‘A win is a win’
The Aggies narrowly escaped an upset bid from Southern Utah University on Thursday, as they beat the Thunderbirds at home 12-9 in the season opener.
“It didn’t start out real good on offense and it didn’t end well,” said head coach Matt Wells. “Outstanding performance by our defense and one huge punt return. It goes to show the fight in our team, they never gave up, not one time.”
Andrew Rodriguez, a redshirt junior, took a punt 88 yards — the third-longest punt return in USU history — for a score with just under five minutes to play. His return gave USU the lead, after it trailed the entire game. The defense finished off the night strong to complete the victory.
“You never know when you are going to have your chance,” Rodriguez said. “You know you have to step up to the plate. You live for moments like that. I didn’t know it was going to be me but in my mind, I really wanted to score”
Junior linebacker Nick Vigil led Utah State to a strong defensive showing, allowing SUU just 52 rush yards on 30 carries. Overall, SUU had 163 yards in the game and only complete 1-of-18 attempts on third down.
“I thought we played alright,” said Vigil, who had 13 tackles in the game, “We were able to get stops other than the first drive. I feel like we need to clean up our tackling, I feel like we missed a lot of tackles.”
The Aggies offense didn’t perform much better than the T-birds. USU had 250 total yards and was 1-of-15 on third down. Fifth-year senior Chuckie Keeton went 16-of-33 passing for 110 yards and one interception, no touchdowns. Sophomore LaJuan Hunt led the rushing attack with 23 carries for 80 yards, Devante Mays added four carries for 53 yards.
“I’m not going to try and put lipstick on a pig,” Wells said. “It wasn’t pretty. There are a lot of things to correct, but a win is a win. The thing I told them in the locker room is they will be defined by what they do going forward, not by what happened tonight.”
Utah State’s first score came early in the first quarter after SUU scored a touchdown. David Moala blocked the PAT attempt and Torrey Green was able to scoop and score for two points. Utah State added a field goal late in the first quarter to make the score 6-5 in favor of SUU.
Southern Utah hit a field goal in the second quarter and took a 9-5 lead into the half.
Utah State next takes on Utah in Salt Lake City on Friday, Sept. 11.
“Tackling and penalties,” Vigil said. “We’ve got to clean up those two things .. we’ve got to come and play on our best game, we know how good of a team they are.”
—kalen.s.taylor@gmail.com
Twitter: @kalen_taylor