Utah State vs New Mexico State: By the Numbers

370 – The number of yards Dominik Eberle kicked the ball

I typically try to use this column to point out some stats and numbers that go a little bit less noticed or under-appreciated, but if you thought I wasn’t going to talk about my man Dominik Eberle, or as his teammates call him, “Das Boot,” you were dead wrong. Between his six field goals and six extra points, Eberle kicked the ball for more yardage on Saturday night than either BYU or Utah had total offensive yards in their respective games. I know I wasn’t the only person in the stadium who wanted to see him trotting out onto the field to attempt a 78-yard field goal after the final USU drive stalled out and they punted from their own 39-yard line (I’m only partially kidding). I won’t go through and list every record he broke because I’m sure you’ve heard them a million times, but I will just give a shoutout and a heartfelt congratulations to one of the most humble yet confident dudes I’ve had the privilege to be around, and ask that Aggie Nation take a second to realize how lucky they are to have such an automatic kicker.

12 – Tackles for a loss created by the USU defense

Just 11 games in the 2017 season, or roughly 1.3% of all the college football games which took place last year, saw a team have 12 or more tackles for a loss. In all 11 cases, that’s the team that won. This Utah State defense is a whole lot of fun, and the depth is incredible. Even without Suli Tamaivena, Ja’Marcus Ingram and Justus Te’i in the lineup on Saturday, the Aggies wreaked havoc. DJ Williams became just the second Aggie in the past three seasons to get three or more TFL’s in a game, while Tipa Galea’i earned another 1.5 sacks to now put him on top of the nation’s leaderboard. Earning 3.5 sacks in a two-game span is crazy. So crazy that it’s a feat neither Bobby Wagner, nor Zach Vigil, nor Kyler Fackrell ever achieved. When you consider the pressure USU was putting on the New Mexico State offense, it’s really no secret how they were able to force three interceptions and two fumbles.

9.2 – Utah State’s average distance-to-go on third down

Okay, time to throw a not-so-positive number in here. This one is alarming. Look, I realize that USU’s offensive play calling was vanilla and resembled more of a spring game offense than anything. And it’s hard to nit-pick and find very many negatives in a game which the Aggies won by 47 points. But in Utah State’s 16 third down attempts, seven came with a distance of ten yards or more to go, and only two came with a distance of less than five yards to go. In fact, the Aggies didn’t face a third-and-less than five until around the four-minute mark of the third quarter. Despite this, USU did convert on 38% of third down attempts. That isn’t a great percentage by any means, but it’s also not terrible considering their distance-to-go, and the fact that NMSU has held opponents to just a 40% third down success rate this season. Again, David Yost wasn’t exactly using every play in the book against a pretty poor New Mexico State team. But against better opponents, the Aggies will need to figure out how to get more yardage on first and second downs.

6.0 – Average yards per rush by Utah State

Remember after USU played Michigan State and one of the common concerns amongst Aggie fans was the lack of a run game? That feels like ancient history now (and if you read last week’s column, you would have realized that it wasn’t a big deal anyways). Against NMSU, the Aggies ran the ball 46 times to pick up 274 yards. For the sake of comparison, New Mexico State ran the ball just one less time, while picking up just 109 yards. It’s pretty tough to lose a game when you average 6.0 yards or better per carry, in fact, it only happened eight times in the entire 2017 season. On top of that, the first three running backs in the depth chart for USU, Gerold Bright, Darwin Thompson and Eltoro Allen, combined averaged 10.0 yards per carry. Not bad. Now look, they weren’t exactly playing Alabama, but New Mexico State’s defense ranked a respectable 53rd in the nation in average yards per rush allowed a season ago. The real fun comes on Thursday when they play a Tennessee Tech defense which allowed 507 rushing yards to Kennesaw State.