How 'bout them Govs?

Sorry, that's not proper Associated Press styling, or even a particularly good showcase for the English language. But when something as unlikely as overcoming a three-score second-half deficit, on the road, in the mountains, against a team you'd never seen before operating on the other side of the country, actually happens, you let the English language take a backseat for a second.

The Govs got stronger against Southern Utah. From a sluggish start to an electrifying final snap, they never wavered. The thing about playing at altitude is that you don't get better over the course of time as the visitor – it's simply not done that way. That's the advantage for teams in the mountains, right? Sometime in the third quarter, the other team starts sucking wind and the hosts, used to the elevation, apply the right pressure to break the opponent and put the game away.

Not this time.

Austin Peay head coach Scotty Walden had it right in his postgame remarks – Southern Utah brings it from opening whistle to final horn. They blasted out of the gates and, aside from an electrifying Kam Thomas punt return touchdown that tied the school career record and officially put Terrence Holt's combined school kick return scores record on notice, scuffled moving the ball while the Thunderbirds soared.

It's common to discuss halftime adjustments as though coaches and players can, over the course of 15 minutes, pivot from a week or more of scheme-building that didn't work in the first half to a fully-fledged plan of attack in the second half to right all wrongs, cure all ills and take an opponent firing on all cylinders and render them inert over the final half of football.

Maybe that happens sometimes. Saturday, the message was far simpler.

"At halftime, we just talked about not trying to get it all back at once," Walden said. "[Our feeling was] We'll find out who our leaders are, we'll find out what kind of team we are, and let's just go out and win one play at a time in the third quarter. We never quit and kept battling and fighting. Just an amazing victory, and I cannot give our players enough credit for the attitude."

With under 10 minutes to go in the third quarter – right about the time the fatigue and the altitude should have been taking an impossible-to-fight toll – the Govs were staring at a game-defining fourth-and-goal situation that could make or break the season. It wouldn't be the last time Saturday night they faced a call that could solidify or destroy a legacy, a season, a championship drive, playoff hopes, the whole thing.

Then Mike DiLiello – after an uncharacteristically quiet first half (5-for-11 for 42 yards and an interception) – plunged into the end zone from a yard out to cut the deficit to 14 and kick-start the comeback.

On the next possession, it was the defense's turn to bow up. Still down two scores, after surrendering touchdowns on five of Southern Utah's first seven drives, the Govs faced down third-and-two, against an opponent who averaged seven yards per carry in the first half. It wasn't hard to anticipate what was coming. Southern Utah ran it straight into the line… where Sam Howard and J'Vian McCray stonewalled the runner for a one-yard loss.

The Thunderbirds, after a demoralizing three-and-out, punted. By the time they got the ball back four minutes later, the Govs had put another touchdown on the board and swung momentum firmly in their direction.  

That was by no means the end of the danger for the Govs – the Thunderbirds absorbed Austin Peay's counterpunch and answered with a few haymakers of their own later in the contest to send the game into overtime. There were more moments fraught with tension, including a deflected interception and subsequent Southern Utah field goal attempt in overtime that could have sent the Govs home – after everything – with a dispiriting loss.

Process over results. That's a notion Walden has hammered into his team. The Govs did the right things to fight back and give themselves a chance to win. A bad bounce on Austin Peay's first overtime possession nearly derailed it all for Austin Peay; a fortuitous clang off the left upright when it was Southern Utah's turn gave the Govs a new lease on life, for the night and maybe for the season.

Good teams get it done. Great teams get it done and take advantage of good fortune when it smiles down upon them. The Govs are looking a bit like a great team after seven games.

"It is so hard to win a college football game," Walden said. "[Southern Utah] plays harder than any team we've played against in my three years at Austin Peay. We prepared our guys all week that it was going to be a four-quarter war and it was; that team does not know how to quit. There were a lot of times were Southern Utah gained the advantage and had all the momentum and we just kept swinging."

So, I ask again:

How 'bout them Govs?