SAN DIEGO — With its back against the wall in back-to-back weeks, San Diego Football once again completed a thrilling comeback victory, this time inside the confines of Torero Stadium, beginning PFL play with a 30-27 win. 
 
"We're a team that when the chips are down, we fight, and fight, until the end, and that's what they did today," said head coach Brandon Moore. 
 
The Toreros, receiving votes in the AFCA FCS Coaches Poll for the first time under Moore after a 21-point comeback at Princeton last time out, faced another deficit as large as 17 points late in the third quarter against St. Thomas. The come-back kids did not flinch, scoring back-to-back touchdowns in the third quarter to put them within three points. 
 
The USD defense then blanked the Tommies through the next 22 minutes of play, led by two big plays from grad defensive end Malachi Cooper. As St. Thomas attempted a field goal late in the third quarter, Cooper's hand rejected it. With one minute left in a tie game and the Tommies backed up against their own end zone, Cooper punched the ball out, which USD senior DB Nate Higgins jumped on.
 
That set the stage for sophomore kicker Emiliano Salazar. After hitting a 42-yard field goal as the Toreros lone first half score and a game-tying 34-yard field goal with 2:34 left, he buried the 25-yarder as time expired to see San Diego walk-off winners. 
 
How it Happened
After trailing 17-3 after a slow first half, the Toreros found the back of the end zone for the first time on the first drive in the second. On fourth-and-nine, the Toreros gambled and it paid off.  Junior quarterback Dom Nankil found graduate receiver Josh Heverly up the middle, who went all 41 yards to the house untouched. 
 
A pair of touchdown passes to end the second quarter, combined with another long touchdown and a field goal to begin the second quarter gave the Tommies a 27-10 lead at the 7:04 mark.
 
The comeback started when Nankil again found Heverly over the middle for a 56-yard completion that set up senior running back Adam Criter to finish the drive with a 12-yard run into the end zone to make it 27-17 with 5:16 left in the third quarter. 
 
St. Thomas responded with a drive to get them comfortably in field goal range to extend the lead, but Cooper got his hand on the kick to keep the deficit at 10. San Diego capitalized almost immediately when Nankil scrambled and connected on a lob to senior wide receiver Cole Monach for a 54-yard strike to the endzone to put the Toreros within three at 27-24 at the end of the third quarter. 
 
Both teams' defenses held firm through the beginning of the fourth quarter until the Toreros utilized a pair of chunk plays, including a 33-yard run from Criter and a 34 yard completion to Monach, to set up a 34-yard field goal opportunity for Salazar, which he drilled to tie the game up at 27-a-piece. 
 
On the first play of the following drive, senior linebacker Tre Moore put down a ferocious sack on the Tommie quarterback to force a fumble and a loss of 16 yards. St. Thomas would recover it, but another forced fumble two plays later — this time from Cooper — would go the Toreros way, as Higgins recovered the ball for the Toreros in the red zone. 
 
Having just knocked through the game-tying field goal not more than a couple of minutes prior, Salazar was then tasked with a 25-yard field goal for the win from the far-right hash, which he put through the uprights to seal the victory for San Diego and allow it to start conference play 1-0. 
 
Notable

• This marks two-straight 30-27 walk-off home wins for the Toreros, also having beaten No. 24 Southern Utah by the same score in overtime on Sept. 6
• San Diego moved the ball for 420 total yards (320 passing, 100 rushing) compared to St. Thomas' 347 total yards (216 passing, 131 rushing)
• Nankil led USD with 265 passing yards (11-for-16) with two passing touchdowns, and a passer rating of 249.1
• Heverly hauled in five passes for 149 yards and a touchdown, Monach was just behind with 117 yards on nine completions with a touchdown of his own
• Criter led USD rushers, going for 120 yards on 28 carries, with a touchdown
• Defensively Trey Sena-Ortega, Ezekiel Swayne, and Jack Munro led the way with seven tackles each 
• Moore found his way to the quarterback twice, earning two sacks to give him the team lead with 3.5 sacks through five games in 2025

 
Up Next
The Toreros will be back in action next week when they travel to Poughkeepsie, N.Y., to take on the Marist Red Foxes for the first PFL road test. Kick off at Tenney Stadium is set for 9 a.m. PST.