Kevin Smart lowered his head, closed his eyes, barreled into the Nebraska-Omaha defense and stuck the ball over the goal line.
Or so he thought, along with Emporia State’s sideline and every ESU fan in the stands.
Smart’s fourth-and-goal nosedive called short was just one of the plays that, if it would have gone differently, might have given Emporia State a chance to end its losing streak on Saturday at Welch Stadium.
Instead, as continues to be the case, the breaks just didn’t fall the Hornets’ way in a 34-13 loss, their fifth straight in a season full of what-ifs.
“Those things right there, I feel like we’re very close,” ESU coach Garin Higgins said. “Whenever we truly, truly need to make a play to change the momentum of the game, we haven’t been able to do that yet.”
Higgins did his part in trying to minimize the momentum-changers that his team has supplied this year with a conference-high 16 turnovers.
The big change against UNO was swapping quarterbacks, starting redshirt freshman Tyler Eckenrode over the turnover-prone Andre Sloan El.
“The turnover bug had just been killing us,” Higgins said. “We just felt like we needed to make a change.”
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