Refusing to lose. Good Aggies 24, bad Aggies 21

Once upon a time it seemed like if the game were close in the closing minutes as the 4th quarter, the other team always found a way to get the best of Utah State. It left everyone wondering "what if" at the idea of the Aggies being able to make the big plays to pull out those thrilling victories.

Five wins in a row and a bowl invitation later, THAT'S "what if". In nine games this season decided by a margin of only one score, Utah State has won five of those games. In the other three games that weren't decided by one score, the Aggies have won 2-of-3. For all this team went through early on with the heartbreaking losses, the fact that they never stopped working through all of that toward being the team they knew they could be says everything you need to know.

 This game was seemingly much closer than it needed to be for the most part, but New Mexico State was also pretty good today at keeping USU from breaking big runs, with the longest of the day being a 17-yard run by Adam Kennedy. The Utah State defense wasn't as stellar at preventing big plays, as the was the Bad Aggies' bread and butter today. NMSU had seven players break out runs or catches for more than 20 yards today, stretching out USU's defense a lot more than they'd prefer, especially with McKade Brady going down with an injury early in the game.

Speaking of Brady, the Aggies really need him back. A very solid argument can be made that he has been USU best defensive player not named Wagner this season. Luckily, there were also some other guys not named Wagner who got interceptions for the Aggies today. Most impressive of that was Kyle Gallagher getting one, and nearly another, with that club hand of his. Huge ups to him, because a football is not the easiest thing to catch with only one good hand.

Adam Freaking Kennedy was a stud once again today too. Really, my only Dave Baldwin complaint of the day is that he didn't let Kennedy stretch the field some more to open things up for the running backs. Not like he has averaged better than 70 percent completion over the last five games or anything. Still Kennedy got it done when called upon, both with his arm and his feet, and the running backs did their part too, racking nearly 400 yards of rushing on the day, even though Kennedy was responsible for about a fourth of that.

That final drive was a perfect combination of everything working for the offense too. Despite all the criticisms of Baldwin throughout the year, kudos go out to him for doing pretty well on these dramatic final scoring drives.

What USU has to show for it is a winning season, a bowl game on the horizon and some serious promise for the future of this program for the first time in generations.

The regular season is over... Utah State football season is not... Love the sound of that.

Player of the Game: Adam Freaking Kennedy