Football ready for Vandals Football ready for Vandals Football ready for Vandals
The Utah State football team kicks off its season home opener and the start of its conference schedule when Idaho travels to Romney Stadium Saturday.
Both the Aggies and Idaho are coming off season opening losses and both are looking for a big conference win in their first meeting of the season.
The last time the two teams met, career days from Travis Cox and now Redskin Chris Cooley weren’t enough to keep the Vandals from closing a 13-3 deficit and winning the game.
“I think our game against Idaho last season left a bitter taste in our mouths,” Malik Cin, a junior offensive guard, said. “Everyone that played in that game last year wants to prove that we are a better team than what we showed.”
Idaho scored 10 unanswered points in the fourth quarter to defeat the Aggies 20-13 in the season finale last year in Moscow, Idaho.
Cox threw for a career-high 322 passing yards and a touchdown. He also scrambled for a 41-yard run which was the longest run by a USU quarterback since 1992.
Cooley caught a career-high 10 passes for 125 yards and one touchdown.
USU tallied 436 yards of total offense, its second best all season. The Vandals racked up 393 yards of total offense themselves.
Idaho controlled the clock for more than 10 minutes of the fourth quarter to keep the ball out of the hands of Cox and the rest of the Utah State offense.
Senior linebacker Rodney Wilson recorded his career-best 19 tackles in his last game in a Utah State uniform.
“This game will only help our confidence if we win,” Mick Dennehy USU’s head coach said. “If we are to achieve our goals this is the first of many steps. I think that the timing of the game is just fine.
“We came out of the Alabama game relatively healthy and that is an ideal situation when you start playing conference opponents. If we will attend to business, we will come out and iron out some of the things we didn’t tend to last Saturday.”
Saturday’s game will be the 31st meeting between these two teams with the series tied up and 14 wins a piece and two ties. USU narrowly leads the series 6-5 in games played in Logan and have won three of the last four.
“As always, we will try and achieve some sense of balance between our passing and running attacks,” Dennehy said. “We need to be able to run the ball some if Travis is going to be able to throw the ball with some consistency. We hope to be balanced enough to put Idaho’s defense on their heels.
The last time the Aggies had back-to-back league games against the same opponent was in 1999 and 2000 when they played North Texas. USU won both meetings – the first 34-7 and the 2000 season opener 17-12.
“Whether it’s a conference or non-conference game, we have to come out and be ready for it no matter who we line up against,” Terrance Washington, a sophomore safety, said of playing a conference game so early in the season.
“I think we need to play better,” Cin said. “There is always room for improvement, especially in the week between your first and second games. I expect us to play more as a unit this week against Idaho. We are going to be fine once we get used to the timing of playing together.”
Going into Saturday, Cox is only 24 passing yards shy of breaking the 3,000 yard mark for his career.
-kcaustin@cc.usu.edu