COLUMN: Never to forever
No one without memory problems can remember the last time Utah State earned 10 wins in a season.
That’s because it has never been done before. Or at least, not until the Aggies beat Idaho 45-9 in Romney Stadium on Saturday.
But Aggies will have a new word to remember when they talk about their football team: Forever.
That’s how long the Utah State will be listed as the winner of the final conference championship in the Western Athletic Conference.
The Aggies even jumped into the BCS polls for the first time in school history. USU is ranked No. 24 in the BCS poll, No. 22 in the USA Today poll and No. 20 in the AP poll.
Let’s be honest: Neither achievement was really in question this week.
Idaho is a 1-10 team and awful at best. The Vandals fired head coach Rob Akey after giving up 70 points on the road to Louisiana Tech and kicked starting quarterback Dominique Blackman off the team after three failed drug tests. Without a conference home for 2013, Idaho’s football program is in shambles.
At kickoff, the Aggies needed a win over the wandering Vandals to secure both a 10-win and an outright conference-championship season.
But at the end of the day, San Jose State knocked Louisiana Tech – the only WAC team within reach of a sharing the title – out of the race with a 52-43 win in Spartan Stadium, and USU’s win over Idaho didn’t mean everything it was supposed to.
Don’t tell that to the Aggies. It doesn’t matter anyway.
Senior players emptied the cooler when they gave head coach Gary Andersen a Gatorade shower and fans in Romney Stadium chanted “WAC champs” in the closing minutes of the game.
USU students – the hundred or so who were in Logan over the Thanksgiving weekend – stormed the field after Saturday’s victory to be apart of the historical trophy presentation.
WAC commissioner Jeff Hurd and Kevin McDonald, Executive Director of the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl, gave short congratulatory statements and the Aggies were invited to play a bowl game in Boise, Idaho, for the second-straight season.
Perhaps senior safety Will Davis, who was named WAC Defensive Player of the Week for his pick-six Saturday, verbalized the Aggie attitude the best.
“I can’t imagine what’s going to happen this year,” he said. “It’s going to be a whole new experience than I think a lot of us think. We thought, you know, we’re going back to the same place. I think it’s going to be 10 times different.”
I’m sure there will be no guarantees during halftime at a basketball game this year, but even if USU leaves Boise without a victory and drops out of the Top-25 rankings, this season will forever be remembered by Aggie Nation.
– Tavin Stucki is in his third year at Utah State, majoring in journalism. He is an avid Aggie fan and has been since birth. Follow him on Twitter at @StuckiAggies and send any comments to tavin.stucki@aggiemail.usu.edu.