Steve Cameron: Fresno State lets Carta-Samuels be the hero

If Ryan Mathews is done at Fresno State, he certainly won't remember his finale very fondly.

After a nearly flawless season in which he led the nation in rushing, Mathews endured a finish from hell in the New Mexico Bowl on Saturday.

Oh, there were plenty of other culprits in the Bulldogs' bizarre 35-28 double-overtime loss to Wyoming.

And to be fair, Cowboys freshman quarterback Austyn Carta-Samuels played like a future Heisman Trophy winner while leading his team back from an 11-point deficit in the final quarter.

But the Dogs in general, and Mathews in particular, gave Carta-Samuels his chance to be a hero -- and the kid from San Jose grabbed it gleefully.

In fact, the only coach sicker about Saturday's result than Pat Hill might be San Jose State's Dick Tomey.

Carta-Samuels, who played his high school ball at nearby Bellarmine Prep, gave an oral commitment to Tomey and then rescinded it.

Carta-Samuels was almost magical in the fourth quarter and overtimes against Fresno State, but the Bulldogs no doubt flew home sick that the game wasn't all wrapped before the craziness started.

When Mathews sliced into the end zone to put the Dogs up 28-17 with 13:59 remaining, Fresno State looked for all the world to be on cruise control.

The Dogs had shut down Wyoming's running game in the second half and even picked off a tipped pass to set up a score.

It seemed physical control had seeped totally away from Wyoming, an 11-point underdog that had gone just 6-6 in the regular season.

But from that point forward, there was nothing but misery ahead for the Dogs -- and particularly Mathews.

Oh, Wyoming did its part with a TD pass and two-point conversion, cutting the gap to 28-25, but Fresno State was dominating the line of scrimmage and promptly rumbled downfield toward what surely was going to be the clinching score.

But then Mathews, converting a short-yardage play at the Wyoming 28, had the ball stripped clean by Wyoming linebacker Mitch Unrein.

And THAT misfortune allowed Wyoming to tie the game on a field goal with 20 seconds remaining -- after a 19-play drive that seemed to take a day and a half.

The Cowboys had to convert three fourth-down situations on the possession, including a fake punt that the Bulldogs SHOULD have seen coming.

Even then, Fresno State appeared to have the game won in overtime -- especially once the Dogs had a first-and-goal about 10 inches from the end zone.

Four plays later, they had nothing.

Three of those failed smashes were lead plays with the 220-pound Mathews running straight into a pile of humanity.

Two things did NOT happen: Hill and his staff never let Mathews take the ball wide on a pitch -- even with Wyoming bunched completely in the middle -- and Mathews never tried to leap into the end zone.

"We had our chances," Hill muttered afterward. "Give credit to Wyoming."

That would be the public Pat Hill.

Inside, the coach had to be burning that his offensive line, a 270-pound fullback and the nation's leading rusher couldn't manage 10 inches of progress.

Trust me: Nothing in football would infuriate Hill more than that.

Coaching legend Vince Lombardi NEVER let his great Green Bay teams throw a pass inside an opponent's 3-yard line -- even though it would have been a certain touchdown.

"If you can't drive the other team backwards a couple yards on four downs," Lombardi fumed, "you don't deserve to win a football game."

Of course, Hill could have been a little less macho than Lombardi and called a play to go wide, or maybe even a pass off a play fake since the entire state of Wyoming had a bead on Mathews.

But Hill thinks like Lombardi.

And the result spoke for itself.

Steve Cameron is a freelance columnist for the Sun-Star. He can be reached at stevecameron1000@gmail.com.