Mistake-prone Aggies fall to Boise State, suffer first loss of the season
Utah State was derailed by penalties and mistakes as they fell to Boise State 27-3. It’s their first loss of the season.
The game felt close between the two squads for most of the game, but the Aggie offense couldn’t score when they needed to.
“Proud of the effort. I think our guys are playing hard and they didn’t give up. [They] stayed positive even though it was bad, looked bad most of the day,” Coach Blake Anderson said.
The Aggies committed 13 penalties combined on both offense and defense for 86 yards. This included two pass interference penalties in the endzone which gave the Broncos a fresh set of downs and led to touchdowns. Offensively, holding and false start penalties stalled several drives throughout the game.
Utah State’s offense outgained the Bronco offense, 443 to 435, but couldn’t find the endzone in any of their drives. The Aggie’s first four drives ended in an interception, a turnover on downs, a blocked field goal and then another interception.
The Aggies didn’t have much trouble getting into Boise State territory, but the Bronco defense stopped them from scoring on all but one drive. Utah State put up three field goals, but one field goal was blocked and another one missed wide left.
“Obviously disappointed in the way we played,” Coach Anderson said. “Offensively it’s the worst we’ve executed since the beginning of the season. We had yards, but we couldn’t finish in the red zone. Seemed like we had every little off-schedule-type issue. False starts, lost up front, a couple of drops. We just couldn’t maintain rhythm when we did get any kind of rhythm at all.”
An interception by Anjani Carter stopped Boise State in the redzone and helped get the Aggies on the board. Utah State marched 85 yards downfield after the pick on their only scoring drive of the game. Connor Coles kicked a 20-yard field goal which cut into the Broncos’ lead, 17-3. Boise State proceeded to score 10 more points to finish out the game.
The Aggie defense played well through much of the game. They held the Bronco offense to field goals twice after the offense threw interceptions and once after a turnover on downs. Utah State’s defense also forced the Broncos to punt on five drives.
“Got to be proud of the defense and how they just kinda held in there and kept us in it and gave us a chance way longer than we probably deserved today with just how poorly we executed,” Anderson said.
The Aggies experienced a lot of tough losses last year, and that will help them gather themselves during the short week before the next game.
“The mission is still the same,” said junior linebacker AJ Vongphachanh. “A lot of those guys in the locker room were here last year. It’s very different from last year, those guys know to keep their heads up and get ready for this next week.”
A bright note for Utah State was the fan support at Saturday’s game. Maverick Stadium neared capacity as fans came out to support the Aggies. The attendance totaled 23,715 people.
“[I] loved the environment we just didn’t play well enough for them, we’ll do better next week. Appreciate everyone coming out,” Anderson said.
The Aggies fall to 3-1 on the season after this loss. They host in-state rival BYU at Maverik Stadium on Friday, Oct. 1.