Aggies bruised, but not broken
Utah State outgained Utah in total yards but lost 24-14 in Salt Lake City on Friday night.
“It’s a loss,” said USU head coach Matt Wells. “We won’t spin it any other way than that. This program didn’t come down here to play good. This program didn’t come down here to show improvement since last game, we came here to win a dadgum ballgame and we came up short.”
Chuckie Keeton was the offensive leader for the Aggies. Keeton led the team in passing and rushing. On the ground, Keeton had 46 yards from 12 carries and threw for 256 yards, two touchdowns and two interceptions while completing nearly 63 percent of his passes.
With his two touchdown passes, Keeton tied Jose Fuentes for the most touchdown passes in Utah State history with 60. The good didn’t come without the bad for Keeton, he was hit multiple times and walked with a limp most of the game, though he never missed game time. Keeton said as long as he still has a heartbeat, he’s going to play.
USU senior wide receiver Devonte Robinson hauled in six catches for 119 yards to lead all receivers in the game. Zach Van Leeuwen had four catches, 31 yards and a touchdown.
“At the end of the day, the offensive side of the ball is 11 people playing as one,” Keeton said. “Sometimes we had 10, sometimes we had nine, sometimes we had 11, but we need 11 on every single play to win games.”
In the fourth quarter, trailing 24-14, Utah State had two long drives deep into Utah territory but couldn’t convert on either opportunity. On the first drive, USU covered 65 yards and had a chance at a touchdown that turned into an open-field dropped pass by Kennedy Williams. Two plays later Keeton took a blindside hit, fumbled the ball and Utah’s Paul Gionni recovered the fumble at the 25-yard line.
Utah State forced a quick three-and-out and began driving again, this time down to the Utah 11-yard line. Gionni ended the Aggie drive once again by intercepting a tipped pass at the seven-yard line with under three minutes to play in the game.
“I’m very, very proud of our kids and the way they fought,” Wells said. “You can’t have two turnovers inside the 30-yard line at the end and our offense basically went nonexistent in the third quarter … I’m proud of our effort, but that’s not Utah State football. We won’t ever, ever settle for something less than a win.”
The Utes then ran two minutes of clock off leaving the Aggies with too little time to comeback.
The Utes were led by Devontae Booker who carried the ball 31 times for 120 yards. Utah senior quarterback Travis Wilson led the team in pass yards. He completed 9-of-12 passes for 76 yards and rushed for 49 yards and a touchdown on five carries. Wilson was injured in the second quarter and returned to the sideline with his left arm in a sling.
“We knew that Thompson could run the ball a lot better than Wilson,” said LT Filiaga, who had a game-high 12 tackles for USU. “That changed a lot of how we played on defense … It’s comforting to know that we stuck in there, if we can clean things up we can be a great defense.”
After Wilson went out, Kendal Thompson came at QB for the Utes. He completed 8-of-10 passes for 46 yards and had 23 rush yard with a touchdown.
On defense, Utah State linebacker Nick Vigil tied Filiaga’s 12 tackles and as a whole the defense held Utah to 6-of-14 on third-down attempts. Gionni was the defensive catalyst for the Utes. He had seven tackles, one tackle for loss, an interception and a fumble recovery.
“Coach Clune had some good schemes for us this week,” Filiaga said. “Unfortunately we came up on the short end.”
– kalen.s.taylor@gmail.com
Twitter: @kalen_taylor
Check out the gallery for the game here: https://usustatesman.com/gallery/usu-falls-to-utah/