San Diego State won its last regular season game in Carson. (Photo by John Cordes/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
On October 15, Aztecs starting quarterback Jordon Brookshire was replaced by Lucas Johnson, who engineered a comeback win over San Jose State by throwing the ball to Jesse Matthews.
On Friday morning they switched roles. Brookshire hadn't played since that day but when Johnson left with a lower body injury the senior came in with the Aztecs trailing Boise State 16-3 and sparked a 27-16 win to put SDSU in the Mountain West Conference championship game.
The Broncos jumped out to the big lead thanks to a pair of touchdown passes from Hank Bachmeier. BSU looked like they were going to put things to bed before halftime but after a defensive stop, Brookshire came out gunning. He hit Matthews for 30 yards, connected with Daniel Bellinger for 17 more then punctuated it with a 29-yard TD pass to Matthews to make it 16-10 and give the entire Aztecs team a shot of adrenaline.
Another defensive stand set up Matt Araiza for a 37-yard field goal with three seconds left in the half to make it 16-13.
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After the break it was all Aztecs.
Brookshire started the 2nd half with an 18-yard run and found Bellinger again for 38 yards to set up Greg Bell's 2-yard touchdown run to give SDSU a 20-16 lead. Three plays later Patrick McMorris picked off his 2nd pass of the game to set up the Aztecs at Boise State's 43 yard line.
Brookshire went right back to Matthews for 27 yards. The former walk-on from East County had nine catches for 133 yards and a score. Brookshire ran it in himself from the 16 and that was that. SDSU didn't give up another point.
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The defense forced three punts, a turnover on downs, and a turnover on a Dallas Branch interception to puncutate a dominant second half performance. Brookshire completed 11 of 15 passes for 192 yards and was the Aztecs leading rusher with 46 yards on nine carries.
SDSU will host the Mountain West Conference title game next week at noon in Carson against either Utah State.
