Western Colorado beats Colorado Mines football in RMAC stunner

The Colorado School of Mines football program’s stranglehold on the RMAC is in serious jeopardy.

For the second time in four weeks, the 10th-ranked Orediggers fell to an in-state rival as unbeaten and eighth-ranked Western Colorado piled up 469 total yards en route to a 38-28 victory at a jam-packed Marv Kay Stadium.

The Mountaineers (8-0, 6-0 RMAC) jumped ahead 31-7 by the opening moments of the fourth quarter, then withstood a last-ditch rally to drop Mines (6-2, 4-2) to fourth in the RMAC standings with its second conference loss of the season.

The Orediggers lost two conference games total while winning at least a share of the last five RMAC crowns — a run that dates back to the 2018 season. But with three conference games left, and losses to two of the teams ahead of them in the standings (Western Colorado and Colorado Mesa), the Orediggers face an uphill climb to keep that streak alive.

Quarterback Drew Nash did much of the damage for the Mountaineers, throwing for 209 yards and two touchdowns and running for another 88 yards and one score — the latter giving them that 31-7 lead with 14:53 left. Braeden Hogan added 148 yards and two touchdowns on 19 carries for Western Colorado, which hosts CSU Pueblo (7-1, 6-0) next Saturday in a showdown of the conference’s top two teams in the standings.

The Western Colorado defense sacked Mines quarterback Evan Foster seven times, three coming from Ricky Freymond.

The redshirt senior signal caller completed 21 of 30 passes for 323 yards, with three of his four touchdown throws coming during the Orediggers’ desperation rally in the fourth. But it ended up being too little, too late to escape with a win in front of a stadium-record 7,813 fans.

Receivers Flynn Schiele (five catches, 136 yards, 2 TDs) and Max McLeod (8-107, 1 TD) were Foster’s primary targets, while Mark McCurdy added a 43-yard scoring grab with 8:04 left that drew Mines within 31-31 with 8:04 to go. But Western Colorado responded with a five-play, 75-yard march capped by Hogan’s second touchdown of the day to effectively put the game away.