Aggies confident, mature in tough situations
It’s been a long wait for the USU football program — a 14-year wait to be exact.
The last time the Aggies got close to bowl eligibility was during the 2000 season, when USU fell to Idaho State 27-24 at home in its season finale, with a chance to move to six wins on the season.
Aggie great running back Emmett White was a senior and USU was still in the Big West, a conference that no longer carries football.
In what proved to be a defensive battle, USU clinched bowl eligibility for the first time since 1997 with a double-pass play from senior wide receiver Stanley Morrison to junior running back Robert Turbin for a touchdown to end the third quarter.
The touchdown was the final score of the game and USU prevailed 21-17 on a chilly Saturday afternoon on Merlin Olsen Field at Romney Stadium.
“The excitement around is pretty unreal,” junior quarterback Adam Kennedy said. “I wish everyone of you could have been in the locker room. It was the best football experience of my life. I think it was for everyone down there. It was a great win for the program and this team, and I’m looking forward to next week and going bowling.”
When USU fell to Idaho State a decade ago, the Aggies gave up several scores in the fourth quarter and watched their comeback effort fall short. History did not repeat itself this time, as the Aggies held the potent Nevada offense scoreless in the fourth quarter.
“It was great to see everyone around me, including myself, step up to the challenge,” senior linebacker Bobby Wagner said. “I think we definitely held our own in the fourth quarter, and it was one of the key reasons why we won the game.”
There are three college bowl games tied to the Western Athletic Conference, and the Aggies would rather defeat New Mexico State on the road next Saturday and not leave anything to chance as Hawaii still becoming bowl eligible with a victory over Brigham Young next week.
“Finally,” Turbin said, “it has been a long time for me. I have been here since 2007, and five years later we are finally bowl eligible. Words can’t really describe the feeling that I have and the feeling that this team has down at the locker room. It is awesome; it is great stuff.”
Clinching bowl eligibility on Senior Day, for a group of seniors that has reached a record of 11-25 its first three years, was something USU focused on this week.
“All week we had been talking about doing it for the seniors,” Kennedy said. “They’ve gone through a couple rough years and so it was awesome sending them out like this. On the field, I had a couple seniors come up and say ‘thank you,’ just to me.
“That was the probably the best feeling. I’ve only been here a year, but you could feel how important it is. I can only imagine how important it is to them.”
Once again the Aggies faced adversity, although they did not give up the lead at any moment in the fourth quarter, which is something that plagued the team throughout much of the first half of the season.
“You always worry, when you are trying to create a winning atmosphere, that bad things are going to happen and here we go again, but now it doesn’t matter,” USU head coach Gary Andersen said. “If it’s a good thing that happens or a bad thing that happens, I don’t see it phasing them either way. They just keep playing and that — from a maturity standpoint — is unbelievable.
“The effort? I thought it was always there. The consistent play? Nope, it wasn’t there. Obviously we weren’t able to make those plays early in the year at crucial times. I think, now, they expect to make those plays with this team.”
– ty.d.hus@aggiemail.usu.edu