Pair of Special Teams Mistakes Bite Robert Morris in Last-Minute Loss at Morgan State

The old saying goes, “Once is an accident, twice is a coincidence, three times is a pattern.” For the Robert Morris (3-3) football team, they hope a recent trend stops at being a coincidence as this week’s last-minute 28-27 loss to Morgan State (5-1) was eerily similar to last week’s last-second victory.

Just like a week ago, the Colonials built a double-digit lead that they watched disappear in the second half. Just like a week ago, the Colonials scored a late touchdown to reclaim the lead. Unlike a week ago in their win, the Colonials could not stop the Bears from going down the field and scoring the go-ahead points.

Despite the fact that the Bears went 75 yards and ate up nearly four minutes of game clock on their game-winning drive, the real detriment to the Colonials’ chances on Saturday were a pair of special team miscues.

Special teams, and kicking in general, at the FCS level is very volatile. Robert Morris lucked out over the past handful of seasons with a reliable kicker but that is now all in the past as field goal kicking has become an actual question mark for what looks like a Northeast Conference contender.

Just after the start of the fourth quarter, with the score 21-21, the Colonials had the chance to add a field goal and go up by three on a 36-yard field goal but Lucca Alcarez-Valens’ attempt came up no good.

While the Robert Morris defense held true on the ensuing drive which allowed the offense to go back down and score a touchdown, it was another special teams miscue that ended the scoring drive as Alcarez-Valens’ extra point was blocked by the Bears which gave the Colonials a 27-21 lead rather than a touchdown lead at 28-21.

Those four points that the special teams unit left out on the field proved to be too costly for even the high-powered Robert Morris offense to overcome in the final 24 seconds of the game.

Robert Morris started the scoring early in the first quarter on a 99-yard drive that ended in a spectacular 28-yard touchdown catch by wide receiver Attawan Mays.

After picking up 15 yards on a 3rd-and-21, the Colonials opted to go for it on fourth down. On the play, quarterback Carson Haggard saw the freshman Mays run past his defender down the sideline and fit his pass right into the hand of Mays who hauled it in with just one hand as he absorbed a hit from the oncoming safety.

Robert Morris added the their lead early in the second quarter on a 4-yard scamper from Haggard and held a 14-0 lead for the vast majority of the second quarter until Morgan State kicked a field goal as time expired in the first half to make the score 14-3 at halftime.

Then, just like last week, for whatever reason, the Bears managed to break out of the chokehold that the Colonials defense had them in and began to move the ball with relative ease in the second half as they erased the 11-point halftime lead and tied the game up at 21-21 by the end of the third quarter.

As stated above, Robert Morris jumped back ahead of Morgan State with 4:16 left in the game on Haggard’s third touchdown pass of the game, a 9-yard strike to tight end Eyasu Palmore at the goal line before the Bears used virtually the rest of the game clock to march down the field for the game-winning touchdown drive.

Haggard was once again a bright spot for Robert Morris despite the loss and fumble was time expired as he finished the game 23-of-30 for 376 yards, three passing touchdowns and one rushing touchdown.

All things considered, the defense played relatively well in the loss to Morgan State as the Bears came into the game on a historic pace offensively. The Colonials managed to limit the Bears to just 181 passing yards and held them below their season average in terms of scoring which they entered the game scoring well over 30 points-per-game.

Robert Morris is set to jump back into Northeast Conference play next weekend when it hosts conference newcomer, New Haven, at Joe Walton Stadium. The Colonials are also likely to get star wide receiver Galen Combs next week after he missed the last three outings due to an injury.