Fiefia shines in Blue-White game
As the Blue-White game wound down Saturday night in Romney Stadium, the Blue team drove down and scored on a Travis Cox quarterback sneak – winning 21-10 .
And they did it with determination.
“We wanted to finish strong,” said David Fiefia – one of the two runningbacks competing for the back-up role behind Emmett White.
After a long drought of scores, the Blue team strung together one last drive to finish the final scrimmage on a high note.
“It looked like [the players] wanted to be there more in the fourth quarter than in the third quarter,” said head coach Mick Dennehy. “That’s a good thing.”
Dennehy’s two top priorities for the spring ball (which ends with today’s make-up practice) was to find out if USU had a good back-up runningback and to see if a No. 2 quarterback would emerge.
Dennehy said it’s a certain yes for the first, and a we’ll see on the second.
Fiefia had 118 yards on 17 carries while Roger Fernandez ran for 27 yards on 11 carries. The two also combined for five catches.
“I really liked how we were running the ball,” Dennehy said. “Pass protection-wise, we have some kinks that need to be ironed out.”
“Overall, I thought there were a lot of good things,” he said. “We still have some rough edges that need to be knocked off.”
As for the quarterback situation, Jose Fuentes, No. 1 on the depth chart, went 9-of-16.
“When [Fuentes] was in there, it looked like a different ball club,” Dennehy said.
Back-ups Travis Cox and Robert Focaert combined for 26 yards, while Jeff Crosbie threw for 112 yards on perfect 8-of-8 passing. He also threw the first score – a 62-yard bomb to Kevin Curtis.
“We kind of got lucky, the safety bit on the fake,” Crosbie said. “I looked up and it was open.”
Fuentes’ blue team countered with a long drive that survived a fourth-down conversion. Fiefia’s 14-yard touchdown run – one of two – was sprung by Chris Stallworth’s block.
The Blue team came back again on the next drive on a 6-yard run by Fernandez to take a 14-7 lead. A 37-yard field goal by Dane Kidman cut the lead to 14-10 at halftime. Kidman was perfect on the day, hitting all three extra points.
In the fourth quarter, Crosbie traded teams and helped extend Blue’s lead to 21-10. Fiefia ran for 31 yards on the drive, including the five-yard touchdown run.
Dennehy said he was impressed by USU tight ends Chris Cooley, Casey Poppinga and J.R. Suguturaga. They combined for four catches and 29 yards.
“Maybe they were the biggest bright spot in the whole spring,” Dennehy said.
Defensively, Dennehy said he was impressed by the progress of the young defensive linemen.
As for the leaders Saturday night, Ryan Solomona, Nathan Barber and Bryan Jackson all had eight tackles to lead the Aggies. Tyler Olsen, Nick Onaindia, Casey Bingham and Jeremy Guenter all had one sack.