Titans Lose One They ‘Should Have Won’ to New Mexico St., 24-21

New Mexico State players took a victory lap around the turf of Aggie Memorial Stadium Saturday night. Forgive them if they looked as if they didn’t know the way.

Until the final seconds ticked away in the Aggies’ 24-21, Pacific Coast Athletic Assn. victory over Cal State Fullerton, New Mexico State hadn’t won a home game in nine attempts.

And when it came to PCAA games, it didn’t matter where the Aggies played. They had played 13 since joining the conference in 1984. They had lost every one.

And, for a few moments, it looked as if both streaks of ineptitude would continue. Fullerton, reaching at arm’s length into Gene Murphy’s bag of tricks, had rallied from a 17-6 deficit to take a 21-17 lead with 7:03 to play. Unlike the path of their victory lap, the Aggies had been down this road before.

First-year Coach Mike Knoll said: “I looked into some of their eyes and, for a split second, you could see them thinking: ‘Oh Lord, here we go again.’ ”

But junior quarterback Jim Miller, who has been around long enough to witness plenty of postgame mourning sessions, found a way to rewrite the ending.

On the Aggies’ ensuing possession, Miller found Sadao Langfeldt open in the left corner of the end zone for a 20-yard pass with 4:25 to play. New Mexico State held off Fullerton’s desperate comeback attempt in the final minutes, and 12,896 spectators watched the Aggies break their victory celebration out of mothballs.

And Fullerton players, embarrassed last Saturday in a 49-3 loss to Nevada Reno, began sharing another dose of humility. New Mexico State was nearly everyone’s preseason pick to finish last in the PCAA.

“It’s bitter for everybody because this is a team that we not only could have beaten but should have beaten,” Fullerton Coach Gene Murphy said.

Murphy can take little consolation in the fact that the Titans needed a series of gadget plays to make it close. When your punter accounts for more passing yardage than either of your quarterbacks, you know you have problems. Actually, quarterbacks Tony Dill and Ronnie Barber had very little to do with two of the Titans’ most significant passes of the game.

The Aggies took a 14-6 lead with 1:10 left in the third quarter when Gene Egan wrestled an apparent interception away from Titan safety Tom Phillips in the end zone for a 21-yard touchdown reception. New Mexico State made it 17-6 at the 13:09 mark of the fourth quarter on Jim Gill’s 21-yard field goal, which came after Todd Parker recovered a loose ball that the Fullerton kick return unit somehow forgot to return. The unreceived ball had the affect of an onside kick, giving the Aggies the ball on the Titan 27.

Barber replaced starter Dill at quarterback on Fullerton’s next possession but didn’t have any more success moving the ball. Fullerton punter Jim Sirois set up in punt formation near the Fullerton 30. Instead of punting, Sirois lofted a wobbly pass to Phillips that stunned the Aggies for a 60-yard touchdown play. Dill returned to throw a two-point conversion pass to Bill Brennan that cut New Mexico State’s lead to 17-14 with 11:11 remaining.

On New Mexico State’s ensuing possession, Bryan Riggs and Ron McLean combined to stop Aggie running back Marvin Goudeau for a short gain on third-and-three to give the Fullerton offense another chance.

Following a New Mexico State punt, Barber pitched the ball to Todd White, who threw to John Gibbs for a 42-yard gain to the Aggie 15. A pass interference penalty on cornerback Ernest Hollowell moved the ball to the 2, and Fullerton running back Rick Calhoun took it in from there to give the Titans a 21-17 lead with 7:03 to play.

Fullerton was penalized for a personal foul on the kickoff that followed, enabling the Aggies to start a comeback attempt at their 37. Miller threw 12 yards to Bennie Thomas, then scrambled for a 25-yard gain to the Fullerton 21 to set up the winning score.

Knoll, who had all but guaranteed the Aggies would beat Fullerton for their first conference win, was elated at not having to taste his words.

“We found a way to win tonight, and that’s so important for this football team,” he said. “This team deserves to have good things happen to it.”

The Titans may be wondering when good things will start happening to them. The Fullerton secondary gave up 180 yards passing to a quarterback who threw for all of 31 yards last week in a 20-14 loss to Angelo State. Dill and Barber combined to complete 4 of 23 passes for 87 yards. The only Dill pass that was caught in the first half was the one Parker intercepted to set up the Aggies’ first score.

“We were offensively inept in the first half and that killed us,” Murphy said. “We eliminated a lot of mental mistakes from last week, but we made more physical mistakes.

“It’s very frustrating right now. Reno, no . . . that wasn’t a could-have or should-have. But this was one we should have won.”