For a second straight week, Utah State had a two-score lead in the second quarter. And for a second straight week, the Aggies were outclassed the rest of the game after building that early lead as they lost 45-29 on the road at Temple. It’s the third straight defeat for USU as it now heads into an early bye week with a 1-3 record and zero wins against FBS teams.
“I apologize to Aggie faithful. They deserve way better than what they’re seeing right now,” USU interim head coach Nate Dreiling said after the game.
The two-week problem of strong starts and slow finishes is a growing concern. The Aggies had a 14-3 lead over Utah last Saturday and a 14-0 advantage over Temple. And if you count from the points where USU had those respective leads, the Aggies went on to be outscored 80-29 for the remainder of those two contests.
“We came out to a good start, we just didn’t finish. And that’s kind of been our story up to this date,” Dreiling said, also adding, “I’ll take full blame for not having this team ready to compete.”
The Aggies held Temple to just 27 yards in the first quarter and built a 14-0 lead just a few minutes into the second, though that score really should have been much higher in favor of USU. Its first drive the game was halted in Owls’ territory thanks to a penalty that wiped out an 18-yard run by Rahsul Faison and put the Aggies behind the chains. USU punted. The next drive, which started on the 49, ended with a turnover on downs on the one-yard line.
Despite gaining 158 yards in the opening 15 minutes, the Aggies had zero point at the quarter break. Though at the time that lack of offense didn’t hurt them as the defense and special teams absolutely came to play early. Thanks to stellar coffin-corner punting by Ryan Marks and situational defense, Temple didn’t cross its own 22-yard line on offense until the second quarter.
With the Owls sputtering, themselves, it allowed the Aggies to work through their own struggles and eventually it paid off with a pair of touchdowns and the aforementioned 14-0 lead. Faison played a big role in that early success with his rushing prowess. The Aggies went to him early and often and the Pennsylvania native had one of the best outings of his collegiate tenure, carrying the ball a career-high 27 times for 148 yards and a touchdown.
Along with Faison, Jalen Royals had a solid start and finished with a career-best 10 catches which he took for 112 yards and the touchdown that put USU up by two touchdowns (Herschel Turner had the first score of the game).
While statistically impressive, those performances did little to impact what happened in the remaining portion of the game as Temple dominated the rest of the way. Temple went on two straight scoring drives, finding its offense after a cold start. The Owls were able to adjust and went 65+ yards on two straight drives to tie the game up with 1:10 left in the first half.
Utah State held back the tide momentarily with a brief recovery late in the first half. After allowing the game to be tied up with less than 90 seconds left in the half, the Aggies put together a flawless quick drive, going 75 yards in four plays.
But, Temple would get one last boost to its momentum. With just 17 seconds on the clock, the Owls maneuvered the ball to the USU 46-yard line with just five seconds left. That put them on the extreme edge of field goal range, even by NFL standards. Maddux Trujillo would prove up to the challenge, though, as he made the 64-yard field goal, bouncing the ball on and over the cross bar.
Was it even a question ⁉️
Maddux Trujillo (@MadduxTrujillo) NAILS a 64-yard field goal to break the record for longest field goal at Lincoln Financial Field! #TempleTUFF pic.twitter.com/jwDdBH5N9u
— Temple Football (@Temple_FB) September 21, 2024
The kick was one yard shy of the modern NCAA record of 65 yards by Kansas State’s Martin Gramatica (the official NCAA record is from 1976, a 69-yarder by Abilene Christian kicker Ove Johansson, but kickers were allowed to use a tee, similar to high school kickers currently, up until 1989). It is also the longest at the FBS level since a 64-yarder made by Jose Martinez of UTEP back in 2008.
“Hats off to that kicker,” Dreiling said. “It definitely fired them up. You could see them all running into the halftime and hear them hooping and hollering.”
With momentum built off those three points, Temple would go on to dominate the second half. Utah State only scored once, late in the fourth quarter while the home side played its prevent defense. Meanwhile the Owls put up an additional 28 points, scoring on four straight drives starting at the 5:09 mark of the third quarter.
The turnaround from Temple and collapse by Utah State had even Dreiling scratching his head. His defense went from holding Owls quarterback Evan Simon to completing just 1 of 8 passes to start the game, but then the rest of the way Simon completed 16 of 19 passes for 259 yards, five touchdowns and even 49 rushing yards on the side (plus one rushing TD). And the offense went from gaining 300 yards to just 179 in the second half.
“That’s a good question. I’m going to figure that out, though,” Dreiling said. “I’m going to assume the snowball effect came into play. They got some momentum and we let it get to our heads and now we quite doing our job and you start making plays outside of the realm of the scheme and look what happens. And it just keeps getting worse and worse and worse.”
Utah State’s offense, outside of a few scattered plays and drives, simply couldn’t get things going. Even when things did click for a minute, the Aggies often came up empty. Twice they got inside the Temple 10-yard line and came away with zero points. One of those was the previously mentioned fourth-down failure on the one-yard line. The other occasion was a missed field goal from Elliott Nimrod in the third quarter. Nimrod has now missed four straight field goal attempts.
“He’s such a phenomenal kid and an unbelievably hard worker,” Dreiling said of Nimrod. “And right now it’s kind of like my golf swing. It’s all in my head. And that’s probably where it’s at with him.”
Overall, the Aggies had four drives that made it inside the Temple 40 but ended with no points. One of the most painful to witness occurred in the middle of the third quarter, right before Temple went on its four straight TDs run and the lead still belonging to USU 21-17.
The Aggies had been stopped on third down and sent out the punt team but had called a fake. That fake was executed perfectly and may have even scored a touchdown that would have given USU a 28-17 lead. However, the play was called dead right after it started (but not too soon to see how well the sneaky pass by Marks to Otto Tia would have worked) due to a false start. The Aggies ended up having to punt for real and the Owls took complete advantage.
In his return to the field after a Week 1 injury, quarterback Spencer Petras struggled to move the ball through the air most of the afternoon. The senior completed 26 of 44 passes for 293 yards, one touchdown and one interception. A caveat to those numbers is that the numbers are padded somewhat by the final six minutes of the game, at which point Temple had victory pretty much secured and weren’t putting as much urgency into its on defense. Petras completed 7 of 9 passes for 100 yards and a touchdown during the garbage time stretch (his interception was also in this stretch, for what it’s worth). Adjust accordingly and he had less than 200 yards and completed barley half his passes for the crucial moments of the game.
Despite some of the poor moments, Dreiling stood by his quarterback’s overall performance.
“I though he was spot on on most of his throws,” Dreiling said. “He had that interception late, which was just a little high, but I think the ball got out quick. He ran when he had to. He made his decision on RPOs. Our offense was clicking there for a while and they were moving the ball just about as good as anybody in the country. And we just kind of tailed off a little bit, and I don’t know the reason why. But I think he’s going to continue to be a consistent guy and get the ball where he needs to and spread it around.”
The loss sends Utah State back to the drawing board and the coaching staff will have some time to work with as the Aggies’ next game isn’t until Oct. 5. Except that will begin a two-week stretch against two of the Mountain West’s top teams with Boise State being the first opponent and UNLV the next on Oct. 11 for the Aggies’ homecoming game.
Dreiling noted that the team’s goal is still a Mountain West championship and correctly noted that the 1-3 start in non-conference play has no impact in a mathematical sense of achieving that goal. But with the team playing like this, a single win against an FBS opponent may be asking a bit much.
