Coming out of a bye week the Utah State football will shift from facing a one-win Wyoming team (at least at the time) to a one-loss, ranked Washington State team. The No. 20 Cougars are on the fringe of playoff contention, needing an at-large bid since the Pac-12 champion will not be considered for one of the five automatic bids given to the five highest conference champions.
It’ll be yet another tough matchup for the Aggies in a season that’s not been up to the usual standard. But the last time Utah State made a trip to Pullman, expectations for the team were low and despite that, the Aggies left with a thrilling victory that kicked off one of the most exciting stretches in program history.
Game Info:
- Kickoff: 8:30 p.m. (Mountain Time)
- Location: Martin Stadium (Pullman, WA)
- TV Broadcast/Stream: The CW Network
- Radio: KVNU (102.1 FM, 610 AM)
KVNU Aggie Gameday pregame show with Stockton Jewkes and J.D. Walker: Begins 6:30 p.m. on 102.1 FM, 610 AM (additional content available on KVNU Podcast Feed starting Friday)
KVNU Aggie Call Postgame: Starts immediately after Coach Nate Dreiling’s post-game comments.
- Text (435) 554-1175 or call (435) 753-5868 during the pregame or postgame show to give your thoughts and reactions for the game.
Utah State Depth Chart
USU Football Week 10 Depth Chart (OFFENSE)
| Position | Starter | Reserve |
|---|---|---|
| QB | Spencer Petras | Bryson Barnes |
| RB | Rahsul Faison | Herschel Turner Jr. |
| WR | Grant Page | Colby Bowman |
| WR | Otto Tia | Colby Bowman |
| SLOT WR | Kyrese White | Jack Hestera |
| TE | Broc Lane | Josh Sterzer |
| LT | Cole Motes | Trey Andersen |
| LG | Wyatt Bowles | George Maile |
| C | Falepule Alo | Bryce Radford |
| RG | Aloali’i Maui | Tavo Motu’apuaka |
| RT | Teague Andersen | Jared Pele |
USU Football Week 10 Depth Chart (DEFENSE)
| Position | Starter | Reserve |
|---|---|---|
| DE | Cian Slone | Marlin Dean |
| DT | Gabriel Iniguez | Ricky Lolohea |
| DT | Isaiah Bruce | Bo Maile |
| DE | Lawrence Falatea | William Holmes |
| WILL | Jadon Pearson | Tanner Williams |
| MIKE | John Miller | Bronson Olevao Jr. |
| NICKEL | Jaiden Francois | Torren Union |
| B-CB | Avante Dickerson | JD Drew |
| BS | Jordan Vincent | Malik McConico |
| FS | Ike Larsen | Chase Davis |
| F-CB | DJ Graham | Noah Flores |
Utah State Injuries
- Robert Briggs (RB) – Out for Season
- Jalen Royals (WR) – Out for Season
- Broc Lane (TE) – Out for Season
- Taz Williams (DT) – Out for Season
- Miguel Jackson (DT) – Out for Season
- Enoka Migao (DE) – Out for Season
- Blaine Spires (DE) – Out for Season
- Gabe Peterson (DE) – Out for Season
- Clyde Washington (LB) – Out for Season
- Jon Ross Maye (LB) – Out for Season
- Logan Pili (LB) – Out for Season
Dreiling probably put it best when he said on Monday “we’re one of the few teams that if you get injured you are out for the year.” The Aggies simply can’t escape season-ending injuries as they’re up to around a dozen, give or take a couple players that (might) have a chance at returning in the final month of the season.
Top Storylines & Matchups
Aggies must stop John Mateer (though previous results don’t inspire optimism)
Washington State’s quarterback, John Mateer, is the team’s clear-cut offensive star. Not only is he quite capable with his arm — ranking in the top 30 in country in pass yards, passing touchdowns, passing efficiency, pass yards completion and points responsible for — he also the team’s leading rusher. Mateer has racked up 575 rushing yards this season, and that’s including 167 rush yards lost via the 23 times he’s been sacked this season. Adjust accordingly and Mateer averages 7.3 yards per attempt and has 10 rushing touchdowns. Add up all his contributions and he’s responsible for 76 percent of the Cougars’ net yards and 72 percent of their scoring plays.
Previous instances of the Aggies dealing with duel-threat quarterbacks haven’t exactly yielded stunning results. Evan Simon of Temple, UNLV’s Hajj-Malik Williams and New Mexico star Devon Dampier are probably the three closest examples of duel-threat on USU schedule so far. Each of those QBs ran for at least 49 yards and threw for at least 230 and combining for 13 overall touchdowns (10 passing, three rushing) to just three interceptions.
