Final pass falls incomplete as CCU’s comeback bid ends in loss at CSU

Everything the Coastal Carolina football team had been able to overcome – or win in spite of – while starting the season with seven straight victories came back to plague the Chanticleers once again Saturday night.

And this time they couldn’t obscure those flaws with a strong enough finish.

No. 19/24-ranked Charleston Southern scored the final 21 points of the first half and never relinquished its lead on the way to a 33-25 win before a home crowd of 5,311 at Buccaneer Field, handing No. 1/2 Coastal Carolina its first loss of the season.

With that, the Buccaneers (7-1, 4-0) take control of the Big South race as the only team still unbeaten in conference play.

“We gave it our best. That’s all I ask our guys to do. We did a good job of that, but we lost the game,” Chants coach Joe Moglia said. “There’s probably 300 college football games that took place today – 150 teams won, 150 teams lost. Today we were one of the teams that lost. So we need to learn from that and we need to be able to come back.”

Coastal Carolina (7-1, 2-1) did show its usual late-game poise while launching a comeback over the final quarter, but this time it fell just short.

The Chants had a chance to tie the score in the waning moments after driving 62 yards in 19 plays on their final drive, but facing fourth-and-4 from the Bucs’ 8, senior quarterback Alex Ross’ pass toward the left side of the end zone glanced off junior Bruce Mapp’s fingers and fell incomplete to end the rally.

“The most frustrating thing for me is the loss. I hate losing. We were put in a position to win at the end of the game and ultimately we didn’t do that,” Ross said afterward. “... As a team, it hurts. We’ve got to gather ourselves, we’ve got to get ourselves together and we have to let this make us stronger.”

The Coastal Carolina coaches will no doubt have some familiar points of emphasis to reiterate in practice this week as the underlying flaws that have shown in a number of games this fall came to the surface again Saturday.

The Chants moved the ball well while totaling 426 yards, which was especially encouraging considering the Bucs came in as the FCS’s top-rated defense while allowing only 218.1 yards per game, but drops and untimely penalties remained an issue.

And a missed red zone opportunity proved costly in handing the early momentum to the hosts.

Set up with a second down from the Bucs’ 14 while leading 15-13 early in the second quarter, Ross overthrew redshirt-freshman receiver Frankie Richardson near the goal line, the Chants fumbled and recovered the snap on third down and junior kicker Ryan Granger, who had made 10 straight field goals coming into the game, then missed wide left from 37 yards.

That opened the door a bit for the Bucs as they scored touchdowns on their next two drives to gain some separation.

The bigger problem, though, was that the Chants simply had no answer on defense the first half.

The Bucs were a perfect 8-for-8 on third down in building their 27-15 first-half lead and had already piled up 313 of their 456 yards by halftime, mixing their productive option rushing attack with big gains in the passing game – often to wide-open receivers.

“Our defense struggled certainly in the first half being able to stop them,” Moglia said. “I thought our offense was doing a good job moving the ball. We wound up with a deficit at halftime we had to fight back [from]. I thought our kids really, really worked hard and played hard. I don’t think anybody on the field gave up. Anything could have happened there in the last 15-20 seconds of the game, but we wound up on the short end of the stick. I was proud of the effort in the second half.”

Coastal Carolina did indeed tighten up defensively after halftime while allowing only a pair of Tyler Tkac field goals the rest of the way and clawed back to make it a one-score game when Ross rushed for a key third-down conversion and junior De’Angelo Henderson followed with a 9-yard touchdown run with 9:03 remaining to cut Charleston Southern’s lead to 33-25.

The Chants then got the ball right back as sophomore Dontay Hears recovered an onside kick, but a 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty backed the offense up from the start of that drive and the visitors would soon punt.

The coaches have been frustrated all season by drive-killing penalties and that was a bad spot for another one.

There was still hope, though. Senior defensive end Roderick Holder delivered a huge tackle for loss, stuffing running back Ben Robinson on third-and-1 to force a quick Bucs punt on the ensuing series as the Chants took over at their own 30 with 5:28 to go.

That set up that program-record 19-play final drive, as the offense converted on third-and-3 on a run by Henderson, on third-and-10 on a pass from Ross to junior Devin Brown, on fourth-and-3 on a pass from Ross to Mapp and on third-and-1 on a Ross keeper while positioning for a potential game-tying score.

Both sides called timeout before that final pass attempt on fourth-and-4 from the Bucs’ 8, Ross liked the one-on-one coverage he saw on the outside and Mapp freed himself from the defender to have a chance at the ball.

But the rally fell just short.

“We had an idea they were going to come out in man coverage and they were going to heat us,” Ross said. “They didn’t want us to get the easy three or four yards on the ground, so we had man routes called. Bruce one-on-one, that’s a good shot right there. Pre-snap I had what I wanted, Bruce ran a hitch, I pump-faked it and got the guy to bite, he turned it into a wheel [route] and I ultimately missed the throw wide.”

Said Mapp: “It was just man-to-man coverage, it was one of our man-beater routes and I’ve just got to help Alex out more. ... I know it hit my finger tips so I should have caught it.”

Ross finished 28-of-46 passing for 274 yards and rushed for 50 yards and a touchdown. He was forced off the field late in third quarter after a defender tweaked the ankle that has bothered him most of the season, but he returned the next series to finish the game.

“He wrapped me up by my legs, he tweaked it a little bit, he had a few words for me, but that’s football,” Ross said.

Said Moglia: “He clearly was hurt. I was surprised that he was able to come back in, so hopefully it’s not going to be as serious as we might have thought originally, but we won’t know that until tomorrow.”

Henderson, meanwhile, rushed for 90 yards and a touchdown in 15 carries and caught seven passes for 33 yards. He has now scored a touchdown in 22 straight games to extend his FCS record.

For Charleston Southern, Brown – who came in averaging 111.7 passing yards per game –completed 13-of-21 passes for 252 yards and two touchdowns.

Holloway rushed for 73 yards and a touchdown to lead the ground attack and caught four passes for 60 yards.

It’s the second time in three years Coastal Carolina has taken its first defeat late in the season at Charleston Southern.

The Chants will now have to hope the Bucs stumble in one of their two remaining Big South games – at Kennesaw State and against Liberty – if they want to earn a share of the conference title. Regardless, they’ll use their final three games to try to fix some of their flaws and rebuild momentum for a postseason push.

“It hurts. It really cuts deep because this is the seniors’ last time playing these guys, but you either win or you learn,” Hears said. “So we’re going to take it and learn from it, get better and regroup and attack next week even harder.”

Said Holder: “I feel like we still have a great chance to make our dreams come true, so we just have to keep working.”

This story was originally published October 31, 2015 at 10:36 PM with the headline "Final pass falls incomplete as CCU’s comeback bid ends in loss at CSU."