USU welcomes former Big West rival New Mexico State in home finale
There is no question who will win Saturday’s football game – the Aggies. Whether it is Utah State or New Mexico State, though, is still up in the air.
The Aggies will face each other at 1:05 p.m. at Romney Stadium in USU’s final home game of the season.
NMSU is yet another future Sun Belt Conference foe for USU. And New Mexico Head Coach Tony Samuel doesn’t exactly seem pleased about playing Utah State at this point in time.
“I don’t have a choice [to play out of conference],” he said. “I just have to deal with what I have. To say if I do or don’t [want to play a non-conference game] doesn’t help or hurt the situation. I just want to concentrate on Utah State.”
Samuel said he looks forward to playing USU in future league competitions. Right now, though, he is just trying to remind his players not to look past Utah State and to its next game against North Texas.
After a bye week, USU is ready to get back on the field.
“Obviously, we have got our hands full,” said Utah State Head Coach Mick Dennehy. “This is as good a team as we have played in a long, long time. They have a great deal of success this year, so we are very excited about [the game].”
NMSU has certainly been successful the middle half of its season, posting a 5-0 record after a 1-3 start. However, four of those five wins have come in the friendly confines of Aggie Memorial Stadium. The NewMags are undefeated in the Sun Belt Conference with a 4-0 conference record.
Dennehy said this is USU’s (2-6) chance to become a better football team, as well as the last hurrah for his seniors.
There will be 15 seniors who will play their final game at Romney Stadium Saturday, including quarterback Jose Fuentes and wide receiver Kevin Curtis.
Samuel said Fuentes is probably more mobile than most people think, throwing accurate passes and a nice long ball.
As for Curtis, Samuel said, “[He] is a great one. He’s a great all-around athlete. They find ways to get him the ball. [USU] is going to come out and try and create confusion and get [us] out of position. It’s a dangerous offense.”
Dennehy said Utah State continues to struggle to a certain extent on offense – specifically at running the football.
He said his Aggies have become better, adding more time of possession for USU.
“It is awfully frustrating when your offense is on the field [for] 15 or 18 minutes less than your opponent,” Dennehy said.
The Aggies have not faced each other since Nov. 4, 2000. Utah State came out on top as Emmett White set an NCAA single-game all-purpose yardage record with 578 yards en route to a 44-37 win.
“It’s the same quarterback and offense [from the last game],” Samuel said.” [Last time] we had some trouble stopping their running game. We’ve got to shut that down first.”
USU holds a 22-4 series advantage over NMSU, dating back to 1960.
Utah State needs at least 15,652 fans Saturday to break the all-time season average attendance record, which was set last year (21,784).
-juag@cc.usu.edu