It’s been a pretty big struggle for Utah State to take down mobile QBs and that’s something the Aggies will work to change. But this could be a good candidate for a game in which USU pulls off that change. The already mentioned 23 sacks Washington State has given up has been a clear results of struggles on the Cougars’ offensive line. Even with USU’s own banged-up defense, it has guys able to make plays. Cian Slone has four sacks in his last three games and Lawrence Falatea is perhaps in line for a revenge game of sorts, as he played three seasons at Washington State. A standout game from one or both would go a long way in slowing Mateer down in a big way.
The last stand for Utah State’s bowl eligibility
OK, maybe this isn’t literally the last stand, but that’s only because the Aggies would have more work to do. Next week would also be a last stand and so on and so forth. But this is the most difficult opponent left on USU’s schedule. A win here would be a massive boost in confidence heading into two straight games against teams with losing records before a season finale with surprise Mountain West title hopeful Colorado State.
There’s also the fact that if Utah State loses, it will be just the third time since 2010 the Aggies haven’t made a bowl game. The standard for USU football has been pretty clearly set at “make a bowl game every season” and exceptions haven’t been tolerated that well. When Matt Wells missed a bowl in 2016 he found himself on the hot seat and only made it out by posting an 11-win season in 2018. Gary Anderson didn’t even make it through the end of the 2020 season, the only other time the Aggies missed a bowl. Unfortunately, this could be the week we see USU have just its third non-bowl campaign and it’d pretty much put the writing on the wall for Dreiling’s tenure as head coach in Logan.
Rahsul Faison key to Aggie offense
Faison has been the go-to back the entire season with 155 carries and the next-closest running back being Herschel Turner with his 38. With those 155 rush attempts, Faison has tallied just shy of 800 yards and six touchdowns. A huge key for Utah State offense has been finding ways to keep it moving through the ground game, which means getting Faison touches going for positive yards. For some of the season, that hasn’t been an issue as he had three straight 100-yard games against Utah, Temple and Boise State. And then he had two slower outings with 83 yards and 79 against UNLV and New Mexico.
Utah State’s offense did fairly well in terms of scoring even when Faison had his two-game stretch under the century mark (34 points against UNLV and 45 against New Mexico), but that only happened because Spencer Petras and the pass game totaled more than 800 yards through the air alone. It’s less likely Petras will be throwing for 300-plus against the Cougars. He didn’t against Wyoming, but since Faison had 131 yards on the ground, the offense still had a way to move the ball in a positive direction.
With key pass-catchers out, it’s far from a guarantee that Petras will be able to keep pace with his current average of 304.2 passing yards per game. So Faison needs to keep balling out to keep the points coming.
Petras and pass-catchers must be on point (the whole game)
Speaking of pass-catchers being out, Jalen Royals being out for the year (along with Broc Lane) is a pretty big problem. Petras didn’t seem nearly as on point against Wyoming as he had the previous three games. Against Boise State, UNLV and New Mexico he threw for 360-plus yards and had nine overall TDs (eight passing, one rushing) to just four interceptions while also completing 68 percent of his passes. Against Wyoming all of that dropped to 194 passing yards on a 64.1 completion percentage (though still two TDs to no interceptions so props there). To little surprise, the offense ground to a halt a tad, scoring just 27 points compared to the 36.3 average in those same three aforementioned games.
Pretty much all of the Aggie receivers seemed to struggle to find separation from defensive backs, which gave Petras fewer options and made it much harder to get a pass on target. And even when Petras was on target, there were far too many drops by the wideouts.
That simply has to change. Royals isn’t there to draw attention for any of the guys who are used to being second or third options. Otto Tia, Kyrese White, Josh Sterzer and all the rest must get used to facing much more pressure from defensive backs and they have to be able to beat the guy in front of them.
Game Prediction
Eric Frandsen and Jason Walker both gave their predictions for the game on the Full Court Press (4-6 p.m. weekdays on 106.9 FM, 1390 AM The FAN).
Eric Frandsen’s Prediction — Washington State 38, Utah State 25
- Correct winner predictions this year — 6/7
- *Score prediction accuracy rating — .477
“I think Utah State (will compete) with this top 2 opponent than they have in most of their others. I think that Washington State is a solid team and shouldn’t be overlooked, but there’s not a whole lot about them that really blows me away like some of the other teams the Aggies have faced this season. And they have a bit of a habit of playing to the level of their opponents.”
Jason Walker’s Prediction — Washington State 50, Utah State 17
- Correct winner predictions this year — 5/8
- Score prediction accuracy rating — .485
“I just have a really time trying to find ways that the Aggies would really be great in this one. Their offense, I don’t think can be as dynamic without Jalen Royals. I don’t think they’re going to get shut down like they were against USC…but I struggle to see ways that the Aggies are going to truly stop John Mateer…And so I think Washington State is going to move up and down the field pretty well in this one.”
*Score prediction accuracy rating is on scale of 0-1 and measures predicted score and winner for all games so far and the deviation of predictions from the actual scores of the games (NOTE: Some previous weeks ratings were miscalculated and are lower than they should be). Eric didn’t have an official score prediction for New Mexico so his numbers don’t include that game.
