FORT COLLINS — Jared Roberts braced everyone.
“I’ve lost my voice a little,” the Colorado State kicker said — hoarsely — after the Rams’ 16-13 victory over Utah State on Saturday night.
Roberts, a senior from Denver’s Mullen High School, had just kicked the game-winning, 46-yard field goal at Hughes Stadium as time ran out. It was his third field goal of the night, following earlier successes from 52 and 46 yards and a miss from 47.
The winning kick came after Garrett Grayson’s 46-yard pass to Rashard Higgins got the Rams to Utah State’s 22-yard line with 11 seconds left. The Rams took a 5-yard penalty for a false start and the Aggies twice called a timeout to ice Roberts. But he stepped up and made the game-winner.
“It’s a little frustrating, and you want to get up there and kick it,” Roberts said. “After the second one, I looked back and I was like, ‘Geez, another timeout.’ But luckily, they were out, so I knew we were going to kick it at that point. You just relax and trust it.
“You’re always nervous, especially in a game of this magnitude. We had a sellout crowd, and give huge credit to the crowd for being so loud. They made a difference tonight.”
Record-setting Ram. Grayson, a senior QB from the Orchards area outside Vancouver, Wash., passed both Terry Nugent and Kelly Stouffer to set the CSU career passing yardage record.
“Just to be mentioned with guys like Terry Nugent and Moses Moreno and Bradlee Van Pelt, it’s a huge honor and I’m blessed,” Grayson said. “I’ve had a crazy amount of good athletes around me, good players to make my job a lot easier, make me look a lot better than I am.”
