Utah State vs Tennessee Tech: By the Numbers
9 – Number of USU players who scored a touchdown Thursday night
The more you think about this one, the crazier it seems. Utah State scored 10 touchdowns in the game, which is crazy enough. But the fact that so many different guys contributed to the scoring was impressive. I was really surprised to find that the last time this happened for USU was just five years ago when the Aggies dominated Weber State 70-6. But before that, it had been at least 1964 since that last happened, probably even earlier (I couldn’t find box scores from that far back). After a slow start in the first two drives for the Aggies, here’s the result of the drives following:
Touchdown
Touchdown
Stuffed on the goal line
Touchdown
Touchdown
Touchdown
Touchdown
Touchdown
Fumble
Punt
Touchdown
Touchdown
Touchdown
So Utah State had four scoreless drives and one which ended with a field goal, but still managed to score 73. You always hear about how valuable the playing time some of the bench players get in a blowout game like this is, so think about how huge it was for six “non-starters” to be able to score a touchdown in this game.
164 – Points scored by Utah State through three games this season
You may have heard that this was the first time in the history of USU football which they have scored 60+ points in back-to-back games. What you may not (or may have) realized is that it’s not even close. In the past 100 years, the Aggies have scored 60 or more points just 11 times, and yes, that includes the two this season. There was a 42-year gap without a 60+ point game between 1919 and 1961, then a 33-year gap without one between 1964 and 1997. Now look, I understand USU isn’t exactly playing Alabama and Clemson. But this is still remarkable and deserves serious recognition. Consider that the Aggies have already scored more points in just three games than they did in the entire 2006 season (130). I’ve heard some people complain about how “boring” these blowout games are, but as someone who grew up going to USU games and watching the Aggies come out on the wrong side of these blowouts, it’s far from boring to me.
56 – Utah State players who got playing time
This is going back to the value of game reps that I talked about before. In a typical game, Utah State will play somewhere between 30-35 players. However, with most of the starters watching the second half from the bench, some young players got a chance to shine under the lights of Maverik Stadium on Thursday night. This number included 33 different defensive players, 30 of whom recorded at least one or more tackles. It’s also worth noting that’s even with several first and second-string guys missing due to injury or other reasons. This is partially thanks to a fantastic new rule implemented by the NCAA this season which allows players to see time in up to four games and still redshirt. Matt Wells definitely took advantage of it, and even fielded an offensive line comprised entirely of true freshmen through most of the fourth quarter.
12 – Tackles for a loss by the Aggies
This is the first time that I’ve ever repeated a stat in back-to-back weeks, but this one is significant. In each of USU’s blowout wins the past couple of weeks, they have recorded a whopping 12 TFL’s. While the USU front seven took a lot of heat last season and was really viewed as one of the weak spots, this year’s front seven has been straight up dominant. Obviously the numbers will look good against poor teams like New Mexico State and Tennessee Tech, but they also had a great outing in the season opener against Michigan State. To think they were able to have a performance like this without Suli Tamaivena, David Woodward, Kevin Meitzenheimer and Justus Te’i makes it that much more impressive. On top of the impressive number of tackles in the backfield, the USU defense also held Tennessee Tech to just 1-of-15 on third-down conversions, 12 first downs, and an average of 3.4 yards per play. Of course, the true test will come on Saturday when they have to go up against Air Force’s triple option.