Samford Stuns Wofford 10-9 on Ty Ippolito's 44-Yard Field Goal as Time Expires

For 53 minutes, Samford could not find the end zone, could not stay on the field and could barely get a first down. It did not matter. Ty Ippolito lined up one last kick as the clock ran out, the 44-yard field goal split the uprights at Pete Hanna Stadium, and the Bulldogs stole a game on Halloween night that Wofford had controlled for almost all of it.

Samford beat Wofford 10-9 on Saturday in Birmingham, scoring all 10 of its points in the final 6:56. The Terriers held the ball for 38:28, outgained the Bulldogs 386 to 310, ran 50 times for 227 yards and still walked off the field with a loss, because three field goals were all they could turn that dominance into and two more field goal tries in the fourth quarter missed.

Samford improved to 3-6 overall and 3-3 in the Southern Conference with its second straight win. Wofford, coming off a bye week, fell to 5-4 and 3-3.

A first half full of red-zone regret

Wofford's tone-setting drive should have been a touchdown. The Terriers went 72 yards in 11 plays on their first full possession, with Gerald Modest Jr. pounding away between the tackles and Davis Penn breaking a 21-yard run to the Samford 17. Modest converted a third-and-2 to reach the 5. Then J.T. Fayard's first-and-goal throw was picked off in the end zone by LaShon Young for a touchback at 5:15 of the first quarter.

That set the pattern. Wofford moved the ball and Samford's defense made the play that mattered. Early in the second quarter, Terrence Honeywood took a snap and hit Anjuan Coleman Jr. for 34 yards to the Samford 45. On the very next play, Fayard's pass was intercepted by Max Steve at the Samford 14.

The Terriers finally broke through midway through the quarter. Modest ripped off a 26-yard run on the first play of a 10-play, 60-yard drive, and Conner Deviney kicked a 43-yard field goal with 4:12 left in the half.

Samford's offense, meanwhile, lived on two throws. Gabarri Johnson hit Kevonte Corbin for 30 yards to escape a punt that Cillian Bonner had pinned at the Samford 1, and later found Corbin again for 45 yards to get into Wofford territory before halftime. That drive stalled, and Ippolito, the kicker who has made the three longest field goals in school history this season, was short from 53 yards with 58 seconds left. It was 3-0 at the break.

Wofford grinds, Samford stalls

The third quarter was Wofford's best stretch, and it still felt like an opportunity missed. Samford's opening kickoff was a short one that Wofford's Grant Tucker muffed, but teammate J. Jaraczewski fell on it for the Terriers at their own 36. Modest carried four straight times to cross midfield, and an unnecessary roughness penalty on Samford tacked 15 yards onto a Fayard completion to set Wofford up at the 14. The drive died there, and Deviney hit from 31 yards at 10:44.

Samford went three-and-out. Wofford answered with an 11-play, 57-yard march that included a fourth-and-1 conversion on a 5-yard Modest run, and again the Terriers settled for three, with Deviney's 34-yarder at 4:03 making it 9-0. Samford went three-and-out again.

At that point the Terriers had a running back who would finish with 38 carries for 197 yards. The Bulldogs went 2-for-12 on third down for the night. Wofford had 22 first downs to Samford's 12. Everything in the box score pointed to a road win.

The turning point: two misses and a 41-yard run

The fourth quarter opened with Wofford in range again, at the Samford 26 after a 17-yard catch by Jaden Fowler and a 10-yard Modest run. Deviney's 44-yard try was no good at 13:31. Once again Wofford had come away empty from deep in Samford territory, and this time the Bulldogs made the Terriers pay for it.

After an exchange of punts, Samford took over at its own 17 with 8:30 to play. A false start pushed the Bulldogs back to the 12. Johnson found Cayden Aukerman for 14 yards on second-and-15, then kept it himself on third-and-1 and ran 24 yards to midfield. Marquise Henderson caught a 9-yarder to the Wofford 41. On the next snap, Ken Cherry took a handoff up the middle, found a crease and went 41 yards for a touchdown with 6:56 left. Ippolito's extra point made it 9-7.

