Bradshaw peaces out

Can't even pretend like I'm not mind blown by this one, but Riley Bradshaw has left the Utah State basketball team. After a whole year of hype, tweets about excitement in coming to be an Aggie, a summer's worth of work, two weeks of practice and eight whole minutes of exhibition action, Bradshaw apparently felt that was enough of a sample size to know this wasn't the right place for him.

Speculation is that it is due to homesickness, which can be tough for any freshman. Others think it has to do with the fact that he likely wouldn't have played much at all for this year and the next one. Or it could be because he wants to play point guard, but has Marcel Davis in front of him at that position.

 - If it's homesickness, it'll pass. Logan can be a tough adjustment for an 18-year-old, but once you're here for a bit, it becomes a part of you that is impossible to leave behind.

 - If it's not playing for the next two years, look at what a year of sparse playing time followed by a redshirt season did for Preston Medlin! Bradshaw would have been a clear favorite to start at shooting guard as a redshirt sophomore after Medlin graduates, and with two years of work under Stew Morrill, he probably could have been a borderline all-conference threat by then too.

 - And if it has to do with playing point guard, well... Then maybe that one actually makes sense. I always imagined Bradshaw as more of a shooting guard, but if he has dreams of being THE guy to bring up the rock for the bulk of his college career, then maybe this is the right move.

Recapping basketball's first look of 2012-13

I can't help but speculate that at least some part of the reasoning for scrapping the Blue and White game this year has to do with some guys getting over-hyped from a good showing in a lowly scrimmage. First impressions go a long way, and those scrimmages were often the forum for those first impressions. So when a guy makes a great first impression, it's going to get talked about and that performance will often be referenced throughout a season by sites like this one.

Can't really fault Stew Morrill for wanting to keep those first impressions limited to at least an actual game situation... But that's not going to stop anyone from giving thoughts on everyone's performance!

So... Let's break down each player's performance from Friday's win over Grand Canyon, and hopefully not have to be eating any of these words in a month or two when we have a better feel for everyone. Doing it position-by-position.


POINT GUARDS
 
Tenale Roland - Among projected starters, Roland is the newest to the show, but still fit in quite nicely! Shot 3-6 from the field and 1-2 from 3-point range for eight points. Not bad for a first rodeo! He also added a Quayle-esque six rebounds, but more of the "in the right position to get the bounce" rather than the "jump way higher than everyone else" kind of boards. Not going to read too much into him only having one assist as he's still learning things. But considering the learning curve, not having a single turnover in 20 minutes of play is very encouraging!

Another Saturday, another Aggie blowout

Roadrunner shouldn't be smiling

In the last three games, USU has won by margins of 22, 34 and 31, with the most recent coming Saturday on the road at UTSA.

And once again, this one was never really in doubt. Utah State kicked off to the Roadrunners, forced them to a three-and-out, blocked their punt, and scored two plays later.

The tone was set at that point, and another blowout was on.

The Roadrunners gave themselves a glimmer of hope after a great interception of a Chuckie Keeton pass deep over the middle, which resulted in a field goal drive and only the second time USU has given up 1st quarter points this year.

Utah State's defense locked down after that though, holding UTSA to three-and-outs on each of its next two possessions, and giving up pretty much nothing throughout the rest of the first half. In the meantime, USU's offense put points on the board in each of its next SIX drives to take the game from a score of 7-3 to 41-3.

Ahhh, it's good to be back in The Spectrum!!!

It was somewhat of a new feeling Friday in The Spectrum. Amid all the excitement of basketball starting, there was still the looming excitement of watching the USU football team take the field on Saturday morning. Usually by this time of the year, football has everyone feeling down and basketball is the saving grace of excitement. Even last year, that was the case with the football team standing at a 2-5 record when basketball's first exhibition rolled around.

For once, we have the best of both worlds, and oh what a glorious time it is!!!

If anyone had suspected the success and excitement around football might suck away some of the hype for basketball, it didn't take long to be proved wrong Friday night. The Spectrum was rocking to start off the game with a student section that was easily at least 75 percent full.

The Sagebrush Spot turns one year old

One year older and wiser too!

Ok, maybe not so much on the wiser part. Either way, today marks the one year anniversary of the first post to make its way onto this fair website, setting a standard of mediocrity that still lives on today! The idea for starting this thing had been in the works for a while at that time, but finally after breaking down just how poorly Dave Baldwin's offenses had done in the 4th quarter at that point last year, it was impossible to resist. Then somehow that team became the kings of 4th quarter dramatics. But hey, if talking sports and solving problems is all this website accomplishes, that's fine by me.

