One last ride: Utah State’s senior class home finale a must-win
It’s been quite a ride for the Utah State football team’s senior class.
Together they’ve been to four bowl games and won it all on three occasions. They’ve accounted for 3,795 yards and 23 touchdowns on the offensive side of the ball, and on the defensive side they’re even better – 695 tackles, 22 sacks and more than 15 takeaways.
This home finale against New Mexico, and this year overall, signifies the final transition point between between former head coach Gary Andersen and current coach Matt Wells, as it is the sunset for the few remaining Andersen recruits.
Of those who stand out on the 25-man list is tight end Wyatt Houston, running back Devante Mays, safety Devin Centers and defensive linemen Ricky Ali’ifua and Travis Seefeldt. In total, the group has been a part of 39 wins in seasons past – but this year, they have only eked out three.
“Nobody ever wants their last season of college football to go the way that it’s happened or the way it’s been going,” Houston said. “But at the same time, there’s a reason why this is happening, we’re being tested for some reason and it’s a great life lesson.”
As broken records go, this one may be the worst. The Aggies need a lot in order to just stay alive and remain in consideration for a bowl berth. First USU will need to overcome the Lobos; they must then repeat against Nevada; then repeat again at BYU.
“We’ve got two options,” Houston said. “We can pout, we can complain and talk about how this isn’t fair, or we can do something about it, put our heads down, go to work, take it one game at a time and get ourselves in a bowl game.”
For the third straight week, Utah State will be taking on a nation’s top rushing attack, now against New Mexico – the FBS’s best statistical running team. Through nine games, the Lobos, led by Teriyon Gipson and Tyrone Owens, has amassed 3229 yards and 34 touchdowns all on a 6.66 yard per carry average.
“You watch them against a lot of teams and they’ll break through and hit home runs,” Wells said. “They can score and finish on you in a hurry.”
USU head coach Matt Wells has to be concerned for the challenge as his team has proven to be simply unable to stop an offensive onslaught no matter the opponent. Over the past three games, Utah State’s defence have allowed 781 yards and six touchdowns on the ground alone.
Through the air things haven’t been much better either. Although the Aggies rank 20th in the nation for passing defense, and fourth in the Mountain West, over the past five games the secondary has surrendered 950 yards and 11 touchdowns.
“It’s huge,” Wells said about the importance of stopping explosive plays. “We allowed way too many explosives on defense, whether it was pass explosives, which has to do with containing the quarterback, or it was a run explosive.”
Ahead of the Lobos matchup, Wells did his part to put to bed any rumors, questions or concerns of a quarterback controversy.
“The biggest thing is finding out if Kent [Myers] is healthy and I’ll know a little bit more after this afternoon,” Wells said on Monday. “I’ll know more after talking to the doctors this afternoon.”
Since Monday, Myers has been officially listed as day-to-day. The junior signal caller went 17 of 29 passes for 235 yards and one touchdown versus Wyoming before being injured in the third quarter. Myers’ backup, Damion Hobbs, who had thrown three passes all year prior to replacing Myers, went 7-for-16 passing for 68 yards and had three rushing touchdowns. He threw also one interception after being hit while releasing the ball.
“He did some good stuff and he did some stuff that I know we’re not coaching the quarterback to do,” Wells said. “… There are probably a couple of throws he’d like to have back. But we dropped a couple on him, too.”
Saturday’s game is scheduled to kickoff at 8:15 p.m. and will be televised on ESPN2.