USU Football Week 3 takeaways: All-around domination
It feels like forever since Utah State walked out of Maverick Stadium with a 73-12 win over Tennessee Tech. Though Air Force is firmly in the sights of the Aggies, let’s take a final look back at what we learned in USU’s third game of the season.
- Blown Away
The Aggies won by 51 points, the 18th 50-point win in program history and only the third since 1964. The notable thing about the point total is the fact that USU pulled its primary rotation players at halftime with the team up just 39 and the backups added an extra 12 points to the cushion. Matt Wells had no desire to run up the score, but sometimes you’re just too good.
Thursday was also the fifth time Utah State has scored 70 or more points and the most since a 76-0 win over New Mexico State in 1964, which is also the only other time USU has scored more than 70 points in the last 100 years.
- Air it Out
Between Jordan Love and Henry Columbi, the Aggies were 30-of-35 through the air. Columbi was a perfect 9-for-9 for 55 yards while Love was 21-for-26 and 236 yards with two touchdowns. Thursday was just Love’s third career game with multiple passing touchdowns.
Having such a great passing attack was a breath of fresh air after a so-so effort against New Mexico state. Love spread the ball around well and had several sharp passes down the field along with the bevy of conservative screens and short passes one would expect in a low-stakes game.
- Almost Historic
Darwin Thompson’s game-high 107 yards on six carries would have put him in an exclusive club had he gained four more yards the previous week against New Mexico State. Thompson had 96 yards on six carries in that game. Tom Larcheid was the first and only Aggie to rush for 100-plus yards on fewer than 10 carries in back-to-back games, doing it in 1960. Thompson was four yards short of being the second.
- Just Run it
There has been a definite emphasis on running the ball in the last two games. Part of that has come from the fact that both games were blowouts, but Matt Wells was probably not pleased with the paltry 25 yards the Aggies had against Michigan State and wants to make sure that doesn’t happen again.
Utah State has 594 rushing yards and 10 rushing touchdowns in the last two weeks. Thompson owns 203 of those yards while Bright has 189. The two have combined for four of those rushing scores.
Against TTU alone, Utah State had seven, (SEVEN!) rushing touchdowns. And not only that, six different Aggies found pay dirt. Thompson, Gerold Bright, Justen Hervey, Morian Walker Jr., Tre Miller and Jordan Love were the ones that made it to the promised land. Walker Jr. had two had two rushing TDs.
- No Passing Zone
The secondary had its share of slip-ups against NMSU and Tennessee Tech, but there has been a lot of good. The Golden Eagles completed just 33.3 percent of their passes for just 75 yards and had one pass intercepted — a tremendous defensive play from Gaje Ferguson for his second pick of the season.
This season the Aggies have allowed an average of 174.3 passing yards, a 54.3 completion percentage and have intercepted five passes while allowing just three passing scores.
- Run Stoppers
In 2017 Utah State held opponents to under 170 rushing yards just four times. The Aggies have done that three times already this year. The average so far is 142.0, far better than the 217.1 average from last year.
The front seven has been performing very well in these games. What’s amazing is that the front seven is nearly identical to the 2017 lineup. That just goes to show how much the group changed this offseason and how first-year defensive coordinator Keith Patterson has morphed this crew into a solid run-stopping unit.
It’s also worth noting that the defense has done this without last season’s leading tackler Suli Tamaivena, who is currently out with an injury.
- No Offense Required
For the third week running, Utah State has scored a non-offensive touchdown. The team now has four total. Two interceptions returned for six by Gaje Ferguson and Deante Fortenberry, and two special teams return touchdowns — a 100-yard kickoff return and a 59-yard punt return, each for a touchdown.