Little mountain town vs. big mountain town; Aggies vs. Pioneers

Tonight's game against Denver looks on paper like a bit of a blast from the past. And I mean that in the sense that Denver's team seems to resemble USU teams of the past in many ways. They've got decent size and decent athleticism, but are very talented at playing basketball, and that's what carries them. They shoot the ball well, keep turnovers low and play solid defense.

What to really make of them is tough at this point seeing as how they thoroughly handled Saint Mary's (who beat Weber State) last week and beat Southern Miss (who beat New Mexico State) the week before that. Then in their last game they got pounded by Cal.

Mid-Monday links: 11/28

This is easily going to be the deepest collection of links thus far in the one month history of The Sagebrush Spot, and why wouldn't it be? This was an incredible weekend for Utah State University. For basketball, things looked maybe as good as they have all season on Saturday night, but the real headliner was football, looking as good as it has in a generation Saturday afternoon. I'd be lying if I said I haven't had some Remember the Titans music playing on my Itunes all weekend with that feeling of "we did it!!!"

Let's get right into the links.

• A slew of football post game stories coming from all my media homies and then some. Kraig Williams at The Deseret News, Tim Olsen at Cache Sports Media, Tavin Stucki at The Utah Statesman, Tony Jones at The Salt Lake Tribune, Wade Denniston at The Herald Journal, and Matt Harris at KSL.com.
• Kraig Williams pulls double-duty, heading straight to Pocatello to cover basketball's 75-62 win over Idaho State. Nate Laursen, Shawn Harrison, and our good friends over at USUstats.com all threw down recaps as well.
• Brad Rock at the D-news and Kurt Kragthorpe at the Trib each had their own pieces on just how huge of a step the Utah State football program took Saturday. Wade Denniston comes up again with another piece on the USU seniors and their legacy they're leaving.
• Tony Jones lays out some details on the chatter going on between Utah State and the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl, including some excellent props for the USU students from the bowl's executive director.
  
  And now for the Bobby Wagner portion of the links....
• In essentially a no-brainer, Bobby Wagner gets tagged with WAC Defensive Player of the Week by both the WAC and College Sports Madness.
• ESPN.com gives B-Wagz a helmet sticker.
• Sportsbeat Sunday features Bobby's love for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

 Again, if anything was missed, let me know.

Sunday Shorties: 11/27

USU is bowl eligible, the basketball team rebounds strong and The Sagebrush Spot reaches a milestone.


1) Bobby Wagner

Holy lord this guy is unreal! 15 total tackles and the fumble recovery that thwarted Nevada's attempt at scoring. One hell of a finish for a once-in-a-generation player.


2) Robert Turbin

Threw down a little foreshadowing in the postgame press conferences that he has NFL dreams for next season, and who could blame him? He said that he came here partly because he wanted to be a key in turning around a program, and he's definitely done it. Regardless of what he does, this website supports him, and chances are some long tribute post will be in order if he indeed goes to the league.


3) Second half defense

The performance against Hawaii was pretty impressive, allowing only three points in that second half. They only allowed 10 in the second half against San Jose State and seven points against Nevada. Including the Idaho game, USU has allowed only 17 combined points in the 4th quarter during this four-game win streak. That kind of performance is sure to carry this team to bowl eligibility before not too long.... oh wait!



4) The young guns

Preston Medlin, Adam Thoseby and Ben Clifford combine to score 52 points on 18-of-25 shooting, 13 rebounds and nine assists. Medlin is the oldest of those guys... only a sophomore... So if you weren't sure before about why you should still be excited about Aggie basketball, there's three good reasons right there.


5) 10,000 hits

This weekend The Sagebrush Spot got its 10,000th hit. For a site that is only a month old, can't say I'm feeling bad about that at all! Thanks to everyone who has been here, and hope you like what you read and want to keep coming back!

From growing pains to growing up; 75-62, good guys win.

I am Medlin... Hear me roar!!!

This is why you never quit on your Aggies! As if the 2011 football hadn't already taught a stern lesson to any and all people willing to give up on a team, the basketball team had a nice little reminder for all the doubters on Saturday night as well.

As if losing Brady Jardine wasn't tough enough (and it showed on Tuesday), subtract Kyisean Reed from the picture for a bit while you're at it. That puts the team down two super-athletic forwards, one of whom is the most experienced player on the roster.

So with a tough loss to a sub-par team in its pocket from Tuesday and the injury bug seemingly nipping at the team's heels, it seemed like Preston Medlin took a good look around Holt Arena and basically said, "Screw you guys," to everyone and everything not wearing Aggie blue. Medlin promptly played his best game in an Aggie uniform, working as the backbone to a stellar team effort to essentially control the entire game and dominate the 2nd half.

