Aggies’ struggles continue against Boise State
It was the Utah State football team’s worst defeat in three years.
Turnovers, penalties and an offense that struggled to generate points resulted in a 34-23 loss to Boise State on Saturday at Romney Stadium.
“Obviously, not the outcome that we wanted. The biggest thing for me is that while both sides were ugly and spotty at times, there’s no quit in our kids,” said head coach Matt Wells. “They fought to the bitter end, and I knew they would. I think there are things on both sides of the ball that we’re going to wish we had back and some things that we’re going to have to go back and regroup and clean up.”
Junior quarterback Craig Harrison made his first career start, going 7-of-17 for 105 yards, but managed just one touchdown drive before Wells opted to replace him with true freshman Darell Garretson.
Harrison threw a 40-yard strike to wide receiver Travis Reynolds to set up a Joey DeMartino touchdown run that pulled the Aggies within 10-7, but the Broncos offense piled up nearly 450 yards of offense to slowly distance themselves from USU.
Boise State quarterback Joe Southwick threw for a career-high 335 yards and tossed two touchdowns, including a 2-yard-pass to Shane Williams-Rhodes to put the Broncos up 31-10 late in the third quarter.
“Defensively, I felt like we didn’t play certain plays,” said senior cornerback Nevin Lawson, who had two interceptions. “Things just didn’t go our way. We had a few mistakes, a couple missed tackles, but other than that, we just have to watch the film, learn from it and move on.”
Williams-Rhodes torched the USU secondary for 150 yards receiving on 13 catches.
Wells opted to switch quarterbacks early in the third quarter, replacing Harrison with Garretson after the Aggies’ first drive of the third quarter.
“I thought we were dead. I didn’t think we had a whole lot going right there,” Wells said. “Whether it was the end of the second quarter or that first three-and-out in the third, there were just a couple things I didn’t like. We didn’t have a whole lot of momentum at that time. To me, it was close in deciding who was going to start. They both had good weeks in practice and I wanted to get Darell in. I wanted to see what he could do. He didn’t start real well, but he finished a whole lot better.”
Garretson’s first career completion went for 39 yards, and the freshman tossed his first career touchdown to Travis Van Leeuwen with 20 seconds left in the game.
Utah State fell to 3-4 overall this season and 2-1 in MWC play. Boise State moved into a first-place tie at 2-1 with USU with the win and improved to 4-2 overall.
“From our team standpoint, we don’t control our own destiny now in the league,” Wells said. “There’s still a lot of football left for us. There’s a lot of games that we’re going to go compete in for an opportunity for us to go to three-straight bowl games. There are plenty of things for our team to play for. We will keep fighting.”
The Aggies return to action at 4 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 19 when they travel to Albuquerque, N.M. to face the University of New Mexico Lobos.
– curtislundstrom@gmail.com
Twitter: @CurtSport07