LOGAN – At the 10:21 mark of the second quarter, Utah State quarterback Spencer Petras was hit as he threw the ball, which landed in the arms of San Diego State’s Brady Nassar for what was ruled an interception (arguably a fumble, but that’s what the referees ruled it as). The Aztecs went on to score a touchdown and take a 10-0 lead.
When the Utah State offense went back onto the field, Petras didn’t join them, the hit that jarred the ball free from his hand also left him injured. Bryson Barnes went out there instead. His first drive went little better as the Aggies went four-and-out, coming up short on a fourth down conversion attempt on their own 29-yard line.
San Diego State took the ball and wound up kicking a field goal to take a 13-0 lead, the largest lead the Aztecs have had over an FBS team this season.
The mood in the stands around Merlin Olsen Field reflected the output of Utah State’s offense. SDSU had pummeled the Aggie offensive line, sacking Petras twice (not including the hit that resulted in the interception and not a strip-sack). The run game also hadn’t gotten going, with Faison being knocked out of most of the first half with an injury (he would later return) and Herschel Turner unable to find lanes.
Could Utah State create offense where none had existed so far?
Yes, answered Barnes.
The eternal backup quarterback, seemingly cursed to only get to play when the regular starter is injured, entered the game and began to do what he’s done best — step in and win football games. In leading an Aggie comeback which featured 41 unanswered points for an eventual 41-20 victory, Barnes set a Utah State record. He ran for 193 yards, the most in a single game by a USU quarterback, surpassing Kent Myers’ 191 yards against Colorado State in 2015.
“I don’t know how many starts I actually have under my belt,” Barnes said. “But it kind of just seems like a running theme that when I’m the backup my number is probably going to get called.”
With just three minutes on the first-half clock, the Aggies desperately needed momentum and Barnes was happy to deliver via the ground game. Herschel Turner got the fun started with a 26-yard run (which was the longest play of the day thus far), but Barnes finished it, scoring a touchdown from 19 yards out just after the two-minute warning.
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Utah State could have been content going into the break down just six points, especially since the Aggies were getting the ball after halftime, but they didn’t sit on the laurels of that one TD. They went all-out, forcing a three-and-out from San Diego State and taking over with 90 seconds left in the half and a mere 65 yards away from taking a stunning lead.
And take a stunning lead they did.
Barnes accounted for all but four yards on the ensuing scoring drive, throwing for 35 yards and rushing for 26. The capstone of that drive was a highlight-of-the-year candidate catch from Grant Page in the corner of the end zone on a fake spike play.
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Initially ruled incomplete, review ultimately determined that Page had caught the ball with one hand while also getting his foot down in bounds for the touchdown.
“Yeah, that was awesome,” Barnes said. “They called it incomplete at first and (Page) goes ‘I’m pretty sure I had a foot down’ and I was like that like ‘Well that’s tough because they ruled it incomplete,'” Barnes said.
The Utah State players started celebrating during the review process, largely on the confidence from their coaching staff who were looking at replays of the catch.
“Coach (Cefalo) was in my ear. He said, ‘Oh, that’s a touchdown,'” Barnes recalled. “Obviously you have everybody else on their headsets and they’re around their players. They say, ‘Oh, it’s a touchdown.’ So then everybody starts celebrating.”
The pendulum of momentum swung entirely from San Diego State’s side over to the Aggies. And the nightmare was far from over for the Aztecs.
USU took full advantage of getting the ball after halftime, driving 75 yards to take a 21-13 lead. The Aggies scored 21 points in just under six minutes of game time. From virtually zero offense, to three consecutive long scoring drives. And those would be just the first half of USU’s eventual 41-0 scoring run in the game.
Barnes’ style of play had a lot to do with the revival of the offense. The Aztecs were ready for Petras. They were not ready for Barnes and his ability to keep the ball and gain chunks of yards.
“They weren’t really prepared for a running quarterback and so we really kind of exploited that,” Barnes said. “The game plan kind of completely changed. They had came out a little bit different than what we were expecting. But then obviously when your starter goes down, they’ve got to adapt to the guy that’s in. And so I feel like we were that we were able to adapt and change. It created sparks, more explosive plays, and it just really kind of worked for us.”
Barnes rattled off six runs of 10-plus yards, even tying the longest single rush of his career with a 63-yard scamper that set up the touchdown that put USU up 34-13 (and effectively iced the game). Just as important as the big plays, though, were some of the shorter ones. In four 3rd and short situations (all of two yards or less), Barnes converted three of those attempts.
“When Bryson has the ball on third and short everyone in the stands knows Bryson’s getting the ball and he gets it every single time,” USU head coach Nate Dreiling said.
Along with the 193 rushing yards, Barnes completed 13 of 15 passes for 139 yards and three passing touchdowns, two to Page and one to Josh Sterzer. Page set a new career-high in receiving yards with 55 on six catches and caught the first two TD passes of his career.
As much as the offense deserved credit for its turnaround, the defense earned every bit of praise for their performance throughout the whole game. San Diego State did put up 13 first-half points, but 10 of those came on drives that started on USU’s side of the field where the offense had put the defense in a tough situation.
Outside of those two short fields, San Diego State had one field goal and a touchdown scored in garbage time. At times the Aggie defense bent, but didn’t break. The 13 tackles for loss and four sacks helped them out of a few jams, as did nine penalties called on the SDSU offense alone. Overall, they were dynamic, and for the last two weeks have been much closer to the ideal that Dreiling wanted for this team.
“We look like the defense that we all wanted to be coming out of the gate,” Dreiling said. “It just took a little longer than expected. That’s the hardest thing this year, for a coach, was I was a new DC. These guys have known me for three or four months, so they don’t really have anything to believe in besides what we’re saying. We didn’t do good out of the gate. You guys know that, we know that. But for this defense and these players, to keep trust and confidence in the coaching staff, that says a lot of the of the men we have in that locker room.”
After giving up a minimum of 450 yards to every FBS opponent all year — with an average of 513 per game — Utah State held Hawaii to 309 yards last week and SDSU to 412 this week.
The Aggies’ season finale will take place on Black Friday, just under a week following this victory. They’ll take on Colorado State, who at time of publishing is still in line for a spot in the Mountain West championship game, and will be if the Rams take down Fresno State this weekend.