With the inside game severely shorthanded, Medlin and his new P.I.C. from behind the 3 (Adam Thoseby) basically grabbed the USU offense by the horns, combining to hit 7-of-12 shots from behind the arc and scoring 25 of the team's 32 points. And things didn't slow down in the second half for them either, as the two of them, along with Brockeith Pane, shot a perfect 6-for-6 from 3-point land.

BOWLieve it!!! Aggies 21, Wolfpack 17

With this 12-yard run on 3rd down, Adam Kennedy brought
USU to bowl eligibility for the first time in 14 years.

Think of where we were just 21 days ago... It was Nov. 5, Chuckie Keeton was on his way to the hospital, the Aggies were trailing 28-7 at one of the hardest road games to play in the country and all hope for bowl eligibility looked to be slipping away right before everyone's eyes.

Then something happened... Something happened with this team to which their play since that fateful halftime could only be described as epic. Something happened that changed this team from the kind of team that couldn't win and let 4th quarter leads slip away, into a team that couldn't lose and was automatic with the game on the line in the 4th quarter.

Excellence should never owe an apology

This was one of many signs at the game that showed off the
collective creativity of USU students

If you haven't seen it yet, an apology was issued for the behavior of the USU students at the Nov. 11 home game against BYU. The reasons for which were this apology was issued was because of the chants that USU students came up with and the signs they brought to the game.

My take on this is that it sucks. I understand it from a PR perspective, but that doesn't make me dislike this move any less. First it was BYU issuing an apology for that little scoreboard message they had last year. Now it's USU apologizing for the fans getting into a rivalry game in a big way. Neither of which I thought should have deserved an apology, because this is college athletics. More importantly, this is major in-state rivalries. People are going to smack on rival schools, things are going to get heated, but at the end of the day if everyone makes it home safely, no real harm is done.

Taking their lumps; Aggies go down 58-55 in OT

Out with a bad back is where our boy Grim is going to be if he
keeps having to carry this team like he did tonight.

We've seen production and performance so far this year in the season opener versus BYU, we've seen a decently impressive attempt at a comeback in the second half against Weber State and we've seen the team rally when they fell a man down early in the game against Southern Utah.

Outside of that, we've mostly just seen potential.

This team is still very young, very inexperienced and very capable of putting things together to make for a solid basketball team. But they're not there yet, and until they get there, they're going to take some lumps. Tonight, was one of those lumps.

After tonight, I'm starting to rethink my comparison of this team to the 2006-07 squad might have been the wrong comparison. Things are, at least as of right now, looking much more like that 2008 season than 2007. But really it seems like a mixture of the two more than anything else. There's the underdog status of 2007, and the wealth of youth filling out the roster that 2008 had with the likes of then-freshmen Tai Wesley, Tyler Newbold and Pooh Williams. Really the similarities in personnel are intriguing across the board. If there's two standout aspects that differ from 2008 and 2012 I'd say that the 2008 team could score much better than this 2012 team has shown to be able to so far, but this year's team seems much stronger in both the defense and rebounding departments.

Mid-Monday links: 11/21

Another thrilling win by the football team, another nail biter in The Spectrum against an in-state opponent and another 10-12 years docked off of every die-hard USU fans' lives. But hey, the wins keep coming at least. For now though, let's go around the rest of teh interwebz to see what other people are saying about the Aggies.

• Shawn Harrison over at the Herald Journal details a commitment from a seven-footer who saw what The Spectrum was all about, got stoked on it and is now going to be an Aggie!
• Football snags another speedy linebacker recruit out of Florida. Tony Jones with the info.
• Robert Turbin is getting all sorts of love across the internet. Got named Running Back of the Week by one place, WAC Player of the Week by another, and nominated for Running Back Performance of the Year by another.
• Some place that calls themselves ESPN named Turbin a Non-AQ Player of the Week as well.
• Kurt Kragthorpe talks about the dirty, filthy, no good possibility of having to maybe pull for BYU a tiny bit to beat Hawaii (which I guess could do USU a bit of good), guaranteeing a bowl game for USU if the Aggies win one more game.
• Brady Jardine is out 2-4 weeks, which TSS actually knew the night of the injury, but due to the bro/blogger confidentiality that The Sagebrush Spot has with Jardine, those beans were not spilled immediately. Shawn Harrison at the HJ with the assist on this one.
• Meredith Kinney is still dominating the USU hockey beat, while USU hockey can't seem to miss a beat. Three games this weekend brought home three more wins for the Aggies. Still undefeated on the season and ranked No. 1 in the ACHA West.
• Lastly, BallinIsAHabit featured USU's very own Kyisean Reed in their "POSTERIZED" segment.

Winning ugly is still winning - Aggies 65, T-birds 62

I am Kyisean Reed, and you are not!

