Ags drop second grid game of season
The Utah State football team visited unfamilar territory on Saturday, Baton Rouga, La. The out come of the game however, placed the Aggies in a familar situation, a 31-14 loss.
“I’m very disappointed in the outcome, but I’m really pleased with the effort we played with,” said USU coach Mick Dennehy. “They played a pretty darn good football team and played them eyeball to eyeball and didn’t take a step backward.”
Saturday’s game for Louisana State was expected to be one with a lot of rest. The Tigers wanted to rest their regulars and allow their reserves to have some playing time against the ‘unknown independent school from the West.’
That was not the case.
LaBrandon Toefiled found himself playing a majority of the game, along with most of LSU’s first string.
Toefiled rushed for four touchdowns during the game, bringing him to a total of seven touchdowns in a span of two games.
“Even though we made a lot of mistakes and it wasn’t our best game, we still won,” Toefiled said.
The Tigers weren’t the only team to make mistakes.
“If we’re going to have a chance to beat teams like LSU or Fresno State, we’ve got to come closer to playing mistake-free football,” Dennehy said. “We can’t turn the ball over and give up as many big plays as we did.”
The Aggies actually had a chance to possibly come out on top until early in the fourth quarter.
Jose Fuentes was picked off by Tiger Erin Damond, and three plays later LSU put their fourth and final touchdown of the game on the board.
“I just made a bad choice,” Fuentes said, who was trying to hit Chris Stallworth.
“That was probably the turning point in the game,” Dennehy said. “I really felt good when we had it 24-14 with the ball in our hands because we were doing good things.”
The Aggies were first to score in Saturday’s competition as Fuentes caught Chris Cooley with a three-yard touchdown.
The Tigers tied the game in the first quarter off a one-yard touchdown by Toefield.
Taking control of the game in the second quarter, the Tigers never looked back.
Pulling ahead of the Aggies 17-7 with seconds remaining in the first half, a routine run up the middle by Toefield turned into a 70-yard touchdown, bringing the score to 24-7.
“That was kind of a dagger in the heart,” USU linebacker Jesse Busta said. “If we had held them, we had some momentum going into the second half.”
The Aggies have been outscored in the second quarter 37-3 in their first two games this season.
Despite dominating the game during the third quarter, the Aggies were unable to capitalize the offensive end.
Utah State will continue their road schedule Saturday as they take on Fresno State who is expected to be nationally ranked.