Utah State vs UNLV takeaways: Just a little Love edition

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After what feels like forty years in the offensive desert, have the Aggies finally found a lush oasis?

We’ll have to wait and see if this swagger-filled offense is the real deal or merely a mirage, but you aren’t here for predictions, you’re here for some sweet, sweet takeaways.

Winners: Jordan Love, King of Hearts

Head coach Matt Wells went all-in last weekend, betting on a freshman quarterback thrice picked-off in his last public appearance to lead the charge in a pivotal road game. Unlike every one of @TheGrandDanny’s bets last Saturday, it paid off brilliantly.

A kid from Bakersfield with zero career starts laid 316 yards and three total touchdowns on UNLV Saturday, and damn if he didn’t look good doing it. A full evaluation of what Jordan Love can do for this offense is still a few games away (we’ll get to Boise State in just a moment), but this is something I think we can all get behind:

Jordan Love to Scarver for 6! #AggiesAllTheWay pic.twitter.com/4czkvzhisj

— USU Football (@USUFootball) October 21, 2017

Holy crap, ya’ll. That pass was straight football porn.

Love played with poise and confidence, unfazed by a trio of early double-digit deficits. He didn’t disappear when his best receiver went down in the first quarter with a shoulder injury. He didn’t allow shadows of Wyoming to dim his willingness to unleash the deep ball. Love played the game OC David Yost has wanted to play all year, acing his first career start with 19-of-27 passing, one sack taken and zero turnovers. Nice.

Winners: Coach Wells

Perhaps the rarest quality you can find in a college coach is flexibility — too often you’ll hear cliche soundbites in the mid-week presser from coaches wanting to “play their game” or fit guys to “their system” or (worst of all)  “play [mascot] football.” It’s a well-established fact that those are all nothing phrases meant to please anxious boosters more concerned with tailgating and helmet color than actual football. Valuable is the coach who can look at his system after a 3-9 year and honestly evaluate what isn’t working.

Wells takes a lot of flak around here for alleged stubbornness, but all he’s done since January is prove a willingness to adapt to the tools at his disposal. Pulling in David Yost and trusting him with play-calling duties has cranked Utah State’s weekly scoring to nearly 33 points per game — up from a miserable 23.9 in 2016. A defense that seemed to universally hang their heads after giving up a lead last season now plays with pure electricity for 60 solid minutes, paving the way for multiple double-digit comeback victories already this fall. Competition in practice is at an all-time high, as evidenced by the sheer number of first-year starters on both sides of the ball — not to mention last week’s ultra-risky uber-successful mid-season QB change.

This is a Utah State team with a shockingly young core that can already win on the road, pressure opposing QBs, make plays on special teams, go for it on fourth down, throw the deep ball, hell the Aggies even kick field goals now. Coach Wells has a team that ought to be at the start of a complete rebuild scrapping their way to 4-4, and with bowl eligibility still squarely on the table.

Oh, and that UNLV win Saturday? That quietly brought Matty to a 9-9 conference road record. One game surely won’t be enough to quell the #FireWells crowd — but a win this weekend at home against Boise might.

Losers: Utah State’s injury report

Injuries are the dried cat food mixed in with every marshmallow cereal; we all wish we could do away with them, yet they persist — an unfortunate inevitability. We’ll have to keep an eye on Ron’quavion Tarver’s shoulder this weekend, but I expect Jalen Davis and Cameron Haney to bounce back to full health pretty quickly.

How about Cameron Haney though? The Rebels tested the sophomore all game and came up with little to show for it, as Haney tallied three pass breakups before getting sidelined with a blow to the head.

Winners: Special teams (again!)

Scarver is starting to heat up in his hometown 🔥🔥🔥#AggiesAllTheWay pic.twitter.com/A7YsxqMZTE

— USU Football (@USUFootball) October 21, 2017

Good for Savon Scarver, lighting up the stat sheet in his hometown. Aggie special teams has been stellar all year, though the home-run potential of USU’s speedy returners only just arrived. The Vegas native busted loose for 108 return yards Saturday, finishing the game with 183 all-purpose yards. If Scarver proves a consistent playmaker, Aggie fans could be looking at an offensive attack led by a trio of flashy freshmen consisting of Love, Scarver and Jordan Nathan for the next several seasons — not to mention a sophomore TE coach Wells maintains is the best in the conference (he’s right).

Losers but also Winners: Aggie defense

Okay, maybe don’t allow 300 rushing yards and 28 points to the Rebel offense in one half. But as they’ve done time and time again, the Aggies proved resilient on the defensive end by locking down UNLV’s Lexington Thomas in the second half, “limiting” UNLV to 375 total rushing yards by game’s end. Losing starting QB Armani Rogers obviously caught UNLV off-guard, but a second-half shutout is nonetheless impressive.

Also, I wish I could inject Dallin Leavitt’s boundless energy directly into my veins. Dallin Leavitt forever.