chance to make that a possibility with a win on Saturday.

Little reason not to be in. https://t.co/rdqPqbJK5s

— Craig Haley (@CraigHaley) November 15, 2016

Of course, that tweet did include a solid caveat. The Mustangs have to beat a frisky Northern Colorado team on Saturday in San Luis Obispo.

The new @FCS_STATS Top 25. pic.twitter.com/UZFpxmOqMG

— FCS Football (@FCS_STATS) November 14, 2016

So why is this team, which lost to Weber State last weekend and Eastern Washington the week before, still in the playoff hunt? Strength of schedule is a hell of a thing.

Toughest #FCS schedules, according to NCAA stats:
1. Cal Poly
2. N. Dakota St
3. S Dakota
4. (tie) Samford
4. (tie) No. Arizona
6. UNI pic.twitter.com/MZtJKNggWJ

— Craig Haley (@CraigHaley) November 16, 2016

Here’s Craig Haley’s post on all the weekend games. Haley likes the Mustangs’ chances. If Kyle Lewis doesn’t play, their road to a win on Saturday becomes, well, a little more bumpy.

Are they healthy enough?

To me, this weekend’s game comes down to good old fashioned health with a touch of grit and nastiness. The Mustangs are banged-up and have been for the last month, at least. This is a team whose skill players take a beating, and Cal Poly has felt the effects. Kyle Lewis was knocked-out early in the Eastern Washington game and is questionable for the season finale. Without his big-play threat, teams have really been able to key on Dano Graves, Kori Garcia, and Joe Protheroe.

Protheroe has been dealing with his own bruises, often running hard and coming up limping in the past month.

The knee pad on Dano Graves knee looks like a foam square from the ball pit at my daughter’s gymnastics class.

Once you factor in grit and pain tolerance — these guys have it in abundance — I don’t know how much these nicks and bruises really factor into overall play. I suspect the amount is more than absolute zero.

On defense, you may be able to scheme around players who are missing. Offensively, it’s a little more difficult when you lose your home run threat and three of the four guys who touch the ball the most are feeling it.

Saturday’s game will include two teams with playoff aspirations in their final game of the season. Cal Poly won’t be the only team with bruises, but they’ve scored 21 points or fewer in three of their past four games. Mustang fans really have to hope that Lewis somehow can be a threat and that the team can find a way to score more than the 18 points per game they’ve averaged over the past two games.

Here’s to a really fun finale on Saturday.

If only…

The taste of tomorrow might be the most bitter of all for Cal Poly football fans.

For three and a half months, the rhythm of weekly games, planning for Saturdays, and getting to the Spanos tailgate early have been the metronomes for lives of the Mustang faithful. Researching opponents, talking trash, and pregame tri-tip have become a part of daily life. And, like all seasons, this too must end.

A week off before the playoff game with Sam Houston State created a buildup to an exciting playoff game. On Fansmanship.com, we had lots of coverage, especially on our podcast. Guests ranged from J.D. Scroggin from the Tribune to Tim Jeske from Katfans.com. I added Sam Houston State twitter feeds to my own. The buildup was almost as fun as the game itself.

Unfortunately for those on the Central Coast, the game was one the Mustangs couldn’t manage to win. The taste of defeat after coming so close was bittersweet. Cal Poly fans were generally appreciative of the successful season, choosing to look on the bright side and not dwell on what could have been.

That was last week.

This morning I woke up to tweets, remnants from the new “follows” of last week. They said things like “Go BearKats” and “Big Game tomorrow.” Pictures of babies in Sam Houston State colors brought back an icy reminder that it could have been Cal Poly. A break here. A turnover there. We could have been in Montana this weekend. Running the triple option in the snow. It’s enough to drive a person insane.

[tweet https://twitter.com/brelj1/status/277097419160834048]

[tweet https://twitter.com/KatFansDotCom/status/277059473674227712]

The game even got some Dan Patrick Show love…

[tweet https://twitter.com/PaulPabst/status/276840685288710145]

Today and tomorrow, I would argue, will be tougher on die-hard Cal Poly fans than any day last week. At least there was something to talk about then.

Instead of a playoff football game in Montana, football fans will be quieted. The big sporting event on-campus is a basketball game at home vs. Menlo College Mighty Oaks. And while the basketball team has made its mark already this season, even Joe Callero would concede, things just don’t ever buzz like when you have a football team in the playoffs…

Next year.

This week’s edition of the Fansmanship.com podcast might be our longest, but perhaps the most timely as well.

Cal Poly’s Chris Eversley and the rest of the Mustangs fought back from an 18-point second-half deficit at Pauley Pavilion on Sunday night. By Will Parris

We have two guests on this episode. First, I talked to Tim Jeske from Katfans.com, a Sam Houston State fan forum. Jeske and I discussed the upcoming FCS playoff game bewteen Cal Poly and Sam Houston State, where each team has the advantage, and what the atmosphere is Huntsville, TX is like.

The second guest on the podcast was Tribune college beat writer J.D. Scroggin. J.D. and I talked about Joe Callero’s Cal Poly basketball team’s improbable upset of #11 UCLA at Pauley Pavilion on Sunday night. We also discussed Saturday’s FCS playoff game, this time from a SLO perspective.

Pretty much this podcast is a Cal Poly extravaganza. If you are a Cal Poly football and basketball fan, you REALLY need to listen to this podcast.

Also, follow us on twitter, like us on Facebook, and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes.

Thanks and enjoy!

O

This morning, the Cal Poly football team learned their postseason fate. And it will take them ::clap clap clap clap:: deep in the heart of Texas.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9YNy_v3_sQ

Cal Poly defensive lineman Sullivan Grosz had 6 tackles including 1.5 sacks on Saturday in Flagstaff. He and the Mustangs should be fresh for their matchup with Sam Houston State in two weeks. By Owen Main

The Good:

In their first season in the Big Sky Conference, a share of the conference title got Cal Poly through into the second round of play, giving them two weeks to prepare and get healthy. This should especially benefit the offensive line.

The Bad:

No home game. Cal Poly’s second-round game will be played in Huntsville, TX vs. the Sam Houston State Bearkats. While the Mustangs are back in the playoffs for the first time since 2008, Alex G. Spanos Stadium is due to stay quiet for the rest of the season, barring a monumental upset. Huntsville, TX is about 75 minutes North of Houston.

Good thing Cal Poly won:

Cal Poly wrapped up its regular season schedule yesterday with a solid victory at Northern Arizona. There was talk of the Lumberjacks getting an at-large bid as well, but it looks like that didn’t happen, despite the Big Sky’s lobbying.

Who are they playing?

Sam Houston State has three losses on the year – 2 of them to Big-12 and SEC schools. The Bearkats actually started the season 1-2. They were downed by Baylor early in the season and then lost at Central Arkansas the following week. After reeling off seven consecutive wins, they lost to 9th ranked Texas A&M and Heisman hopeful Johnny Manziel this past week by a respectable score of 47-28. In the Sagarin Rankings, Sam Houston State is slotted at number 6, with Cal Poly right behind them in 7th.