After two awfully accurate predictions for the first two games, this one was a total miss. Last time I got cocky and predicted an easy win was before last year's home game against Hawaii in The Spectrum. It wasn't easy and disaster was narrowly avoided.

Apparently I did not learn any lessons from that in the preview for Saturday's game against Southern Utah. Basically the only thing I wasn't horribly wrong on was that Brockeith Pane would have a 2-to-1 A/TO ratio (he finished 4-to-1).

Really, credit to SUU for coming out tough. They hit big shots, played focused and in control and really just kind of looked like they came to shock the world. And they got a huge beam of hope just a few minutes into the game when Brady Jardine left the game with a foot injury, from which he did not return.

After the Jardine injury, the team mostly looked like a chicken with its head cut off for the rest of the first half. On top of their shots not falling, everyone seemed content to be standing around on offense when they didn't have the ball and looking frighteningly out of sync on defense. It was bad enough to incite a legitimate scare. It also was one of those times that we can only help but wonder what was said at halftime by Stew Morrill.

Then came the second half, most notably Steve Thornton and Kyisean Reed. Prior to this game, USU's bench had contributed just 15 total points through the first two games. In the second half Saturday, Thorny and Reed combined to score 20 on their own. Throw in some Jordan Stone, and the Aggie bench totaled 31 points, more than double the previous season total. In a nutshell, Thornton and Reed were everywhere in the second half. They essentially took over the game, and in Thornton's case, took over the No. 8 spot in Sportscenter Top-10.

Who says the Aggies don't know how to win?

If you'd won three games in a row, you'd jump into a
massive dogpile with a bunch of other dudes too!

In a game that was frighteningly similar to the last game between the Vandals and Aggies in the Kibbie Dome, Saturday's shootout had all the back and forth action that we've seen before. And just like we've seen before in that situation, Utah State came out victorious behind a game for the ages from Robert Turbin.

Amazingly, for as many times as the Aggies looked like they were about to let this game slip away, they never once trailed in regulation. And when I talk about all the times it looked like the game was about to slip away, I mean that these turnovers are going to bite this team in the ass sooner or later. But to have come back and still made the plays they needed to in order to pull out this win speaks to how far this team has progressed in the last month.

The boys from the South venture North; Aggies vs. Thunderbirds

Here at TSS, we've been all for supporting in-state rivalries and acknowledging them as such. Southern Utah makes that difficult when looking at the bigger picture, because over the last decade while Utah State, Weber State, BYU and yes, even Utah have all been racking up conference championships and NCAA Tournament appearances, SUU has been left out of that party. Even Utah Valley have gotten in on winning conference championships, even if that conference is the Great West (which seems to be as much, if not more geographically confused than the Big East). The Thunderbirds haven't tasted conference supremacy since 2001, while all the other teams in the state have been busting out such honors on almost a yearly basis.

SUU doesn't look to join that party anytime soon either. They were picked to finish eighth in the Summit League preseason poll this year and did not put any players on the all-conference teams. Still, they're off to a 3-1 start to the season, beating UC Davis, Bryant and most recently Montana State Billings, where former Aggie Jaxon Myaer is currently playing. SUU barely pulled that game out, winning 63-60 in a game that was tied in the last minute.

Really, there isn't much to be said about this game other than it should be a good tune-up for USU after Tuesday's loss to Weber State. This needs to be a game where the Aggies take those lessons learned and try to improve. As much as I'd like to give credit to SUU, they got beat by San Diego State 70-37, and I can't imagine mercy is the first thing on the Aggies' minds after Tuesday. Not to mention, Preston Medlin is probably going to run a train on SUU again, kinda like the last time he played them. Pre-Med scored his first career points against SUU in The Spectrum two years ago, ending the game with 17 points, which is still his career-high.

Not returning for this game unfortunately is Australian big man Matt Hodgson, who cried on the bench two years ago. His Aussie PIC Matt Massey is back though, and is one of four double-digit scorers for the Thunderbirds.

Honestly though, who SUU has and doesn't have probably won't matter. There won't be many games where I'll feel good about being outright cocky going into a game, but this is one of them. USU is still a good team, and they showed some serious heart in making that game Tuesday interesting, which is an encouraging aspect for them to have.

Prediction: Medlin tops his career high that he set two years ago against these guys, Brady Jardine gets a double-double, Adam Thoseby finally gets a shot to fall and Brockeith Pane has a 2-to-1 A/TO ratio.

Aggies by 18.

Purple Rain... 73-63, Wildcats

This guy did not have a bad game.

To quote myself in the game preview for tonight's game, "Holy hell can they shoot the 3-ball."

