After falling behind by three touchdowns in the first half, the Colorado State Rams’ second-half rally came up short late Saturday night in Fresno, Calif., as they lost to Fresno State, 28-22.

With the loss, the Rams dropped to 7-4 overall and 5-1 in the Mountain West Conference. Along with it being the team’s first conference loss, it also severely damaged the team’s hopes of making the conference championship game.

CSU will now need a win Friday in its regular-season finale against Utah State and a loss by UNLV to 3-9 Nevada on Saturday. Boise State clinched the first spot in the championship game with its win over Wyoming on Saturday.

“Obviously, we made a lot of mistakes in the first half that really put us behind the 8-ball,” CSU head coach Jay Norvell said. “We had poor field position in the first half. Tried to dig ourselves out. Too many protection breakdowns. They did a good job pressuring us in the pocket tonight. We had some really poor coverage breakdowns in the first half. But I’m really proud of how they came back in the second half.”

The Rams scored on their opening drive to start the game, as Justin Marshall scored on a 10-yard run to give CSU a 7-0 lead with 6:26 left in the first quarter. Fresno State answered with a touchdown on its first drive, and then the Bulldogs added three more first-half touchdowns to take a 28-7 lead into halftime.

In the second half, the CSU defense held Fresno State out of the end zone and the Rams cut the Bulldogs’ lead to 28-14 on a 9-yard run by Brayden Fowler-Nicolosi with 3:25 left in the third quarter. CSU scored its final touchdown with 17 seconds left in the game, on a 5-yard pass from Fowler-Nicolosi to Jamari Person. The Rams added a two-point conversion to account for the final score.

“I really challenged our team to come back and compete, not look at the scoreboard, do all they can to get back in the game,” Norvell said. “Proud of how they continued to fight, but just didn’t play well enough in the first half, particularly, to give ourselves a chance.”

Fowler-Nicolosi passed for 283 yards and a touchdown, completing 51% of his passes. Person had nine catches for 112 yards and a touchdown, while Marshall led the ground attack with 94 yards on 20 carries.

CSU’s home and regular-season finale will kick off at 1:30 p.m. Friday at Canvas Stadium.