Aggies win home opener
Down by one point going into halftime, the Utah State football team was able to hold off Idaho 14-7 to win its first conference game of the season and improve to 1-1 overall.
“It’s good to be 1-0 in the Sun Belt Conference,” head coach Mick Dennehy said.
The first quarter was a defensive struggle with both teams punting twice and the Vandals fumbling once. The first two series for each team ended with a three-and-out.
“I don’t know that we’ll win another game if we play as sloppily as we played particularly offensively in the first half,” Dennehy said. “We had our chances to blow this thing wide open and we didn’t blow it wide open but we won a game that we didn’t play particularly well in and we did it. We had to come back in order to get it done.”
Utah State did strike first in the first quarter when Travis Cox threw a 24 yard touchdown pass to a streaking Kevin Robinson in the outside corner of the end zone; that score put the Aggies up only by six points because of a missed point-after-attempt by Ben Chaet.
Cox has now thrown a touchdown pass in 13 of his 14 career starts.
The play for Utah State during the second quarter didn’t produce any more scores. USU turned the ball over three-straight possessions, an interception at the Idaho 11-yard line, another interception at the Idaho 17-yard line and a fumble at the Idaho 44 that the Vandals were able to pounce on.
“This is the worst game I’ve played in the 13 years I’ve been playing football,” Cox said. “I’m just so thankful to get a win.”
USU had just two turnovers against Alabama, and had three by halftime on Saturday.
UI then struck back and scored a touchdown of their own on a 12-yard pass from Vandals quarterback Michael Harrington to receiver Wendell Octave. Mike Barrow was able to connect on the extra point to give the Vandals a 7-6 lead. That scoring drive was an eight play 56-yard drive of over four minutes.
Near the end of the second quarter Utah State was forced to punt twice. Both punts, however, were 60 yards or longer, putting the Vandals in poor field position.
The first possession for the Aggies in the second half ended in a fumble by Robinson. Idaho recovered the fumble on the 39-yard line of the Aggies. After nine plays and 16 yards, the Vandals attempted a field goal. The attempt was broken up and blocked by Ronald Tupea of the defensive tackle for the Aggies.
“It was so great, I put my hands up and the ball hit it,” Tupea said. “It was pretty lucky. I wouldn’t say it was the biggest play of the game but it changes the momentum and gave us a little boost and the fans in the stands got up.”
Joe Lindsay recovered the block field goal attempt to put USU on its own 34-yard line.
Chris Forbes rushed for 44 net yards on six attempts but one of those attempts he exploded for 47 yards before he was pushed out at the Vandals two yard line.
“We have got to get better in that area,” Dennehy said. “We have got to be able to run the ball better.”
After a loss of 3-yards on a hand off to Forbes, Cox rolled out on a quarterback option and found Tony Pennyman open in the front corner of the end zone. Cox then connected with Forbes on a two point conversion attempt to put the Aggies up 14-7.
“We practice that play 10 to 15 times a practice,” Pennyman said. “Coach just said he wanted to call it and it worked.”
That is where the score would stay despite a 14-play, 50-yard drive by the Vandals near the end of the game that ended in a fourth down sack and fumble by Harrington with just over a minute left in the game. Utah State was able to take a knee to run the rest of the clock out.
The Aggies 14 points were the fewest point amounts in a win since 1994 when they beat Ohio 5-0. And the seven points by Idaho was the lowest Utah State has held a team since Arkansas State last year 49-0.
Dennehy said he had talked about the tackling by his defense was suspect against Alabama but said this week for the most part they did a pretty good job.
Cox only needed 24 more yards passing to surpass 3,000 in his career. He accomplished this feat during the first quarter on a 13-yard pass to Lawrence Lovelace.
“I didn’t even know about it, that’s the thing I don’t even really care about stats,” Cox said. “That’s why I’m happy we got a win, you come out here to get wins and not worry about how you played.”
The Ags now look forward to an in-state matchup with No. 16 Utah next Saturday in Logan.
“It’s my last chance at them,” Tupea said. “We’ve got to go.”
-kcaustin@cc.usu.edu