POCATELLO, Idaho – The Southern Utah University Thunderbirds snapped their five game road losing streak by blowing over the Idaho State Bengals with a 52-27 victory.

The Thunderbirds led by just four points heading into halftime, but a massive 21-point third quarter followed by a 14-point final quarter sealed the comfortable victory. Patrick Tyler threw 32-45-1 for 334 yards and two touchdowns for Southern Utah. Chris d-Entrement relieved Tyler in the fourth as he threw 1-6-0 for 24 yards.

Junior Tufuga led the Thunderbirds defensively with 10 tackles; Tyler Collet and Fesi Vaa'ivaka added seven and five, respectively. Mike Needham and Mitch Dalley each tabbed an interception as Needham added two pass breakups in the win.

“I'm just proud we had a full game. We played hard the whole game,” Needham said. “This is a learning process. Each week we fail at some things, and we succeed at some things. Today we learned from the past and stayed positive. That helped us. 

Malik Brown had yet another triple-digit rushing game, driving 17 times for a gain of 106 yards and two touchdowns. James Felila added 68 yards on eight attempts for another two touchdowns.

On fourth and two in SUU's opening drive of the game, Tyler connected with Mike Sharp on a 30-yard reception to set the Thunderbirds up on the 2-yard line before Brown punched in a touchdown to put Southern Utah on the board with a 7-0 lead.

The Bengals responded with a short reception later in the first quarter to put their first points up and knot the game to round out the opening quarter, 7-7. 

ISU put up its second touchdown early in the second quarter as Tanner Gueller connected with KW Williams on a 36-yard pass before Southern Utah responded on the following drive as Tyler found Sharp for a Thunderbird touchdown to mark a 14-13 SUU lead. 

Keita Calhoun knocked in a 41-yard field goal as the time ran out in the first half to extend the Thunderbirds' edge to 17-13 at halftime.   

“We told the team at halftime, 'If we just focus on the next play, the score is going to take care of itself,'” head coach Demario Warren said. “We just went out there and played some football and the results speak for themselves.”

Southern Utah put up three-straight touchdowns to open the third quarter as Felila ran in a 22-yard rush, Tyler connected with Cameron Chambers on a 40-yard pass, and Felila punched another touchdown on a 2-yard run.

“Once we get into a tempo, it's hard to stop us,” Tyler said. “After that first half, we knew we should have played better and scored more points. So the whole vibe just changed coming out of that first half.” 

The Bengals put up a single touchdown in the final seconds of the third quarter as the Gueller-Williams duo struck again on a 40-yard pass. 

The Thunderbirds blew the game open early in the fourth quarter with a pair of touchdowns to extend SUU's advantage to 52-20. The touchdowns came in the forms of a 7-yard Brown run followed by a 15-yard Raysean Pringle run. 

Southern Utah concludes its home season next Saturday by hosting Montana State in Eccles Coliseum on Saturday, Nov. 12, at 1:00 p.m. 

For all Thunderbird news, follow @SUUFB on Twitter and Instagram along with liking SUU Football on Facebook.