That's one of those, "I hate to say I called it" moments, but I think even I underestimated how good Weber State could, or would, shoot it from deep. After a respectable first couple minutes for USU, Scott Bamforth hit his second of a total of seven 3-pointers on the game to break an 11-11 tie. Weber State never trailed again. One would think that a team hitting 3's at the insane rate that the Wildcats were on Tuesday would eventually cool down, but for the most part, we're still kind of waiting on that to happen. Simply put, Bamforth was absolutely unreal tonight.


Weber State appeared like they'd won this game in the first half when they hit 8-of-12 shots from deep, building a 15-point lead at the break. For as incredible as Bamforth was in the first half, Damian Lillard wasn't too far behind, scoring 12 points of his own in the first half. The 29 points they combined to score gave them a two point lead over USU at halftime with just the two of them.

Utah's best is the second test; Aggies @ Wildcats

If you thought BYU would be the toughest in-state team Utah State would face this season, you were mistaken. I've said it before and I'll say it again; Weber State is the premiere college basketball team in the State of Utah this season. At least right now they are. Obviously the season still has to play out, but going into things, this game between two in-state rivals (see what I did there BYU, I gave them credit for being rivals... because they are. Respect) is to see who really are the basketball kings of the Beehive State (BYU fell out of the running Friday in Logan).

Weber State returns almost every crucial piece from a team that went 18-14 last year, including one piece that was out with an injury for most of that season. After Damian Lillard was lost for the year, the burden of carrying the team fell heavily on the likes of returning players Kyle Bullinger, Scott Bamforth and Byron Fulton. Basically every returning player on Weber's team has faced the challenge of taking on a higher role than they'd planned on. Now with Lillard returning, this team is dangerous. They're experienced, they're talented and holy hell can they shoot the 3-ball. Throw in a solid transfer in Frank Otis, who scored 13 points and pulled down 17 rebounds in his first game as a Wildcat, and they're looking dangerous across the board.

For the Aggies, their biggest asset right now is still athleticism, which should be helpful in them disrupting Weber's offense and causing turnovers. What USU is going to need most though will be essentially flawless execution on offense, another thing that will be difficult due to the aspect of Randy Rahe's and Stew Morrill's similar systems (or as we've so often called, the "evil twin brother effect.").

Another solid game from Morgan Grim is crucial for USU. Weber's centers have generally not been impact players, and starter Kyle Tresnak is no exception to that trend. But he's also much bigger and stronger than Noah Hartsock, who Grim played fairly well against, so Grim will have to out-talent Tresnak rather than out-muscle him. At the other forward spot, Brady Jardine is going to have to claim ownership early on over Frank. 22-X should have the advantage in every aspect there, so again, it will come down to execution.

Pane vs. Lillard is going to be one of the best match-ups of point guards in college basketball this season. Pane had what is still one of his best games as an Aggie in his USU debut last year against Lillard, but Lillard still put up better numbers. Simply put, Lillard may be the best player USU will play against all season. Watching those two will be entertaining.

Hell, the whole game should be entertaining. If USU pulls off a win in Ogden, that's going to be one to put on the tournament resume as the year goes on. Same probably goes for Weber if they protect their house Tuesday.

Mid-Monday links - 11/14

And if you're wondering, Deonte Burton shot 1-6, and only
scored 5 points in a blowout loss... Pane FTW

Ok, I obviously jumped the gun on calling last weekend a "huge weekend" for USU when the Aggies won an exhibition basketball game and had a comeback win in football. This weekend the Aggies won a big time match-up against a tough in-state opponent and had another comeback win in football. So, this most recent weekend wins the "huge weekend" title based on a regular season victory for basketball. Hockey rolled again too, but that should go without saying at this point.

Here's some looks back at what was...

• Tony Jones tweets that Mitch Bruneel is going to take Steven Thornton's starting spot this weekend. Kinda think this is going to be interesting to follow all year. Both have shown tremendous flashes.
  
• The last time the WAC was dishing out awards for production on the court, he was named the WAC Tournament MVP... Now that we're back, Brockeith Pane picked up where he left off, winning the first WAC Player of the Week award of the 2011-12
  
• Meredith Kinney runs down USU hockey's most recent blowout, while BYU throws down major spin coverage in their paper's interpretation of the 9-3 Aggie win.
  
• Gordon Monson pretends to talk about how bad BYU's point guards were Friday, but really just tries to continue the love fest with that Fredette guy. No mention of how well USU replaced the production of their own graduated superstars
  
  UPDATE!!! - A few that I missed, or just forgot earlier
  
• Kurt Kragthorpe has the counterattack to Monson's story with is own bit about USU's superstar point guard.  
• Three votes in the AP Top 25 poll!

Again, if there were links I missed, throw them down in the comments.

Sunday shorties: How's that for a weekend?

Let's throw down just a few other tidbits before the weekend officially ends. Still a few minutes until midnight, so let's do this thing.

