The only thing that was missing was a signature win

In 2012, Cal Poly football won the games they were “supposed” to win and lost the ones they were “supposed” to lose, with three exceptions. The first was the win at Wyoming and the second was the loss to Sacramento State. Third, and least surprisingly, Cal Poly held on at Northern Arizona to win a share of the Big Sky Championship in their first year in the conference.

Chris Brown and Cal Poly had a successful season, but the loss to Yale might stand-out most when fans think of this season. By Owen Main

This season, 2013, wasn’t much different, but for the lack of a big, signature win and the addition of a key signature loss. In games the Mustangs played against teams ranked higher than them, they played decently, but lost all of them. In the games against teams they were favored to beat, they beat them, with the exception of two games.

At home, against 16th-ranked Northern Arizona, the unranked Mustangs were 6.5 point favorites. Without Kristaan Ivory, Cal Poly eventually lost the game on a kickoff return for a touchdown immediately after the Mustangs had taken the lead. That game was bitter, but it wasn’t the kind of huge upset that burns in the pit of the losing team and fanbase’s collective stomach for a long time.

So, let’s talk about the Yale game. In a season when there was really an absence of a signature win, the Yale game provided a clear signature loss. So many things about the Yale game went so badly. Cal Poly came into the game ranked number 18 in the country. The game had been hyped up for more than a year to fans and the community as a chance to put Cal Poly on the map against an Ivy League School. Cal Poly fans rightfully expected to beat the non-scholarship Bulldogs handily. Instead, Yale came out with a fantastic game plan and Cal Poly failed to execute time and time again.

For some of the Mustang fans, it was embarrassing. I don’t know when the last time a Cal Poly team favored by that much (22.5 points) had outright lost a football game. To make it worse, Yale traveled pretty well and Cal Poly fans didn’t really come out in huge numbers for the early game time. The Yale football program recruits nationally and because of the academic standards Cal Poly has, they are sure to cross paths trying to recruit the same players from time to time. I’m sure there are many more angles that make this loss really bad, but you get the idea. The implications of the Yale loss were far-reaching and will upset a lot of Cal Poly die-hards for a long time.

With a signature win, though, all would have been forgiven. If Cal Poly had managed to hang on and beat Montana in Missoula, Mustangs fans would have seen that Yale game as a bump in the road. If they’d held on against Northern Arizona, the season might have been salvageable. A win against Eastern Washington would have made the season, in some way, all right as well.

Instead, the lack of a real signature victory magnified the one really bad loss. Success at this level of college football is balanced on such a razor-thin edge that Cal Poly could have still been in the playoffs had two special-teams plays gone differently. Had they not lost their starting quarterback in game two, there is no telling what they might have done. But they did not win those games. They did, however, win today and finished the season 6-6 overall and 5-3 in the Big Sky Conference.

The Golden Horseshoe(s) will reside in San Luis Obispo for another year. By Owen Main

During the course of the 2013 season, the Mustangs saw Kristaan Ivory become the 16th player in program history reach 1,000 yards rushing in a season. In a year where there was a four-man quarterback battle until two weeks before the first game, three different quarterbacks started and five different guys took snaps in games. One of them was Kenny Johnston — a fifth-year senior who orchestrated a drive in the final game of the season. Chris Brown, who was the most successful signal-caller for Cal Poly, set a single game rushing record for a quarterback as the Mustangs kept the Golden Horseshoe and beat rival UC Davis.

This season, Cal Poly sported a defense that stopped their opponent on third and fourth down-and-one situations so often that fans came to be surprised when the other team gained a first down. Sullivan Grosz, a stalwart defensive tackle, will have NFL scouts looking at him for the draft, and the entire front-seven played some of the most physical defensive football I’ve seen at this level.

In their eight Big Sky Conference games, Cal Poly allowed an average of only 18 points per game. In their final six games, the defense forced 16 turnovers, which was a big turnaround from a team that forced only two turnovers during the first six games. Speaking of turnovers, Cal Poly also won 47-0 in a game in which they forced zero turnovers.

In the end, Cal Poly finished in a four-way time for fourth-place in the Big Sky. They are the best FCS team in California and were a whisker away from a second-straight playoff run. The team started three different quarterbacks and still finished with a winning record in conference. Nobody in the program has anything to second-guess. Except the Yale game.

That damn Yale game… .