Photo credit: @SJSUSpartanFB

By: Ana Kieu

A San Jose State Spartans football game versus the Army Black Knights? Yeah! There’s a first time for everything.

The Spartans played in a large stadium that’s also the home of the San Francisco 49ers. SJSU, however, got run over by Army 52-3. Bryce Crawford scored an early field goal, but that was all the home team got. The Black Knights basically took over from there.

Here are three takeaways from SJSU’s blowout loss to Army.

Inability to close out a game 
Once again, SJSU was unable to close out a game. As I’ve mentioned in the introduction, the first quarter belonged to SJSU. But, of course, a 3-0 lead wasn’t a comfortable one. Army scored two touchdowns in the second quarter to snatch a 14-3 lead at halftime.

The Spartans never re-energized and brought the fire to the Blue and Gold crowd unless if you’ll count the U.S. Army Officer Ceremony as well as the Spartan Cheer Squad and Spartan Marching Band.

Spartans head coach Brent Brennan said, “It’s really impressive to see where they were and where they came from. Early in the game, I thought our defense was playing great. We were moving the ball on the offense, but there were a couple of costly penalties that hurt our ability to stay on the field and keep their offense off the field, which was really disappointing. The hard part about that scheme was the consistent monotony of it and the infuriating intricacy of how different it was. In the third quarter–after our second or third or fourth turnover–I felt like the dam broke a little with our defense but they played pretty well until then.”

Repeat fumbles
The Spartans suffered from four fumbles, which was disappointing to say the least. Just moments after quarterback Michael Carrillo checked in to the position, a fumble occurred. Carrillo was then sacked from his blindside. Aaron went to the field in hopes of fixing things up for SJSU, but no, Aaron lost the ball at the end of a run.

Okay, the subtraction of these four fumbles wouldn’t have made a significant difference, but SJSU would’ve put up points on the board that they could’ve earned.

Vanishing defense
The Spartans were unable to stop Black Knights quarterback Kelvin Hopkins, Jr., who had the best game of his career thus far. Hopkins, Jr. scored four touchdowns. Hopkins, Jr. also ran for 99 yards along with a season-high three touchdowns and threw for a fourth. It was the first time an Army quarterback has scored three rushing touchdowns in one game since A.J. Schurr had four against the Hawaii Rainbow Warriors on November 23, 2013.

As a result, Hopkins, Jr. exposed the Spartans’ defense as the Black Knights cruised to a blowout win.

“He made some good runs and yards after contact,” Black Knights head coach Jeff Monken told Fox Sports. “He’s been a much more effective runner than maybe we even anticipated. His physical maturity has helped him, too. He’s a lot stronger than he was a year ago.”

The Spartans took a tough loss from the Black Knights, but there’s nothing they can do about the final score other than to move forward. SJSU will travel to Southern California to take on SDSU next Saturday at 7:30 pm PT on CBSS.