A rivalry 105 games in the making

rivalries in the nation – with the Utes holding a clear advantage over the years. The Aggies are only 28-72-4 against the Utes all-time.

“It’s a good rivalry, but not a competitive one,” head coach Brent Guy said. “We need to win some to make it competitive.”

The game will start at 6:05 p.m. at Rice Eccles Stadium in Salt Lake City.

USU was supposed to start its season last Saturday at home against Nicholls State, but the Colonels had to cancel due to the impact of Hurricane Katrina.

“I’m very excited to finally play a game,” offensive lineman Ryan Dequillettes said. “It felt like the never-ending camp this year.”

Guy said the team has adjusted to the extra time off.

“Obviously, with the change of events, we had to restructure out practices,” Guy said. “We treated it like an open week.”

Guy said the biggest concern he has is that Utah has already played a game and worked off some of its offseason rust.

“What we’ve really emphasized this week is to get through the first quarter,” he said. “We need to make sure we’re prepared for that.”

Free safety Andre Bala said the first quarter was the difference in last year’s game against Utah in Logan.

“Last year we didn’t come out like we should have,” he said. “You’ve got to start off fast.”

Guy said practice workouts can never totally prepare a team for the live action of a game.

“We’ve done great in practice, but that has no correlation to what will happen when there’s real bullets flying by their heads,” he said.

Dequillettes said the team shouldn’t be thinking about how the Utes have played a game and the Aggies haven’t.

“We need to do what we’ve got to do and we don’t need to worry about what other guys are doing,” he said.

Utah lost its head coach and most of its coaching staff during the offseason. Its offensive coordinator was replaced by Andy Ludwig, who held the same position at Oregon the year before.

Guy said he and his staff watched carefully to see if the Ute offense would be the same as last year or if it would look more like Oregon.

“They had Oregon’s receiving patterns, but it is primarily the same offense we’ve seen the last few years,” he said.

Another concern for the Aggie defense is Ute runningback Quinton Gant. He rushed for 127 yards on 24 carries in Utah’s win over Arizona last Saturday.

“He made big plays,” Guy said. “He’s the guy we have to stop on their offense.”

Guy said the defense will do fine if it doesn’t stray from what it did in practices.

“We want them to play inside of what we’ve done,” he said. “It’s a good, sound, fundamental defense that works when everyone does their job.”

-bhhinton@cc.usu.edu