UC San Diego's lambs to the slaughter costume a hit at The Spectrum

Sometimes it's just not fair when 22-X is on the court
(photo borrowed from USU athletics)

General reaction following a Blue and White Scrimmage each year is either that of "ZOMFG were gonna be sooooo good!" or that of "We're screwed, no way we win 20 games this year, not even Stew can save us now."

 This year it was of the "we're screwed" variety, and like so many times before, the team looked like a completely different product just days later.

Now, this team is obviously a work in progress and it will be an uphill climb to a fifth straight WAC championship, but Friday night's exhibition opener over UC San Diego had to have been encouraging to even the skeptics out there. With the minutes distributed almost as equally as the scoring, USU busted out some good old fashioned Stew Ball on Friday, but this time around with a lot more athleticism than any USU team we've seen in a long long time.

The most encouraging thing has to be the fact that Utah State looked pretty smooth in running the offense for a team with so many newcomers. Rare can that even be said for an experienced team. Not to say it was completely clicking, but it was promising. There were times where you could noticeably tell that certain guys new to the program had to think for a second what to do with the ball in an offensive set rather than just react off of instinct, but it seemed rare, if at all, that a player would completely screw up.

How many 4th quarter shutouts can one man get away with?

Baldwin mistake No. 1: Shaving that mustache

The "Fire Dave Baldwin" bandwagon is built, it is gaining some serious steam and there are a lot of people hopping on board. Simply put, 2-5 at this point in the season, with the schedule Utah State has played is unacceptable. On top of that, the 10-21 career record thus far with Baldwin at the helm is bad enough that whatever "success" you want to claim Baldwin has brought, what with having the No. 12 ranked offense in 2009 and currently being No. 27 in total offense. The bottom line is wins and losses, and one of those two stats is piling up almost as fast as the years since USU's last bowl game appearance.

Of all other teams in the top 30 in total offense in the NCAA this season, the only team with as poor of a record as Utah State is Arizona, who you could make a solid case for having played a slightly tougher schedule than the Aggies up to this point. That claim is backed mainly by the back-to-back-to-back-to-back weeks where they played No. 3 Oklahoma State, No. 4 Stanford, No. 7 Oregon and No. 20 USC (in other words, I'm gonna give them a pass here).