1) Adam Kennedy
Not too shabby of an encore performance for the junior quarterback after the legendary comeback at Hawaii. It wasn't quite as smooth of sailing as things went on the island, but completing 21-of-27 passes for 255 yards and two touchdowns is pretty impressive for a first career start. The interception wasn't a good one, and the fumble was something that needs to be avoided, but I'm willing to blame half of that on the rough weather conditions. At the end of the day, homeboy is 2-for-2 on 4th quarter comebacks. I'll take it.


2) Kyisean Reed
Still blown away by his rebounding in the second half Friday.


3) #OccupyTheSpectrum
If you did this, you are awesome. No two ways about it.


4) Weber State on Tuesday
As big of a game as BYU was, this one should be bigger. Most college basketball writers (myself included), believe that to start this season, Weber State is the team to beat in the State of Utah. Yes, you heard me right. Don't take them at all lightly. Last time around the students bought up tickets in sections L and M. Stick with that plan. If those sections sell out, buy up K and N after that.

Another day, another comeback victory...

sNOOOOOOOOOw!!!!!! This was the field at kickoff time.
Kudos to Scott Barnes for grabbing a shovel (literally, he did).

... Only for the second straight game, it was Utah State making the comeback, not the ones blowing a lead. It was also just the second time USU has trailed going into the 4th quarter this whole season, which the Aggies are now 2-0 in those games, which I can definitely deal with. "If it ain't broke", right?

What maybe is most impressive about this is that for the majority of the game, the Aggies were trailing by two scores. But when crunch time came about, Adam Freaking Kennedy (AFK) locked the offense down and was again making all the right reads and all the right throws downfield. That Turbin kid wasn't too shabby either.

The five turnovers are a little bit upsetting, especially since Stanley Morrison pitched in three of those in about two minutes time. And it's really too bad because outside of that, Morrison had a pretty good game. I don't think I'm the only one who had "WTF" run through my head when Morrison was USU's quarterback for a big chunk of the second half, but they were moving the ball pretty efficiently for that little bit. The experiment basically ended after the Morrison fumble though.

Taking care of business; Aggies win 69-62

That 67-60 prediction of mine wasn't too bad if I may say so.

Recap
Whatever comes to mind when you think of BYU, you can't ever say it doesn't provide for some great basketball when the Aggies and Cougars meet up to do battle.

And a battle it was.

For just more than 33 minutes of basketball, neither team led by more than five points, and for the most part, that margin rarely was above two points. The difference in the game was basically one scoring run. With the Aggies trailing 38-42 midway through the second half, riding a three minute scoring drought, Steven Thornton decided he'd had enough of the whole "not scoring" thing that his team was doing and sliced through the Cougar defense for a much-needed score. That basket was the first of an 11-0 run by USU that cranked the volume up to levels that could only be described as "Spectrumesque."

Like it or not, it's a rivalry now

Nobody at BYU cares about playing Utah State, eh?

For generations now, BYU fans have written off Utah State as something of insignificance, relentlessly claiming that Utah State vs. BYU is not a rivalry. And once upon a time, given the several decade long slump of USU football, they had at least a basis for argument.

But regardless of primary rivalries (Which in this state is between the Utes and Cougars, as much as 54-10 would beg to dissuade anyone from believing that's as close as it used to be), any in-state match-up matters when its two teams at the same level of the NCAA. When BYU and Utah play, it's a rivalry. When Utah State and BYU play, it's a rivalry. When any of the above and Weber State play (in basketball at least, because of the whole "same level" thing), it's a rivalry!

Starting things off with a bang; Utah State vs. BYU

Well this is one hell of a way to get things started, isn't it? For just the second time since the 2005-06 season, BYU leaves their skirts in the dresser drawer for an evening to put on their big boy pants and come to play in a place that everybody with any sensibility knows they are scared like hell to play. The last two games against these teams have been battles of a pair very experienced teams. One of them was a more or less a blowout (2009-10), while the other was an incredible game with an ending tainted by a bogus intentional foul call (2010-11).

This year couldn't be more opposite. Both team are largely inexperienced and burdened with replacing the go-to guys they've relied upon for the past three seasons. There's a couple star-quality players on each side, as well as a few experienced role players. Basically there's mostly just a ton of question marks surrounding both teams.

#OccupyTheSpectrum

Once upon a time we referred to the gathering of people waiting
for games as the town of "Morrillton"... this is more like a city.

If there was ever any thought that excitement about the basketball team might drop off with the graduation of the winningest senior class in school history, forget it. If you thought people wouldn't be as stoked on a team that now carries underdog status, you're wrong. And if you thought that the USU student body wouldn't keep on outdoing itself with every passing year, you clearly have no clue who you're dealing with.

