COLUMN: Ten things I saw in the Southern Utah game
How about that Utah State football team?
Let’s be honest, we all knew Coach A was going to completely stomp Southern Utah into the new turf on Merlin Olsen FIeld, but I don’t think anyone expected so many players to step up.
Ten things to take away from the 34-3 season-opening win over SUU:
1. Chuckie Keeton can throw the ball. A career high in completions and passing yards is hard to argue with, even if one of those completions was to SUU defensive back Tommy Collet. He’s not just an athletic kid who can make plays with his feet.
2. Matt Wells. He called some downfield shots at the end zone, but he still used the bubble screen a couple times. Thank everything holy that it was only a couple.
3. The tight ends were used for more than just blocking. Kellen Bartlett and Keegan Andersen caught a combined three passes for 29 yards. By itself that’s not much, but it means the offensive line provided adequate pass protection, which was a question mark last season. Which leads us to…
4. The offensive line gave Keeton reasonably good protection, helping the offense to 581 total offensive yards, but the front seven must step up next week against Utah’s much better defense.
5. The Aggie defense stepped up to stop the first three SUU drives. Check that, three consecutive drives generaled by NFL-prospect Brad Sorenson. That says the Aggies can play well against top talent, and do so consistently.
6. Adam Kennedy is mostly alright, with no broken bones. Even though he’s the backup to Keeton, he still helped win five games last season. Utah State will need him this fall.
7. Joe Freaking Hill. Two touchdown runs and 119 yards on 11 carries from the No. 2 running back? Is Utah State turning into Halfback U?
8. The kicker. So we’re seeing the frosh, Brock Warren? Whatever works well enough so we can stop talking about the kicking game.
9. Another muffed punt return? Seriously? Let’s stop talking about this too.
10. And finally, the fans can definitely show up, but the masses of students can only kind of get through the gates in any sort of reasonable timeframe. The student sections also seems to be made up of a lot of freshmen, which is good, but they don’t know the chants as well, which is bad.
Bring on the Utes.
– 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.