So much for a Rocky Moun­tain Show­down hangover.

Down sev­en points at half­time, Col­orado State scored three con­sec­u­tive touch­downs between the third and fourth quar­ters, then got the last-minute stop they couldn’t a week ear­li­er to beat Mid­dle Ten­nessee State, 31–23, on Sat­ur­day night in Murfrees­boro, Tenn.

Nuer Gatkuoth strip-sacked MTSU quar­ter­back Nicholas Vat­tia­to on the game’s final play at the CSU 32-yard line, hand­ing the Rams their first win of the sea­son and sixth straight imme­di­ate­ly after a loss to CU.

“I think it’s just a tes­ta­ment to the broth­er­hood we’ve built,” CSU quar­ter­back Bray­den Fowler-Nicolosi said postgame on the ESPN+ broad­cast. “I don’t know a clos­er group of guys in the coun­try. … We all love each oth­er and that trans­lates to the field.”

Fowler-Nicolosi found receiv­er Tory Hor­ton for a pair of touch­down pass­es in the sec­ond half, the last of which put the Rams up 24–17 with 11:34 remain­ing. Not long after, CSU forced a MTSU fum­ble at its own 5‑yard line that Mohamed Kama­ra scooped up and returned for a touch­down and even­tu­al 31–17 lead.

Mid­dle Ten­nessee got one back with Vat­tia­to hook­ing up with Eli­jah Met­calf for a 10-yard touch­down pass with 4:45 to go, but a blocked extra point kept the deficit at eight. The Blue Raiders got the ball back at its 14-yard line with 2:39 to go, set­ting up a sit­u­a­tion that was eeri­ly famil­iar to last week’s Rocky Moun­tain Show­down, which the Rams even­tu­al­ly lost in dou­ble overtime.

Except this time around, the Rams came up with the stop after MTSU drove to the CSU 32 — bat­ting one pass down in the end zone, then get­ting Gatkuoth’s strip sack on the final snap.

“I’m just real­ly proud of the resilien­cy of our team,” CSU coach Jay Norvell said on the ESPN+ broad­cast. “We got a bunch of kids that were sick this week after last week and they could hard­ly get through the game. …

“We’ve been work­ing real­ly hard to try to play togeth­er, and feed­ing off each oth­er, offense and defense, and we cer­tain­ly did that in the sec­ond half when we were behind. I’m just real­ly proud of our kids, and the coach­es, of how hard they fought.”

Fowler-Nicolosi com­plet­ed 29 of 42 pass­es for 306 yards. Tight end Dallin Holk­er had 11 recep­tions for 112 yards and a touch­down for Col­orado State (1–2). Hor­ton fin­ished with 10 catch­es for 99 yards and two scores..

Vat­tia­to was 30-of-41 pass­ing for 274 yards and three touch­downs and added 47 yards on the ground and a touch­down run from short yardage for Mid­dle Ten­nessee (1–2). Hold­en Willis had nine catch­es for 118 yards, Met­calf fin­ished with 11 for 95, and each had a touch­down reception.

“We have an unbe­liev­able amount of resilien­cy,” Fowler-Nicolosi said. “Our tough­ness is unmatched. It’s just a tes­ta­ment to my boys. All of our start­ing receivers had some­thing this week and they still came out and balled.”

The Asso­ci­at­ed Press con­tributed to this report.

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