Two years ago when BYU came to play in The Spectrum, they came with baggage. This was their first game back in Logan in five years after they had refused to come the last time around. This was a game that we'd been foaming at the mouth over for several years, and for a couple hours on a Wednesday night in early December that year, The Spectrum was louder, more frenzied and more chaotic than any riot, war or sporting event in the world.

Rebuilding or reloading; Comparing 2007 to 2012

2006-07 was one of the most memorable seasons, due largely to some major underdog status, and 2011-12 looks
to be similar in a lot of ways becau... wait! Why is Brian Green in the bottom of that photo???

Spectrum magic took on a whole new meaning in the 2006-2007 season. After years of dominating the Big West Conference, USU his the ground running in the WAC, finishing the regular season in second place behind only a top 25 ranked Nevada team and took that same Nevada team to overtime on their home floor of the WAC Tournament championship game. From day one, they exceeded expectations in the WAC, eventually earning an at-large bid to the 2006 NCAA Tournament.

Then there was some major turnover on the roster. Nate Harris, the only USU player ever to be named 1st-team all-conference three different seasons, was gone. Cass Matheus, the super-athletic shot-blocking center, was gone. David Pak, one of the few point guards in USU history to lead the team to two NCAA Tournaments, was gone.

When the season began, the 2006-07 season looked like it would be that one rebuilding year that Aggie fans had long dreaded the agony of enduring. Stew Morrill's streak of 23-win seasons and, at the time, seven consecutive postseason appearances looked like an impossible feat to extend. For the first time in nearly a decade, Utah State basketball was considered an underdog.

The result of that season was one of the most memorable seasons in history.

Going into that season, the Aggies returned one all-WAC guard (Jaycee Carroll), another experienced wing player, capable of also running the point (Durrall Peterson), and the team's ace off the bench from the prior year who was undoubtedly ready for a starting role at forward (Chaz Spicer). The rest of the team was filled out with junior college transfers and role players.

For everything that team lacked in talent and athleticism, especially compared to a WAC that was loaded with those two aspects on other teams, Utah State made up for it all with heart. On top of that heart, they had grit and they were monumentally clutch when the game was on the line. The closer games got, the higher the volume at The Spectrum was cranked up.

Now, here we are again in that underdog status after four straight years of WAC championships, Utah State finds themselves carrying the perception of an underdog. The team has one all-WAC guard (Brockeith Pane), another experience wing player, capable of also running the point (Preston Medlin), and the team's ace off the bench from last year who is undoubtedly ready for a starting role at forward (Brady Jardine).

While the 2007 team had the advantage of an elite scorer, they lacked size, strength and athleticism across the board. The starting center for that team was Steve Ducharme, who was graciously listed at 6'7 and wasn't very bulky, just to give an example. There was essentially nobody on the team who ever showed a capability to drive past a defender and finish around the rim, and to top it off, you could probably count the total number of dunks on the season on one hand.

That is not the case going into 2011-12. Anytime Brady Jardine isn't the most athletic player on your team, that's a good sign. Between Jardine, Pane, Kyisean Reed, Steven Thornton and even E.J. Farris and Morgan Grim a little bit, USU is loaded with guys capable of beating a defender off the dribble and creating opportunities to finish at the hoop. While Medlin might not quite be Carroll when it comes to scoring, he is a plenty capable scorer who looks like he'll provide plenty of veteran leadership already for this team (and he's from Carrollton, Texas... do with that what you want). And with the scoring potential of guys like Thornton and Adam Thoseby, Medline doesn't have to be Carroll, but he'll still get his anyway.

And about that whole size down low thing...

What it comes down to is that 2007's biggest deficiency was the ability to defend, and while 2012 has more freshman and sophomores on the roster who will be counted on to contribute big minutes, the team's athleticism and size should make them much more of a defensive force down the season.

This year's team will probably lose a game or two they should win and win a game or two they should lose, just like in 2007. What's really going to be fun is when those games that USU has won by blowouts the last few years are suddenly nail-biters in The Spectrum, that place is going to be off the freaking chain!!

If nothing else, coming up from underdog status to shock the world for a 5th straight WAC title when everyone else thought this year would be their chance to shine would be possibly the most epic thing of all time.

Highs, lows and I don't knows - Football, 11/8

Watch me crank that soulja boy and Superman these hoes!

The highs:

Adam Kennedy - I'm thinking AFK's halftime pep talk from the coaches went about like this...

BALDWIN: "Hey, so we know you could count your passing attempts on the season without having to take your socks off and with a mitten on one of your hands, but Chuckie is done for the game. Would you mind coming in and leading us to a win at a place we haven't won at since Coach A was in diapers?"

AFK: "Do you know who the hell I am?"

