Utah State offensive lineman Weylin Lapuaho (61) celebrates a touchdown by the team against BYU during the first half of an NCAA college football game Thursday, Sept. 29, 2022, in Provo, Utah. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)
To borrow and alter the famous words of King Pyrrhus of Epirus, “If Utah State is victorious in one more battle like the one against Colorado State, we shall be utterly ruined.”
Such was the feeling of the king of the western Greek city-state after winning a battle over the Romans in the third century B.C. that cost him most of his army, and such may be the feeling of the Aggies after losing so many key players to injuries in the win over the Rams on Saturday. Already without quarterback Logan Bonner, USU lost its second and third string quarterbacks Cooper Legas and Levi Williams, at least for the night. Added to that was the loss of defensive end Byron Vaughns who left the game with a head injury.
USU head coach Blake Anderson was right, when speaking about the Aggies’ hectic 17-13 win Saturday, to say “There’s no such thing as an ugly win right now with this group.” A team that was once 1-4 has no room to complain (the “beggars can’t be choosers” cliché fits in well here). And before we get too far, it needs to be said that this group showed real guts to pull out a win in a situation like this. Players from top to bottom are stepping up and doing their job. Bishop Davenport is a great example from the last game. He never expected to have to play snaps. He hadn’t even taken live reps in practice, just drills and routes against air. And yet he stepped in when he needed to.
“The moment’s not bigger than him. He connected dots when we needed to. He pulled the ball down and ran,” USU head coach Blake Anderson said. “For a guy that had not had any reps with us offensively other than just drill work on a daily basis, he was very calm and collected and allowed us to have the chance to win the game.”
Others did what they needed to as well. Calvin Tyler Jr. did a lot of the heavy lifting on offense to buoy Davenport after he got thrown to the sharks. The defense also stepped up in a major way and were the biggest key to that win.
But the season didn’t end on Saturday. Utah State needs to get more wins to fully complete a turnaround of the season. But at this point can they? Injuries are piling up big time and not every opponent will be as incompetent as Colorado State.
Let’s take inventory of the players who are out for the season and those with injuries that are or may impact availability in the near future. The list of starters out for the year comprises of Bonner, wide receiver Kyle Van Leeuwen, defensive tackles Phillip Paea and Seni Tuiaki, and linebacker Anthony Switzer.
Plenty of others have missed time, including but not limited to, Vaughns, Alfred Edwards, Poukesi Vakauta, Hale Motu’apuaka, Josh Sterzer, Broc Lane, Ike Larsen and Omari Okeke. Missed time due to injuries have led to a staggering number of players in need of stepping up. The Aggies have had 18 different players make their first career start with 30 overall players making their debut at USU. Compare that to the mere five players who made their first career start in 2021. Some areas of the team are more deep on the depth chart and able to take hits, but others are not.
Areas where Utah State has handled losses well are mainly on offense, but also in the defensive secondary. The wide receiver corps has survived well the loss of Van Leeuwen. Terrell Vaughn has admirably filled Van Leeuwen’s shoes, averaging 5.3 receptions and 55.0 yards per game with three total touchdowns since Van Leeuwen’s season-ending injury. Meanwhile the offensive line hardly skipped a beat when Edwards missed the BYU game. In fact, that was probably the O-line’s best game of the season to that point, especially in the run game. On defense and special teams, Larsen’s absence wasn’t a huge loss, aside from his knack for game-changing plays, as the Aggies have reliable veteran safeties in Hunter Reynolds, Gurvan Hall and Dominic Tatum.
But for other areas, like linebacker, tight end and defensive line, the injuries are coming to areas of the team that were already thin to begin with, or the number of injuries has been so extensive that the unit can’t handle any more.
Take tight end for instance. Lane’s absence has been a hit to the passing game because he’s the most trusted pass-catcher at that position. In the 26 passing snaps he been part of, he’s run a route 69 percent of the time per Pro Football Focus numbers. For Sterzer that number is just 50 percent and for Parker Buchanan it’s just 47. Not having Lane – who’s only played three games this year and was held out of the CSU game – makes the team less versatile on offense and limits the upside.
Luckily, the two stalwarts of the linebacking crew, AJ Vongphachanh and MJ Tafisi, have hardly missed a snap all year. But aside from them, the rest of the linebackers are inexperienced already. Okeke, the one who’s missed time is a freshman and striker Kaleo Neves is in his first year of real rotation snaps.
The defensive line entered the season plenty deep despite some major offseason losses like Marcus Moore and Nick Heninger. But now two different Aggies on the D-line are out, Paea and Tuiaki, with others, Motu’apuaka and Vakauta, that have missed time and could be affected by lingering issues going forward. Among the defensive ends, missing Vaughns isn’t an enormous loss with Daniel Grzesiak and Patrick Joyner being fully capable of managing the edge rushing duties. But there isn’t much behind them aside from John Ward. Having a capable three-man edge rotation gave USU depth and versatility. Now that cushion is gone.
All of this, of course, has so far ignored the injury trouble at the most important position on the field: quarterback. There is no guarantee that Legas or Williams will return by Saturday.
“Everything for us is day-to-day at this point,” Anderson said, speaking of multiple players on the injury list. “It’s gonna really depend on what happens in the next 24-48 hours. What kind of progress those guys make. We’ll follow the protocol. They are in the protocol and if they’re cleared we’ll be ready for them to play. If not, we’ll be ready to play without them. It’s going to be a day-to-day process”
There will be difficulty in winning a second time win an inexperienced quarterback. Anderson noted multiple times that Saturday’s game is the kind one usually loses, and there’s good reason for that. Team’s don’t often maintain success with fourth-string quarterbacks. There is a bit of reason for optimism with the quarterback situation, however. With a full week of preparation, more of the playbook will be available for Davenport to potentially use. Against CSU the play-calling had to be limited due to Davenport’s inexperience. Anderson said they had to keep it “to base stuff that he’s had a lot of reps at.”
“He has not had team reps in quite a while,” Anderson said. “He’s been in meetings so there are a few gameplan-type things that were at least things he was aware of and knew what they were. But he had not had any reps of any of those.”
Utah State cannot afford to stumble now. This is the time to seize momentum. It’s unfortunate that injuries have plagued them so, but good teams overcome adversity in all forms. We’ll see just how good of the team the Aggies are on Saturday.