COLUMN: Time to power through injuries
With Saturday’s loss to Fresno State, the stakes are raised even higher for Utah State’s quest for bowl eligibility. Games against teams like Fresno State, San Diego State, BYU, Louisiana Tech and Idaho are all swing games that will determine the overall outcome of this season. In other words, there are a handful of games that USU is expected to win (New Mexico State, San Jose State) and there are a handful of games that the Aggies are expected to lose (Nevada, Boise State).
The rest of the games are the ones which will be determined simply by who performs better on that given day. In the first of those swing games of the 2010 season, Fresno State stepped up and outperformed the Aggies, leaving USU with one less swing game to work with.
Utah State played what will hopefully be its worst performance of the year against Fresno State, even when you factor in a very solid first half of play by USU. The second half was just that bad.
The Bulldogs, on average, started each of their drives from their own 44-yard line throughout the entire second half. The Aggies, minus the short field they had following Quinn Garner’s second-half interception, started their drives from an average of their own 23-yard line, essentially giving Fresno State 21 fewer yards to drive for the entire second half.
Aside from the special teams woes that gave Fresno State a monumental advantage in the field-position battle, the USU offense hit a wall where it completely stagnated in the second half. From the point where the Aggies scored their final touchdown to go up 24-17 (6:09 remaining in the third quarter) and when Fresno State went up 41-24 (:42 left in the fourth quarter), Utah State gained just 24 total yards on offense.
Once again, the Aggies are in a position where nobody is really sure how good this team is or can be, and given the severity with which the injury bug has bitten this year’s team, the question of how good they could have been may remain forever a mystery.
San Diego State will be yet another test and is a chance for USU to step up and make a statement about how good they can be. Again, though, with the uncertain status of defensive backs Chris Randle and Rajric Coleman, the Aggies could be without five of their seven best players if those two join Robert Turbin, Stanley Morrison and Matt Austin on the sidelines this week.
It seems to be a frustrating reality that the 2010 season might be going from what could have been a very special season, to a season where fans and players will forever be wondering what could’ve been had the injury bug not devastated the team.
If nothing else, there still appears to be a prime opportunity for the Aggies to bust the long losing streak versus BYU this year, as the Cougars look to be down this season more than most would have predicted.
A win against BYU would most likely make this season a memorable one for that reason alone, but it could also be the jump-start to the rest of the season that USU needs in order to take care of business heading into WAC play. One thing is for sure, and it’s that the next two weeks will likely tell us if Utah State’s dreams of chasing down its first bowl appearance in more than a decade can become a reality.
Matt Sonnenberg is a senior majoring in print journalism. Matt is an avid fan of Aggie athletics and can be found on the front row of every home football and basketball game. He can also be reached at matt.sonn@aggiemail.usu.edu.