In all seriousness though, that was a performance for the ages. Was there a single hole in Kennedy's game? I say nay. His throws were on the mark, he knew when to cut loose and scramble, he... well... He just got it done. No two ways about it. There's a reason why he and Chuckie were neck-and-neck for the starting job in camp. If anyone took the time to watch AFK's highlights from junior college, the thing that stands out most is how noticeably he improved his game from his freshman to sophomore year. In other words, he may be slow to catch on, but once he does, he catches on strong.

Seeing as how Chuckie will probably have some missed reps in practice this week, and maybe even for overall safety's sake, Kennedy deserves the start Saturday. I know I want an encore performance, and I'm pretty confident that AFK is capable of delivering.

Mid-Monday links - 11/7

This whole "WAC champs" thing is getting awesomely repetitive.

After a pretty huge weekend for USU, it only gets bigger this coming weekend with the basketball season officially beginning in the biggest of ways Friday, football going for win No. 4 Saturday afternoon at home and the hockey team has another in-state doubleheader this weekend, wrapping up Saturday night at home against Weber State.

In other words, it's going to be a bit of an ultimate sports weekend with three home games all happening within about 24 hours up in Logan. Probably shouldn't miss that.

While you get excited though, here's some links to enjoy.

•  USU soccer has completed it's 2011 running of a train on the rest of the WAC (USU athletics)
  
• Chuckie Keeton has been released from the hospital... You may now all collectively exhale. (USU athletics)
  
• Meredith Kinney throws down a recap on the continuing domination of USU hockey. (The Utah Statesman)
  
• Also from the best damn campus newspaper at USU, Ry Bay tells the epic tale of how his life changed at The Spectrum. (The Utah Statesman)
  
• And in case you missed it from a few days ago, Kraig Williams wrote one hell of a feature on Brady Jardine (22-X) that you really should read. It's just a great story, written by a great guy about a great guy. (The Deseret News)

If there's any links you think I missed that should be on here, throw them down in the comments and I'll put them in the main post when I get a chance.

Sunday shorties: Now that the adrenaline has subsided

Portrait of a douchebag: Hawaii's Aaron Brown

A few thoughts about Saturday's game that didn't quite fit in with an attempt at an inspirational recap last night...

1) Chuckie Keeton

Undoubtedly most important is that all reports indicate that Chuckie Keeton will be okay. To what extent he's okay, we're still not sure. Tony Jones tweeted that it's a spinal chord stinger and a sprained back. Having given up on the family business of medicine long long ago, I'm not sure what that means for his season or career.

Thank god though that we don't have a case of a Gerry Bertier on our hands. Neck and back injuries are very scary, and this probably could have been a hell of a lot worse, so the fact that our fallen soldier will rise again is great news.

Remember, remember the fifth of November. Aggies pull of epic comeback.

Team. That's all that needs to be said.

How fitting that things suddenly took a drastic change on the fifth of November... The day started like what so many other days have looked like for USU football recently. The team was 2-5, going into a tough road game and bowl eligibility looking like a dreamer's dream. Down 28-7 at halftime, having lost a starting quarterback and with seemingly no indication of anything but a Hawaii blowout for the evening, the game, the freshman quarterback and the season all appeared to be lost.

But then things changed. Things changed so drastically, so unimaginably and so passionately that the landscape of USU football's season now will have a completely different outlook when the world wakes up on Nov. 6.

Aggies give Adams State their sloppy seconds, 73-63

Wait, this kid is only a freshman?? That future is looking
pretty bright right about now.

Eight days after Utah State looked surprisingly smooth running the offense for a team with so many newcomers, sloppy seconds took over in USU's second and final exhibition game against Adams State Saturday.

Now, before I say anything else, major Kudos go to Adams State. They were tough, talented, athletic and had some serious heart. They came to play, not just show up and roll over, and they kept fighting all game. After seeing them play, it's no surprise they beat Utah on Friday.

With that said, the Aggies were their own worst enemy for a hearty amount of this game, but when it comes to the early parts of the season, having a whole load of film of things NOT to do can't be the worst thing to happen to this team. The offense was out of sync, passing lanes were getting cut off all over the place, balls were getting dropped (lol), and outside of run made to start the 2nd half, USU never really got any momentum together. For all of that, I support it.

Somewhere over the rainbow, there's a bowl game: Aggies vs. Rainbow Warriors

It's basically do or die time for Utah State. Needing four more wins in five games to become bowl eligible, every game needs to have a "must win" mentality, and even with all of the last four games after Saturday appearing to be winnable, to think a 4-0 finish is in the cards would be naive given the inconsistency so far this season.

