BYU game leaves questions
Well, this game pretty much summed up the season, didn’t it? A flash of vintage Keeton here and there, defensive stops and miscues, an atrocious kicking unit and ultimately too many costly mistakes. If you were to wrap USU’s entire season of highs and lows into four freezing quarters of football, you’d get a 51-28 loss that left everyone raising uncomfortable what-if questions the rest of the weekend.
What if Keeton stayed healthy?
Chuckie Keeton didn’t get to ride off into the sunset with one final victory like Aggie fans had hoped, but he did play a heck of a final game at Maverik Stadium. After running in Utah State’s first touchdown from 52 yards out, Keeton etched his name in the record books with a picture-perfect lob to Hunter Sharp for touchdown pass No. 61 — the most in school history. It was a fitting end to the Keeton era at Utah State, and he’ll be forever associated with the program’s 2012 resurrection.
The game wasn’t the complete Keeton takeover fans wanted, but there were some positive moments for a guy who truly has given his best football years to this university.
What if USU’s kicking wasn’t hot garbage?
Here’s some basic football theory — if you can’t get any points from drives deep into opponent territory, you’re probably going to lose games. Utah State has missed field goals so consistently this season the crowd actually groaned when they saw the kicking unit take the field in the third quarter. When will coaches realize a blocked kick is essentially a turnover?
The Aggies now missed all but one of their past seven field goal tries — that’s unheard of. That’s a grade lower than an F-. If you turned in one of your past seven stats assignments, you’d be retaking the class in the spring. If newsprint allowed for entire paragraphs to be typed in all caps, this would be shouting off the page. There were several factors that tilted this game in BYU’s favor, but none so drastically as USU’s complete incompetence in the kicking game.
What if our secondary was consistent?
It seems like an eternity since the tandem of Brian Suite and Frankie Sutera patrolled the field for the Aggies, picking off carefree passes and generally frustrating inexperienced quarterbacks. Somehow Utah State technically ranks ninth in the nation against the pass even after Tanner Mangum carved up the Aggie defense one deep jump-ball after another. With so many lobs toward the end zone, it’s reasonable to assume USU would snag at least one interception, or force some form of turnover over the course of four quarters.
Turns out after that burst of fumble recoveries against Boise State and a fortunate forced fumble in the end zone against Nevada, the Aggies reverted back to their early-season ways at exactly the wrong time. USU failed to force a turnover in four of its final six games.
As fun as keeping the Old Wagon Wheel would’ve been, this Utah State team just didn’t deserve to hold onto the coveted trophy this year. Big mistakes turned into easy points for the Cougars, and inconsistency in all three phases of the game spelled defeat well before the final horn sounded.
— Logan Jones is a junior majoring in journalism. Contact him with feedback at logantjones@aggiemail.usu.edu or on Twitter @Logantj