Yea, there’s not really any sugar-coating left to put on Utah State’s season so far. You can dress up losses, even blowout losses, to top 15 teams as at least minor positives when you see improvement. But all that goes out the window when you lose to a bottom five team in the country.
To be honest, I had to cut short anything I felt like saying, partly in the spirit of this kind of article. But there’s one thing I did say since it felt emblematic of the last two weeks, games where the Aggies were supposed to show the most improvement after getting plastered 48-0 at USC. In the last two games, Utah State has held leads of 14-3 and 14-0 over Utah and Temple, respectively, with both leads being established fairly early in the second quarter. But add up the scoring in the rest of those two games and you end up with the Aggies being outscored 80-29, or 51 points in what amounts to around five-and-a-half quarters of play.
Still, it was worth taking time and a look back before saying more or anything too drastic. And with that said, here’s this declaration:
Utah State may very well struggle to win a single game the rest of the season.
As much as the Aggies want to put a loss like they just took at Temple, or the drubbing at USC and count them as outliers or learning experiences, that approach works less and less the further you get into the season. We’re now done with one-third of the college football season and the sample size for Utah State is at its best, an inconclusive work in progress. We’ve seen spans of good play such as the second half against Robert Morris and the second quarters against Utah and Temple, but that’s about it for good. The remaining 75 percent of the four-game sample size consists of USU getting outscored 142-39.
The hope clung to in the first three games was that the bright spots were who the Aggies really were with the bad portions a product of a tough schedule or needing to buff out some dents. But at this point it seems the bright spots are what’s really been the exception.
Interim head coach Nate Dreiling boasted having an offense that could score every time it touched the ball. So far, the results say otherwise. The Aggies rank 112th in points scored per game. The 21.5 average, were it to stand, would also be the worst scoring offense for the Aggies since 2007 (excluding the disjointed 2020 COVID season). That number speaks volumes about an offense Dreiling has repeatedly called one of the best in the country.
One of the worst trends for the Aggies on the offensive side of the ball is an inability to finish drives with points, or the right number of points. Utah State has had exactly 20 offensive possessions that at some point made snapped the ball inside its opponent’s 35-yard line. Having the ball in this part of the field is when the offense needs to make it count. The bare minimum should be a long field goal with a touchdown highly likely. Utah State has come away with zero points on nearly half (nine) of those 20 possessions. When in a prime position to score, in some cases having driven half the length of the field to get there, the Aggies suddenly fizzle out and get absolutely nothing for their efforts. You could make things worse by expanding the criteria slightly which would end up including an interception thrown after making it to Robert Morris’ 47, an interception thrown upon reaching the Utah 40 and punting at the Temple 37.
For the curious, here’s the exact breakdown of those 20 possessions, from most common to least common:
- Eight touchdowns
- Four MISSED field goals
- Three interceptions
- Three MADE field goals
- Two turnovers on downs
The specific criteria happens to exclude a few scoring plays, three to be exact. But all three (the 57 and 53-yard touchdowns by Kyrese White and 63-yard run from Bryson Barnes) happened in the Robert Morris game. Maybe it’s not a coincidence the big scoring plays haven’t happened in a few weeks against much stiffer competition.
A lot of blame for the offense ended up on the plate of Spencer Petras. And he’s certainly not free from fault in this one, despite an on-its-fact decent-looking stat line of 26 for 44 passing for 293 yards, two touchdowns and one interception. That final line includes a garbage-time stretch where he completed 7 of 9 passes for 100 yards and a touchdown (plus his one interception). Take out this late-game stat-padding and you end up with Petras throwing for 193 yards and one touchdown with a 54.3 completion percentage. Petras plagued the team with poor decision-making and poor throws on too many occasions. According to Pro Football Focus, he had four turnover-worthy passes, something fans watching the game certainly would have noticed despite the fact Petras only had one interception that happened late in the game.
One such example that stands out was this near-interception late in the second quarter. A better defense would have capitalized on this and it would have cut short a drive that went on to score a touchdown which allowed the Aggies to go up 21-17 at halftime.
Petras had both Kyrese White and Jalen Royals open on hitch routes down the field for easy 7-9 yard gains on first down. He targets White but misses really badly to the right and hits the defender in the numbers instead. There’s really only two explanations and neither are good. One is that he just botched this throw. You can see the mounting pressure kind of bothered him and the throw was off-balanced and the release from his hand was a little awkward. Maybe it’s just that. But there’s also the fact that a linebacker is right in the throwing window Petras wants to get the ball into. Ideally this ball ends up in White’s chest plate or right hip (left from Petras’ and our view on the replay) but the trajectory of such a pass would have to get through the raised arms of DJ Woodbury, who was trying to make himself big. If that’s what Petras was seeing, it was wise to not try to throw through or loft it over Woodbury as both could end in disaster for different reasons. But throwing it to the right, away from where White’s momentum was going and directly toward the defender was also never the right choice so it’s hard to give credit for making a different wrong choice.
The two social media answers to this problem was to run the ball more and/or put Barnes in the game. Unfortunately, neither of those things probably would have helped that much. Barnes has his own issues with consistency and accuracy and his running ability really hasn’t changed any of the games he’s appeared in with the exception of that one single 63-yard run against Robert Morris. And while Rahsul Faison ran for 148 yards in the game, his production really tailed off in the second half. He averaged 7.2 yards per rush in the first half and 2.5 in the second (on 10 carries in the second half, with eight in the third quarter alone, so they didn’t really abandon him until the Aggies got too far behind). Temple simply figured out the Utah State rushing attack and began to stop it.
There is no easy fix for Utah State’s offense. Many of its problems are self-inflicted be they bad passes, drops (this is a big issue that’s gone mostly under the radar), drive-killing/opponent drive-extending penalties, missed field goals and more are things USU keeps doing. And at this stage it’s not offseason rust or nerves or playing a highly ranked opponent. It’s who they are at this point, at least until they prove otherwise.
As for the defense, it’s a lot of the same from last year. The run defense isn’t as catastrophically bad, but the Aggies are still allowing 196.0 yards per game on the ground (and before anyone cites strength of schedule, Temple was averaging 77 yards per game on the ground and put up 180 on USU). Combine that with a poor pass rush and they can’t stop anybody. Even with decent coverage on the back end (for what their grading system is worth, PFF has USU’s coverage unit ranked a decent 63rd), the lack of a pass rush, which has generated just four sacks all year, means any quarterback can just sit back and eventually find the hole in the defense. Evan Simon did this to great success. After shaking off a really rough 1-of-8 passing start, he completed 16 of 19 passes the rest of the way and finished with 320 total yards and six overall touchdowns.
Looking at the whole season of pass defense, the Aggies allowed Robert Morris and USC to complete north of 70 percent of their passes. And a true freshman QB making his first start completed 61 percent of his passes for 239 yards and three touchdowns. Consequently, Utah State ranks 114th in defensive pass efficiency (i.e. the overall passer rating of opposing QBs).
Is there a fix for all this? Maybe. Dreiling has a bye week between now and yet another ranked opponent, No. 25 Boise State, with a fourth potentially ranked foe, UNLV (23rd in Coaches poll, four spots out of Top 25 in AP Poll) the week after. If the Aggies are standing and not too bloodied by the end of that stretch, maybe they can make a run at a bowl game they’re guaranteed to still be mathematically capable of doing even if they lose to both the Broncos and Rebels (and even have one more loss to give in doing so).