So here we are, with 209 total posts, somewhere around 125,000 words typed and 105,554 total page views in year one. Also worth noting that the Utah State football team has a total record of 11-3 since SagebrushSpot.com was born (fist pump). Been a fun run so far, and hopefully gets even more fun with basketball looking primed for a return to glory this year too.

Thanks again to everyone for the support! Excited to keep this train rolling!!!

That's WACtastic!! Polls and awards are out!

The Western Athletic Conference released its preseason polls and all-conference honors today, giving Utah State just about the same level of hype that most of us expected to see.

Nabbing 15 of a 25 first place votes, the Aggies were picked as the favorite to win the conference by the media, with New Mexico State, Denver, Louisiana Tech and Idaho rounding out the top half of the projected standings.

The coaches left me scratching my head a little bit, but since five of them are total n00bs to this whole WAC thing, I suppose I can give them a bit of a pass on duffing this one. Utah State and New Mexico State shared the first place votes at an even 5-5 split, but at some point on another coach's ballot, they put USU a notch lower than the bad Aggies. So technically, NMSU gets the nod as the favorite in the coaches poll, but like I said, n00bs all over this bitch.

It's pretty much tradition at this point for a Utah State player to be picked as the WAC's preseason Player of the Year, with five of the last six preseason polls giving that nod to an Aggie by either the coaches or the media. This year's guy was the no-brainer pick with Preston Medlin getting the nod by both the coaches and media as preseason Player of the Year.

Mid-Monday links - 10/22

That's a whole lot of Links!!!

This has been way too long since doing this, and that's my bad. There's plenty of love to be spread on any given Monday, so let's go ahead and spread it!!

• Kyle Goon gives a recap on Saturday's basketball scrimmage over at the Aggieville Blog, which I guess will soon be his alone once he stops splitting carries with the old guy...
• Speaking of the old guy, Tony Jones is still absolutely killing it with USU football coverage, painful as it may be to see him tweeting about Ute basketball. But let's be honest, we all know where his heart still is with basketball in the Beehive State. Tony still cranked out two separate stories in the past few days on USU cornerbacks Nevin Lawson and Will Davis. He also recapped Saturday's 41-7 win over New Mexico State.
• Brad Rock over at the Deseret News talks about two different groups of Aggies heading in very different directions.
• Kraig Williams gives his own recap of Saturday's blowout, also for the D-News.
• And don't forget about Tavin Stucki, giving his take on the win over NMSU.
• Utah State Hockey opened its home schedule this past weekend with a pair of wins over Arizona State. Sean O'Sullivan gives the rundown for The Utah Statesman on the hockey team's 8-0 start to the season.
• The AggieZone makes its debut with a detailed recap of all the homecoming week festivities.
• Chris Cooley is a Washington Redskin once again!
• Nick Diaz was named the WAC's Special Teams Player of the Week after nailing a pair of long field goals on Saturday.
• Oscar Molina-Sanchez might be out with injury, but that didn't keep Megan Allen from telling his story for USU Athletics Media Relations.

Hopefully didn't forget anyone, but if I did, let me know via comment, e-mail or Twitter and I'll get it on there.

Enough reading this though... Go read everyone else's stuff today. 

Good Aggies 41, bad Aggies 7

It's funny how a year ago, reaching bowl eligibility was as big of news we've seen for Utah State football in years. This time around, it feels much more like everyone is waiting to see just how high this program can go this season.

With a blowout game like this one, there's not a whole ton to say. Utah State came out and took care of business from the start, and really wasted no time doing so.

It took all of one play for Kerwynn Williams to take a screen pass 76-yards for a touchdown.

Next drive out, USU took a bit longer to score, but still reached the end zone eventually on another big play. That time it was Chuck Jacobs with one of those "Bitch, get off me" type of moments as he and the NMSU defended battled for the ball. Defender fell down, Jacobs made the catch, 14-0 good guys.

The first Aggie drive of the 2nd quarter was another one play drive for 76 yards, this time with Chuckie Keeton breaking out for the big play on the ground.

DEFENSE
Didn't seem much like the defense had a real sense of urgency Saturday, and who can really blame them? They took care of business when they needed to, and that's what really matters.

It didn't seem like USU was blitzing a whole ton, which is alright in these games you know you're going to win. As much as we would have loved to see 14 sacks this week, settling for just a 34-point win will suffice.

Still, it seems like this defense is better at defending the pass when they send some more guys on the pass rush rather than committing to coverage. This is going to be especially crucial against Louisiana Tech, where nobody seems to be able to cover against them. Best bet there will probably be to never give them any time to throw. Obviously easier said than done, but it's something to keep in mind for that game.

