Aggie football team prepares for former coach
The 2-6 Aggies will be playing their third straight away game on Saturday when they face University of Louisiana Monroe and head coach Charlie Weatherbie.
In the 1993 season, Weatherbie coached the Aggie football team to its only bowl victory against Ball State in the Las Vegas Bowl 42-33.
However, Weatherbie didn’t do as well in the Indian’s last game, falling to the Mean Green of North Texas.
North Texas broke the Indian’s three game winning streak last week, winning 45-30 while the Aggies are skidding out of contention, riding a four game losing streak. The loss to Middle Tennessee last Saturday was the most recent.
The shutout, handed to Utah State by the Blue Raiders, was mainly the result of seven sacks allowed by the Aggies.
“Probably the most obvious areas of concern would be how we penalized ourselves out of drives and made some of their drives easier than they probably should have been,” head coach Mick Dennehy said. “For the second week in a row, our pass protection was a major, major concern. When you look at pass protection, you look at an awful lot of things. It is not just one area. It is not just the offensive line. The receivers that are hot need to be aware of that. The backs involved.
“If it was one area, it would be easy to clean up. [But] in some cases we just flat got beat and got outplayed in some instances. It is an area that is a major concern right now.”
Saturday’s game will be the third meeting between these two teams. In 2002, the Indians beat the Aggies in double overtime 51-48. Last season in Logan, Utah State won 28-10 in a game that earned defensive tackle Ronald Tupea defensive player of the week because of six tackles, three sacks and a fumble recovery.
“Looking at the University of Louisiana Monroe, I think they are a very, very improved football team from a year ago,” Dennehy said. “They are probably doing a couple of things a little bit different that really have helped them in becoming a better team. [Steven] Jyles was beat up and hurt a little bit a year ago and they probably felt like they couldn’t afford to involve him in the offense any more than the extent of throwing the football.
“He is running the ball and is probably as good an athlete as we have seen there. Alex Smith [of Utah], take nothing away from him as effective as he is, but Jyles is a pretty doggone good athlete and has added a lot to their offense in terms of having to defend him in some of their running schemes.”
After last week’s shutout the Aggies are looking to improve on their offensive output against a very good ULM defense.
“Defensively, they have a couple of players that really jump out at you in terms of their abilities,” Dennehy said. “[John] Winchester is an awfully good linebacker, probably as good we have played in the league. Their safety, [Chris] Harris, is one of the really, really good players in our conference. They are a team that is going to pressure us so consequently we have got to make sure we lock some things down and take advantage of that and create some big plays.”
This season, even though the Aggies are struggling, they have 15 different players with receptions. Going into this game Utah State has completed at least one pass to seven different players in 13 consecutive games dating back to last season.
“This upcoming game is huge, especially for the offense,” USU tight end Jason Stephens said. “For the past two games we have been all but shutout. Offensively, we need to come out and show we are efficient. The past few years we have put up big numbers offensively.
“It has been tough this year because we haven’t put up those same numbers and it has put pressure on the defense. They are out there so much. We have a big challenge to go out and show that we can play, that our schemes are good and that we can compete.”
-kcaustin@cc.usu.edu