Aggie football gets ready for No. 14 Utah
As the Utah State football team gears up for its 104th meeting with No. 14 Utah Saturday, Aggie players are excited and hopeful of their chances to upset.
“I’m always excited to play Utah, this is our last chance at them and we’re going to go and hopefully we’ll get them,” senior defensive tackle Ronald Tupea said.
The Utes will be the first nationally ranked team to play in Romney Stadium since 2001 when sixth-ranked Oregon traveled to Logan. Oregon ended up winning that game 38-21.
A total of seven nationally ranked teams have traveled to Logan to take on the Aggies. Six of those seven teams came away with a victory. The only game USU won was 20-19 victory over Fresno State in 1991.
The Aggies have also played one game in Logan while they were ranked No. 18, beating Wyoming 17-13 in 1960.
“We’re excited to play against Utah State University, it is an extremely big game for us,” Utes head coach Urban Meyer said.
The University of Utah holds the advantage in the series with a record of 71-28-4. This includes a 22-11 record in Logan. The Utes have captured six-straight wins since the Aggies stole two back-to-back in the 1996 and 1997 seasons.
Utah State is coming off a 14-7 in-conference win against Idaho last week. The team has won three of its last four home games and with the game on Saturday, the Aggies will be looking for the first back-to-back wins at home since beating Arkansas State and Middle Tennessee last season.
Utah is coming off a win against Arizona 23-6, last Saturday, not allowing Arizona to score a touchdown.
“[It was a] great win for the University of Utah in the Mountain West Conference to go into a PAC Ten environment, where it’s a tough environment to play,” Meyer said. “We gave up some yards early but held on in the second half and held them the entire game without a touchdown and our offense did what they had to do, most importantly taking care of the ball to conserve the win.”
In the meeting last season the Utes pulled away with a 40-20 win, but Utah State had some chances to make the game a lot closer. USU drove the ball inside the Utes 35-yard line four times in the first half and only came away with three points in that half.
Utah State also had a 100-yard touchdown interception return in the first quarter called back because of an illegal block behind the play.
Despite the mistakes, USU only trailed 14-3 at halftime. The Aggies looked as though they were making a run after a safety and a touchdown run by Travis Cox to put the score at 21-12.
The Utes responded scoring 13 unanswered points and were ahead 34-12 with just five minutes left in the game.
“I’m excited, I can’t wait, the first ranked team of my career ever playing, I’m excited, I’m ready to go,” freshman running back Chris Forbes said. “All of us are ready to go. Coach Dennehy, he’s definitely ready to go. He’s in the zone right now, ready to go, looking for the next one.”
Utah State’s first three touchdowns of the season were scored by two freshmen, two receptions by Kevin Robinson and one reception by Forbes.
USU is 1-38 against nationally ranked teams and has lost 13 straight.
Utah State is expecting a 30,257 person sellout crowd for the game on Saturday and is expecting to see a fair amount of red in the stands. There have been six previous sell-outs in the 37-year-old stadium. All of those games featured BYU or Utah, three games apiece.
-kcaustin@cc.usu.edu