KICKING
Can't help but have a whole lot of "what ifs" after seeing Nick Diaz nail 53-yard and 48-yard field goals on Saturday. I'm going to trust that Josh Thompson really did outplay everyone else in practice to earn the job, but after seeing Diaz kick on Saturday, the gap couldn't have been wide enough to keep Diaz out of seeing action until the eighth game of the year.

If Diaz can be at all dependable in the kicking game, especially from 45 yards an out, that could end up being a difference maker in other games this year.

NOTES

• Kerwynn Williams isn't going to stop this reign of terror on the WAC. His numbers to finish this season are going to be pretty eye-popping. Another great game by him.
• Kelvin Lee with a solid showing in garbage time (5 carries for 46 yards). He's gong to have a much bigger role next season, so it's refreshing to see encouraging signs from him there.
• 21 first downs allowed to NMSU... That's not good.
• Kyler Fackrell adds to his legend with a blocked field goal Saturday to go along with eight tackles.
• Will Davis finally holds on to an interception!!! And it was a big one too coming in the end zone. Solid return too on that play. More of these please! Also, solid work on two tackles for loss.
• Tavaris McMillian looks like he's finally turning things on too. Only four tackles, but a pass break-up and a sack make for a solid afternoon for him.
• Great games again by both Zach Vigil and Jake Doughty. These guys both came here as walk-ons and are second and third leading tacklers on the best defense USU has seen in generations. Incredible what these two have made for themselves at USU.
• USU scores again on its first possession of the 3rd quarter (pumps fist).
• 82-3... That's the combined scoring in the 1st quarter of games this year for Utah State... Unreal.
• 45-20 is USU's scoring advantage in the 4th quarter of games this year. Last year the Aggies got outscored 94-89 in the 4th quarter, and most of those games were close ones that didn't have backups getting their cracks at playing time like we've seen in this year's blowouts.
• And while we're comparing this year to last year a little bit, the Aggies have 30 sacks already in 2012. The 2011 team only had 25 total. 

Player of the Game: Chuckie Keeton

The kid just keeps on getting better. Keeton completed 16-of-26 attempts for 257 yards and two touchdowns through the air. On the ground, he racked up 81 yards and two more touchdowns. The numbers speak for themselves, but even above that, he was just calm and in control for the entire game Saturday.

Football: Highs, Lows, and I Don't Knows - 10/16

After last week was heavy on the lows, this week will be the exact opposite. Let's get right at it!!

HIGHS

Defensive line - Talk about bouncing back! Seven tackles for loss, six sacks and really just an all-around dominating performance. With the exception of the last 10 minutes of the second quarter Saturday, USU's defensive line disrupted everything the SJSU offense wanted to do.

Offensive playmakers - Kerwynn Williams might have been the big standout with his three touchdowns, but everyone is deserving of the props. Chuckie Keeton was on point with his throws all game and every one of Matt Austin, Chuck Jacobs, Travis Van Leeuwen and Kellen Bartlett had big catches in different spots, with all of them but Bartlett reaching the end zone. If scoring points against WAC defenses was at all a concern, these guys squashed that on Saturday.

Kyler Fackrell - Just unreal what this kid is doing... More on that here though.

Freshman Fackrell already playing like a superstar

Usually with freshman, the talk at this point of the year is about them showing flashes of excellence that gives a bright spot for the future. Freshman usually have some holes in their game that need patching up, and it seems that for each standout performance, there's another one that is more or less a no-show.

Kyler Fackrell hasn't played this season like a freshman. Even though he's still technically a freshman linebacker, Fackrell has already stepped his game up to a veteran level midway through this season.

Saturday's game at San Jose State was the second consecutive game with 10+ tackles for Fackrell and his third double-digit tackle game of the season. Throw in his two sacks, a pass break-up, a forced fumble, a fumble recovery and the fact that his performance was easily the best statistical performance in the conference this weekend, it was a no-brainer for Fackrell to repeat as the WAC's Defensive Player of the Week. And to make things even more impressive, all three of Fackrell's double-digit tackle games have come in big ones against Utah, BYU and San Jose State. 

Sack-religious: Aggies ride school-record sack total to 49-27 win

After a 6-3 loss where the USU offense wasn't able to get much of anything going and the defense didn't log a single tackle for loss, there was plenty of redemption to be had for Utah State. The victims of that redemption turned out to be the Spartans of San Jose State.

In one of the WAC's biggest conference games this season, the Aggies got everything back on track, and might have even cranked things up to previously unseen levels, showing more what this team is capable of.

