Defense and Davenport lead USU Football past Colorado State 17-13
FORT COLLINS, Colo. — In a battle between quarterbacks who started the year as the third and fourth options for their team, Utah State came out victorious, 17-13, with the winning score coming from true freshman quarterback Bishop Davenport.
Head coach Blake Anderson said it wasn’t “the way we scripted it,” but he was proud the team pulled off the win in spite of injuries and a chippy environment.
Davenport shined in his third career drive. He led the team 59 yards down the field and capped off the drive with a four-yard touchdown rush that put USU up 17-10. It would wind up being the winning touchdown. Davenport said it felt great to score the game-winner.
“Especially when you got a team like this behind you, yeah it feels great,” Davenport said.
The offense put up the points required of them, but the defense was the group that shined for the Aggies on Saturday night. They kept Colorado State to the lowest total points an opponent has scored on the Aggies all season.
“If that thing gets out of hand from our defense, then we’re not in a position tonight at least to really make a run at it,” Anderson said.
Getting to and hitting the quarterback was a major part of the Aggies’ success. Defensive end Daniel Grzseiak downed Rams QB Giler Pooler for a career-high three sacks for 18 yards. He also recorded 3.5 tackles-for-loss.
The performance was especially rewarding to Grzesiak, a transfer from Nevada, who was facing his old coach Jay Norvell and former teammates that followed Norvell to CSU.
“I love those guys and they run the air raid, you know I’m a pass rusher so it was just perfect,” Grzesiak said.
Even though no one else recorded a sack, QB hurries and Pooler getting hit while he threw was common.
“The ability for our pass rush to show up was really important,” Anderson said. “We hit the quarterback a lot tonight.”
The Aggie secondary also played well as they broke up a season-high seven passes. Cornerback Micahel Anyanwu had three all by himself while he spent plenty of time guarding the Rams’ leading receiver and keeping him from catching a single reception on nine targets. The performance was impressive to Anderson who explained that Anyanwu made a speedy recovery from a dislocated shoulder he suffered at BYU.
“To consider it’s just a couple weeks ago and he’s out there playing at the level that he is, tells you how tough he is,” Anderson said.
On offense, Davenport saw action after quarterbacks Cooper Legas and Levi Williams were both injured in the first half. Anderson said Legas suffered a concussion and Williams had an ankle injury. There is no word on if they will be available to play in USU’s next game.
Despite being a true freshman, Davenport impressed in his collegiate debut.
“He came in there cool, calm and collected,” Grzesiak said. “I couldn’t tell he was a freshman.”
He recorded 41 passing yards and 29 rushing yards with a rushing touchdown even though he had not had any reps with the offense outside of drills since camp.
“To go out and to be able to do what he did says a lot about just his poise and what really he’s capable of, moving forward,” Anderson said.
The Aggies also got help from running back Calvin Tyelr Jr. who passed the century mark in total yards for the third-straight game. His stability extends beyond his stats, according to Anderson.
“His demeanor is calm,” Anderson said. “He’s the senior, the veteran guy. He’s running the ball better and better each week. You’ve got to give the offensive line credit too cause they’re moving bodies for him, but he is a calming presence. He’s not a real vocal guy, but he doesn’t seem to get rattled and right now, in a game like tonight, that’s pretty important.”
Tyler finished with 129 yards on 24 carries.
Safety Gurvan Hall Jr. iced the game by picking off Pooler with 5:16 left in the game. Initially, Hall returned the interception for a touchdown, but it was called back due to a holding penalty and an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty for an excessive celebration by Hall.
“I wish we had handled it cleaner and got in the endzone and really put ourselves in a good position, but the holding call would’ve been a problem and clearly we can’t do selfish stuff like flipping in the endzone,” Anderson said.
With the win, the Aggies improve to 3-4 on the season and 2-1 in Mountain West play. For Anderson, the victory proved that the Aggies could win on the road.
“It’s huge, we had not proven that we could do that yet,” Anderson said. “To go on the road is hard, with this particular team and just how inexperienced, how many young guys are playing, I think that’s something that you have to learn… I’d like to think this is something that we can really build on.”
Utah State heads back to the Snowy Range next week as they take on Wyoming Saturday night.
Featured image by Heidi Bingham.