[Careless Whisper]

Timely Stops Give Carnegie Mellon First Road FCS Win
Devon Elliott sacked Mark Fontenot with 1:19 remaining to give the Tartans their first road triumph in Division I

by Jayson Thomas, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reporter

LAKE CHARLES, La. -- It was a gut-check week for Carnegie Mellon in practice leading into its matchup at McNeese State, and it’s safe to say the Tartans passed the test. A dominant defensive performance with some timely sacks helped guide CMU to its first Division I road victory, knocking off the Cowboys this afternoon, 13-10.

Carnegie Mellon (2-5) got to McNeese State (3-4) quarterback Mark Fontenot five times, forced a pair of fumbles, and picked off the home signal-caller once. Andrew Miller collected three of those sacks, and Devon Elliott’s knockdown on fourth-and-five with 1:19 remaining sealed an emotional win for second-year head coach John Elliott and his young squad.

“It’s amazing what you can accomplish when you rise to a challenge,” said Elliott. “We had a really tough week of practice and needed to get the bad taste of last week out of our mouth. These guys really stepped it up and made winning plays throughout the day, and they absolutely deserved to win this game.”

Offensively, the Tartans leaned on their freshman duo of Justin Keyes and Jim Manning. Manning ran for a career-high 162 yards on 31 carries in easily the best performance of his young career, while Keyes netted 137 yards on 14-of-26 passing and scored on a two-yard plunge midway through the first quarter.

The Cowboys had their chances late, but Fontenot was picked off by Sean Day with 3:37 to go and then suffered the aforementioned game-ending sack on the following drive.

Carnegie Mellon caps a two-game road trip next Saturday at Dartmouth.

Carnegie Mellon Tartans at McNeese State Cowboys
Oct 14, 2007	1ST	2ND	3RD	4TH	SCORE
Carnegie Mellon Tartans (2-5)	7	3	3	0	13
McNeese State Cowboys (3-4)	0	0	3	7	10

Scoring Summary
FIRST QUARTER SCORING		CMU	MCNS
9:21	(MCNS) Justin Keyes 2-yard run (Justin Thompson kick)	7	0
SECOND QUARTER SCORING		CMU	MCNS
0:45	(MCNS) Justin Thompson 27-yard field goal	10	0
THIRD QUARTER SCORING		CMU	MCNS
8:15	(CMU) Blake Bercegeay 24-yard field goal	10	3
5:31	(MCNS) Justin Thompson 36-yard field goal	13	3
FOURTH QUARTER SCORING		CMU	MCNS
5:25	(CMU) Mark Fontenot 25-yard pass to Neely Hubbard (Blake Bercegeay kick)	13	10

Carnegie Mellon Tartans PASSING C/A YDS TD INT Justin Keyes 14/26 137 0 1 RUSHING ATT YDS AVG TD Jim Manning 31 162 5.2 0 Tramon McCollum 3 14 4.7 0 Justin Keyes 4 -10 -2.5 1 RECEIVING REC YDS AVG TD Pete Carlson 8 93 11.6 0 Ali Concepcion 4 25 6.3 0 DEFENSE TACK SACK INT TD Matt Johnson 8 1 0 0 Andrew Miller 7 3 0 0 Devon Elliott 3 1 0 0 Sean Day 0 0 1 0 KICKING FG XP PTS LONG Justin Thompson 2/3 1/1 7 36

McNeese State Cowboys