Football one win from bowl eligibility after win over Nevada
The Utah State football team defeated Nevada in an early kickoff contest on Saturday afternoon. The Aggies offense, ranked 21st in the nation in points per game, led the way with 41 points to trump the 24 for the Wolfpack.
The victory was the second straight for the Aggies (5-5, 3-3 MWC), who survived a double overtime thriller at San Diego State a week ago. The win also moved them to a .500 record on the season, only one win away from being eligible for a postseason bowl game.
The Wolfpack (2-8, 2-4 MWC) suffered their second consecutive loss after a loss to Hawaii a week ago. They are 2-2 in their last four games after losing six straight to begin the season.
The contest was atypical of the uptempo style USU has been known to play with. The score was tied 7-7 at the end of the first quarter, the third straight game for the Aggies in which the score had been tied after one quarter. Part of the reason for the low-scoring affair was penalties on both sides of the ball. Head coach Blake Anderson expressed his displeasure with the amount of penalties committed by his squad after the game.
“It’s frustrating when you’re looking at penalty, after penalty, after penalty,” Anderson said. “We have to find a way to eliminate those. We’ve done a relatively good job for a while, then today it was crazy.”
The Aggies had 13 penalties on the day with Nevada contributing 12, for a grand total of 232 penalty yards.
Junior running back Rahsul Faison had a career-high in rushing attempts and yards in the contest, running the ball 22 times for 181 yards and a touchdown. Faison provided an important spark for the Aggies in the second half, with most of his yards coming in a third quarter where USU had 130 yards on the ground.
“This was huge for us. It allowed us to open up a lot of things in the pass game when they really started to commit to the run, and we started getting some big runs. Shout out to my offensive line because without them none of this is possible,” Faison said.
The turning point for the Aggies came midway through the second quarter when Anthony Switzer was able to alter a Nevada throw, which was then picked off by sophomore defensive tackle Seni Tuiaki. Tuiaki, who returned the interception 63 yards for a touchdown, said that it was his first touchdown at any level of football.
“Just for me personally, such a humbling experience, to be honest, I’ve been through a lot last year with the major injury that caused me to end my season and just to see how God planned my life after that… It’s just an amazing experience,” Tuiaki said.
The Aggies will now turn their attention to next week where they will host the Broncos of Boise State. A win against the Broncos would make Utah State bowl-eligible for the sixth time in the last seven seasons.