Wofford's response was the drive that should have ended the game. The Terriers had two big gains erased by penalties, a 16-yard Modest run wiped out by holding and a 13-yard completion to J. Purdy negated by an ineligible man downfield, and they faced second-and-22 from their own 38. Fayard hit Fowler for 23 yards to move the chains. Modest did the rest, carrying the ball down the field as Samford burned all three of its timeouts to save the clock. A first down at the Samford 28 with 2:00 left looked like the clincher. Three plays gained 6 yards, and Deviney came out for a 40-yard attempt that would have put Wofford up five. It missed with 1:05 left.

Sixty-five seconds

Samford needed about 40 yards with no timeouts. Its first snap was an incompletion. Aukerman caught a 6-yard pass and got out of bounds. Johnson ran for 2 more, and it was fourth-and-2 from the Samford 30 with under a minute to play.

Johnson stood in and threw deep left to Preston Bird, who caught it for 23 yards at the Wofford 47. On the next play, a pass interference flag on Ky'Ree Murphy moved the ball 15 more yards to the 32. After an incompletion, Bird caught a 5-yard pass to the 27 and Samford sent out the field goal unit with 16 seconds left. Ippolito, who had missed from 53 yards in the first half, hit from 44 as time expired.

The final drive went 51 yards in seven plays and took exactly 1:05.

The defense deserves the headline

Ippolito will get the replays, but the Samford defense won this game. Max Steve was everywhere, with 20 tackles to go along with his interception. Spencer Conn added 13 tackles. John Scott III, Andrew Jordan and Aiden Jeter each had a sack, and the defense forced two turnovers while the offense did not give the ball away once.

The bigger picture is a defense that is suddenly suffocating people. A week after holding Furman out of the end zone in a 13-6 win at Furman, Samford did it again for 60 minutes. That is eight straight quarters without allowing a touchdown. The Bulldogs came in leading the Southern Conference in pass defense at 154.4 yards allowed per game, and Wofford finished with 159 passing yards. Fayard went 13-of-21 for 125 yards with two interceptions.

Offensively, Johnson completed 19 of 32 passes for 219 yards without a turnover and added 27 rushing yards. Corbin led all receivers with 89 yards on three catches. Aukerman had five catches for 48 yards, and Bird's four catches for 37 yards included the two that set up the winner. Cherry finished with 46 yards on six carries, 41 of them on one run.

For Wofford, Modest carried the offense on his back all night, and that workload deserved a better ending. Murphy led the defense with seven tackles, and Marek Marcellus had the Terriers' only sack. Deviney made three field goals, but the two that missed decided the night.

What it means

Since Samford joined the SoCon in 2008, 11 of the 18 meetings before Saturday had been decided by one score, according to Samford's game notes. Wofford had won the last two, including 26-16 in Spartanburg last season, after Samford won nine straight. The Bulldogs now lead the all-time series 17-7.

For Samford, a 2-6 start is turning into something more respectable. Two straight conference wins have the Bulldogs at .500 in the league, and the defense now looks like a group that can keep them in any game. Next up is a trip to ETSU on Nov. 7, followed by Western Carolina at home on Nov. 14 and a visit to Auburn on Nov. 21.

For Wofford, this one will sting for a while. The Terriers did almost everything right for 59 minutes. But two interceptions in the red zone and two missed fourth-quarter field goals in a one-point loss is the whole story. Wofford faces Western Carolina next on Nov. 7.

The official box score (opens in a new tab) tells you Wofford won the game on paper. The scoreboard tells you something else, and on Halloween in Birmingham, the scoreboard had the last word.

Sources: ESPN box score and play-by-play, Samford Athletics game notes. More college football coverage on Undrafted.

Photos: Samford Athletics.