USU Football: Aggies are cautiously confident coming off bye week
Cautious confidence is the Aggies’ attitude coming off of their bye week. Caution because of their two-game losing streak. Confidence because they still have a chance at making the Mountain West Conference Championship Game.
Utah State Football started off strong this season, but the team’s record is 3-2 after falling in their last two home games.
“Coming off of two back-to-back losses can be tough, but at the end of the day, everybody there still believes and trusts in the process I would say and in each other,” senior defensive end Nick Heninger said.
Heninger and Brandon Bowling, a senior wide receiver, both think that the Aggies’ struggles this year have been mainly self-inflicted.
“We feel as a defense and as a team that our two losses that we’ve had have been us beating us,” Heninger said. “You can almost say that with any game, but with those two games in particular, we felt like we were at least in a position to win the game at certain points in the game…At the end of the day, as long as we do our job and stop beating ourselves we’re a very dangerous team.”
Bowling added that in some games, the offense needed to score more.
“There have been a couple games where we haven’t put up the amount of points that we need to put up to win. I think Boise was a good example of that. We put up almost [450] yards of offense, but we couldn’t get in the endzone,” Bowling said.
A bright spot for the team is their attitude and work ethic. Heninger says other teams would often become complacent and lazy around this time during the season. But the Aggies aren’t.
“I think we’ve done a good job of combatting that and just trying to get one degree better each day, but that’s always a challenge for any team,” Heninger said. “I’m very confident in our ability as a team to respond the right way. And we’ve got great coaches and honestly, we’ve built a really good culture throughout the offseason where all the guys are winners. They’ve got the mentality of we’ll do what it takes to win and as you can see from our wins that we have had this season we’ve fought through a lot of adversity and we’ve really had to trust each other.”
The team’s goal is to win the Mountain West Conference Championship game. That is still within reach after a Boise State loss to Nevada, but Utah State will likely have to win out. The Aggies are confident that they can do it, but another Boise State loss will also be needed as the Broncos hold the tie-breaker over the Aggies.
Utah State will take the rest of conference play one game at a time.
“I think they’re all big games. They’re all going to be important down the stretch if we wanna get to that conference championship,” Bowling said.
Bowling and Heninger have both been blown away by fan support, especially from The HURD.
“The fanbase has been awesome, the student section has exceeded my expectations,” Bowling said. “I’ve never had a student section like that so I’m really excited for the rest of the year.”
Heninger emphasized the big advantage the team receives from strong support during home games. He credits the hostile environment of Maverick Stadium for causing multiple false start penalties by opposing offenses.
“There are 11 players on the field, but the 12th is the fans. When you bring a lot of energy you definitely affect and help us in a positive way. I would say I’m grateful for that and I just ask they keep it up, take it up a notch,” Heninger said.
Utah State’s next game takes them to Las Vegas to face the UNLV Rebels on Saturday, Oct. 16.