Utah State vs. New Mexico: By the Numbers

1 – New Mexico runs which went for 10+ yards

Now, New Mexico isn’t the high-powered triple option team we’ve seen in years past, in fact they’ve almost entirely abandoned their run-first style of offense. However, they still have a ton of speed in their offense, and the Aggies effectively shut down the run and forced a couple of less-than-stellar passing quarterbacks to do exactly that. While much of the game the Lobos were forced to pass due to the lopsided score, they did still run the ball 30 times on the game, averaging just 2.4 yards per attempt, their worst outing of the season (narrowly edging out an early-season performance against Wisconsin). In fact, of the 30 rushing attempts by New Mexico, 20 of them went for three yards or less. The Lobos average 3.99 yards per rush on the season. I know the Aggie offense is going to get a ton of the credit for this game, and rightfully so, but this Utah State defense deserves some serious love.

7 – Three-and-outs forced by the Aggie defense

Okay, here comes a little bit more praise for the USU defense. But wow, they were good in this game. New Mexico had 17 possessions, of which 14 resulted in either a punt, fumble, interception or turnover on downs. If we’re looking a little deeper, nine of the New Mexico points were scored by their defense (the safety and the fumble scoop-and-score). So in 16 actual offensive possessions, the Aggie defense held 11 of them to five plays or less and allowed just 10 points. That’s not even factoring in that for much of the game Utah State had its second and third-string defenses on the field. On the flip-side, the Aggie offense had just one three-and-out possession, the very first drive of the game.

22:50 – Utah State’s time of possession in the second half

This might seem like a weird number to throw in here, but let me explain. When you lead by 47 points at halftime, scoring touchdowns no longer becomes the main objective. There are always the short-sighted fans out there who will complain about a team not keeping their foot on the pedal and trying to set records, but that’s ridiculous. The objective in the second half of a game like this is to keep the clock moving and get your reserves some experience. The Aggies did exactly that. They got 44 players valuable in-game reps, and while there was nothing flashy about it, the offense ran 39 plays as it managed the clock very well to make the second half fly by. Yes, the play calling was vanilla, and yes, it was a pretty boring half to watch. But how can any Aggie fan who watched Utah State be on the receiving end of many similar drubbings just a decade or so ago complain that USU toned things down?

2.2 – Points scored per minute during USU’s first-half outburst

I don’t know about you guys, but to me, this game felt a whole lot like the game a couple of weeks ago against UNLV. An empty first possession for Utah State, the opponent strikes first, and then an avalanche of points for the Aggies in a short about of time. In that game, USU scored six-straight touchdowns in 15:41, in this game, the Aggies scored seven-straight touchdowns in 22:13. This would have likely happened even quicker had the Aggies not started noticeably milking the clock with about ten minutes left in the second quarter, resulting in a 5:14 drive for a touchdown. Let that sink in for a minute. I don’t say this to pile on the New Mexico defense, simply to illustrate a point that this is a special, special Aggie offense unlike anything Utah State fans have ever seen. In 2006, just 12 years ago, it took the team seven games to put up the amount of points this team did in just over 22 minutes.