It’d be difficult to find an area of the gridiron that you could say Utah State played well in during a 33-14 loss to New Mexico. Be it offense, defense special teams, or any other aspect of football, the Aggies struggled to make it work for them.
The first defensive possession went about as well as you can reasonably expect when entering with the 127th-ranked defense. New Mexico gained 30 yards, but were forced to punt just past mid-field four minutes into the game.
And that’s about how long it took before things started going more south than Utah State already was in Albuquerque.
USU’s first offensive possession started on its own four-yard line and went immediately backward with a one-yard loss on a run by former Lobo running back Javen Jacobs. Two incomplete passes later and the Aggies punted. Current New Mexico running back D.J. McKinney then took that punt and returned it 49 yards for the first score of the game.
“There was a tackle that was missed when the tackle was being missed the outside defender acted as if the tackle was going to be made cut his angle and then the tackle was broken and he was pinned,” USU head coach Bronco Mendenhall said of his team’s play on the punt return TD. “So, it was just simply an execution flaw. But there were many of those today.”
Another one of those “execution flaws” nearly happened on the next play. The Aggie returner initially waived for a fair catch, but let the ball bounce and then rushed to field the kick. He appeared to touch the ball on the one yard line and then had his momentum carry him into the end zone. The referees conferred and ultimately decided to call it a touchback, though it might very well have been a safety.
For all that was bad in that series of plays, trailing 7-0 early in the game is hardly anything to fret over and Utah State began driving down the field on its second offensive possession. The Aggies got three plays of 10+ yards and even benefitted from a defensive pass interference that put them in the red zone. Two plays later, though, quarterback Bryson Barnes threw just his third interception of the season on a deep pass attempt thrown into the end zone.
Misfortune kept piling on from there, starting with an 80-yard drive from New Mexico that put the home side up 14-0. Then, after both sides exchanged punts, Utah State found itself in the shadow of the goalposts again on the one-yard line. The Aggies drew up a jet sweep to try and catch the defense off guard, only to have Lobos linebacker Jaxton Eck sniff out the play immediately and tackle Noah White deep in the end zone for a safety.
New Mexico kicked a field goal on its drive after securing the safety to go up 19-0 early in the second quarter.
“(New Mexico) played really good football today in all three phases,” Mendenhall said. “They were motivated. They executed well. They won the field position battle. They really made most critical plays in each situation, starting with a punt return for a touchdown, a safety. And then again, just controlling the clock as well as controlling the momentum. So their execution from beginning to end in all three phases of the game exceeded ours today.”
The first spark of life from Utah State occurred with five minutes left in the opening half. Miles Davis broke free for a 64-yard touchdown run from Miles Davis. It ended the 19-point run from New Mexico and opened a curtain to a window of hope. Except that it didn’t really lead to much in the end. Outside of Davis’ long run, the Aggies averaged 4.4 yards per carry. Decent, but not quite enough, especially when the passing game yielded just 164 yards.
“It was big,” Davis said of the touchdown run,” But, of course, it didn’t do what we was trying to accomplish. We needed more. We needed more plays to be made as an offense.”
Not helping matters what that right after Utah State got its first touchdown to make it 19-7, New Mexico responded perfectly with a TD drive of its own to push its lead back up to 19 points, 26-7, at halftime.
A scoreless third quarter for both sides set up the final sequence that both gave hope to the Aggies and cruelly snuffed it out. With just under 13 minutes to play, USU got its second touchdown of the game. Wide receiver Braden Pegan set it up with a 54-yard catch-and-run reception and then capped the drive off himself with a 13-yard TD grab off the arm of Barnes. That cut the deficit to 26-14 with plenty of time to continue a rally. Better yet the then defense stopped New Mexico on third and short to bring the Lobos’ punt team onto the field, which set the stage for a massive swing in momentum. A change of possession would mean a chance for Utah State to shave even more off UNM’s lead.
Jason Eck sent his punt team onto the field, but pulled out a fake punt play he’d held in his back pocket since preseason, a direct snap to one of the blockers into a reverse for DeShaun Buchanan, one of the gunners. Only, as _ ran the ball around the edge, Aggies safety Bryson Taylor, a former Lobo, closed in for what might have been a several-yard loss. It wouldn’t be so, however, as Buchanan juked Taylor to secure the first down.
“We actually defended it well. We had two unblocked players and we didn’t make the tackle,” Mendenhall said. “We had it for minus yardage and their player made a play and ours didn’t”
Three plays later, more poor tackling led to a 41-yard touchdown run for New Mexico and the eventual final margin of 33-14.
Utah State now heads into its second bye week of the season with an even record of 4-4, a perfect 4-0 at home and a winless 0-4 in road games. Perhaps it’s a sign of good things to come that the Aggies will be at home its next time out when they’ll host Nevada on Merlin Olsen Field on Nov. 8.