What to make of Hawaii is a bit tough. They're 5-3 on the year, but three of those wins have come against UC Davis, New Mexico State and Idaho. So it's nothing to really get too worried about, and if this game were in Logan, USU would probably be a likely pick to win it comfortably (see Hawaii's 40-20 road loss to UNLV). But picks aside, given the man calling the plays for the USU offense, they can take a game where they look to easily be on track to score 50+ points, yet manage to completely shut down and go scoreless the rest of the contest. In other words, when it comes to an offensive shootout, Mr. Baldwin's neighborhood is not where you want to be shacking up.

Here's what we know... We know Bryant Moniz is one of the top passers in the nation. We know Hawaii's offense is going to get their points, even if the USU defense is on its A-game. Seeing as how the pass coverage could use all the help it can get, now would be a good time for the D-line to poke their heads out from wherever they disappeared to about a month ago and maybe spark some urgency into Moniz. At the very least, maybe get close enough to him where if they were to scream, Moniz might hear it and get a little frightened. If Nevin Lawson keeps things up, he's seemed to be in perfect position all season to pick off any under thrown balls his direction. Problem is when a QB has time, those passes are spot on, and Lawson has gotten a perception of being worse than he actually is (and what he is would be one hell of a cover cornerback).

Defensively, Hawaii dropped to the No. 2 spot in WAC rushing defense in the last two weeks, aided in large part by Louisiana Tech holding USU to just 166 yards on the ground, leapfrogging the Warriors with that performance.

It's going to be a different kind of day for the linebackers with all the time they'll spend in pass coverage, but it's a fast and tough unit, and if they can set a precedent early and take away the middle of the field, USU's chances of pulling out a win go significantly up in what looks to easily be the toughest remaining test of the season.

Pooooooooooooooh!!!!!!.... Gets drafted.

Welcome to the (D) League rookie!

With the third pick of the fourth round of the 2011 NBA Developmental League draft, the Rio Grande Valley Vipers select Pooh Williams from Utah State University.

The D-league draft happened Thursday, with all 16 teams going through eight rounds of drafting.In the first three rounds, the Vipers picked up Tyren Johnson from Louisiana-Lafayette, Ashton Mitchell from Sam Houston State and Greg Washington from Hofstra before picking up to former Aggie defensive ace.

While there's definitely a good amount of player turnover in the D-league, notable names from the Vipers' roster that appeared in postseason games for the team last season are former No. 2 NBA draft pick Hasheem Thabeet, former Duke superstar Jon Scheyer and former Marquette guard Jerel McNeal, whom Williams and the Aggies faced in the first round of the 2009 NCAA Tournament.

While making it the rest of the way to the NBA is probably a long shot for Williams, as is the case with seemingly everybody in the D-league (especially Thabeet), should he make it to the show, he would at least have a special place in Vipers lore with that accomplishment. That would probably be less memorable though than being the first Aggie to crack an NBA roster in nearly a decade, but plenty more has to play out before any of that can happen (like an NBA season for example).

Regardless, an immeasurable amount of Kudos go out to Pooh Williams for making it this far. We wish him all the best and hope more good news to report comes about before not too long.

Football - Highs, lows and I don't knows - 11/3

Wagner's name and pic probably deserved solo recognition, but
Brady has really come into his own, thus deserves the love.

The highs:

Bobby Wagner and McKade Brady -  Over the last three games this duo has finished one and two on the team in tackling twice. Wagner himself has combined for 40 total tackles over the past three games, 20 of which came against Louisiana Tech. Two sacks and an interception weren't exactly black eyes on the stat line either. Brady kept things a little more modest with only 19 tackles to go with a forced fumble and fumble recovery to go along with chipping in on a tackle for loss. Their play, and really the whole defense's, hasn't been too shabby when you consider how few favors the offense has done the defense in the time of possession department.

Haters gonna hate: Scott Barnes, and setting the record straight

Scott Barnes has more U-States in this photo
than you have in your most dedicated photo.

Be forewarned, this post is going to be loaded with logic, which I know can be pretty alienating to quite a hefty number of people out there. I'll have to assume that you're reading this site because either you are interested in reading more about USU and soaking in the opinions and takes here, or you are here to read it and talk about how big of an idiot that guy is writing it.

In case you didn't see yet, our friend Tony Jones over at the Trib threw down somewhat of a "Catching up with Scott Barnes" article Monday. In it, the topics of conference realignment, football coaches and scheduling were all touched on, particularly the things Barnes has done and pushed for that have USU athletics looking as good as they have in generations, conference affiliation aside of course.

But it was in the comments of that article where the idiots began taking over.

Not that any of the outlandish comments made were things I hadn't seen before in regard to Barnes, but I guess I've just always thought that trying to clarify the truth to everybody all at once on USUfans.com would be futile effort. All it takes is one person with a skewed perception of things to ignore one post and then the misinformed will keep on misinforming. So I'll write it on the site and hope that it's reach is great enough to clarify the facts for any and all who care to be properly educated on these matters.