Two Aggies named MW Player of the Week

Utah State’s junior linebacker Eric Munoz and senior placekicker Dominik Eberle each earned a conference player of the week nod from the Mountain West this week. Munoz was named co-defensive player of the week with Air Force senior defensive lineman Jake Ksiazek and Eberle claimed special teams player of the week.

Munoz, who started his first Division I game on Saturday, led USU in a defense-dominated 26-21 win over Wyoming. The 6-foot linebacker recorded a team-high 13 tackles — seven of them solo stops — with 0.5 tackles for loss, a quarterback hit and, perhaps most importantly, two interceptions. The latter of those two interceptions sealed the win for Utah State as it ended the Cowboys’ final drive of the game and their attempt at a game-winning touchdown drive.

“Eric was awesome tonight,” Aggies head coach Gary Andersen said after the Wyoming game.

The story of Munoz is one all of its own, with his journey from Division II to a junior college school and finally walking on at Utah State before a heroic performance in start number one.

“This has been a long time coming to be honest,” Munoz said. “I’ve had to sit behind some guys, came here and walked on. God blessed me with this opportunity and my parents have been behind me the whole time.”

Eberle made 4-of-5 field goal attempts against Wyoming, the one miss being a 50-yard attempt in the third quarter. The four made kicks tied with two other games for second-most in a single game by the German native. He added two extra points to give him 14 points total on the day.

“He’s a very powerful weapon,” Andersen said. “(Eberle) lines up there and has ice in his veins. Go back on this year in the conference games and see what he’s done making field goals. It happened again tonight, it happened at San Diego State, he wins the game last week.”

This is the second straight week Eberle has been named special teams player of the week (third this season and fifth in his career. Eberle earned the honor last week in the wake of his walk-off game-winning field goal that handed Utah State a 37-35 win over Fresno State. In that game, Eberle made 3-of-3 field goal attempts and 4-of-4 extra points.

With his four field goals against Wyoming, Eberle broke and extended a Mountain West record for career field goals. Eberle now has 61 on his career which stands as the record.

Twitter: @thejwalk67