Things didn't start off so great for the Aggies, allowing SJSU to put together a 12-play, 67-yard drive that resulted in a field goal, and the first points allowed by USU in the first quarter all season.

USU bounced back strong though with a 13-play, 86-yard drive of its own to go up 7-3.

Then the Aggies struck again. 14-3
And again. 21-3
And one more time. 28-3.

Utah State mercilessly dominated an entire quarter of football, and on both sides of the ball. Offensively, they seemed to be doing whatever they wanted, and on defense the Aggies completely dominated the line of scrimmage.

Football: Highs, Lows and I Don't Knows - 10/11

Talking any more about that game last Friday is something I don't think I'm alone in dreading. But part of moving forward is getting better on where we were previously lacking, and hopefully keeping up what we've been great at.

So let's just get into it, and please excuse the inordinate amount of Lows this week, but really they're kind of relevant.

THE HIGHS

Linebackers - Kyler Fackrell was the WAC's Defensive Player of the Week, which speaks for itself, as if his 10 tackles and interception weren't enough. Zach Vigil added 10 tackles too. Jake Doughty, Bojay Filimoeatu and Tavaris McMillian all were solid too, reaffirming what we already knew about this unit.

Safeties - McKade Brady finally got a fair crack at BYU this year and finished with a game-high 14 tackles. Brian Suite racked up nine stops of his own, again, reaffirming what we already knew about this unit.

THE LOWS

The defensive line - I doubt I'm alone in hoping that the USU defensive line takes last Friday personal. The only place to go from that game is up. Aside from not really getting any push all game, USU didn't register a single tackle for loss on Friday. And that was against a BYU offensive line that has been pounded by injuries this year.

Dropped passes - Too damn many of them... I hate to single a guy out, but Chuck Jacobs has got to get the routine down of catching THEN running. He's going to cause tons of problems for opposing teams when he has the ball in the open field, but it seems like he's trying to look upfield before he's secured the ball. Rough game for everyone though, not just Jacobs.

Matt Wells - Maybe I was overly ambitious in the whole idea of Wells bringing the best of both worlds of what Dave Baldwin did well, while patching Baldwin's holes. Wells has still been good at keeping most games out of reach from other teams. Every team in the country is going to struggle scoring at Wisconsin or at BYU like the Aggies did, but we shouldn't have struggled THAT bad. Hopefully this is just part of the learning curve for him taking over a whole offense for the first time this year.

Second half turnovers - This shit has got to stop... Another turnover on the first possession of the third quarter, and a really costly interception on the Cam Webb pass. That kind of stuff will take USU right out of almost any tough game. Some serious refocusing needs to be done there.

THE I DON'T KNOWS

Chuckie under pressure - It's sometimes easy to forget that only now does Keeton have a whole season's worth of games under his belt after missing half of last year. Still, like at Wisconsin, Keeton was all over the place with a lot of throws against BYU. Obviously it's not easy out there, especially against such tough defenses who are good at pressuring quarterbacks. Still, the team needs a few more of these passes under pressure to be completions rather than balls that the receivers can barely adjust to, if at all. Still young though, and he should continue to improve.

The running game - I mean... What happened? I expected BYU to hold USU to maybe only 80 yards or so on the ground. Held to 41 though?? Something like that kind of has to fall on the whole offense, and really is maybe the most head-scratching thing about Matt Wells' calling. Was there really no hole in that defense that we could have exploited for a few more yards on the ground?

USU basketball shooting for four-stars

Even after getting passed off to a new beat, Tony Jones is still killin it with breaking news. Tony tweeted Monday that Utah State has extended a scholarship offer to highly-touted shooting guard Rashard Figures.

Figures is a class of 2014 guy who has been who has already grabbed a ton of attention from numerous schools, as well as the national recruiting scene. Rivals.com ranked him as the 145th best prospect in the country for the 2014 class. ESPN.com on the other hand rated him as the top prospect in the State of New Jersey and a four-star recruit with an overall rating of 82 (same rating that Preston Medlin had coming out of high school).

As is always the case with younger guys, there is plenty of upward mobility for a player like him to climb those rankings some more. And based on video of Figures in action from this past year, he looks like he could definitely add to an already high profile.

100,000 hits, 200 posts and a million thanks!!!

I swear I didn't plan on this being the 200th post. That was just random coincidence that I realized on the post counter after typing a completely different beginning to this whole thing.

Let's get to the point of this though, shall we?

With this being the 200th post, it's somewhat of a double-milestone here at The Sagebrush Spot. This weekend also welcomed the 100,000th page view of this website!!!

This site won't turn a year old until more than two weeks from now, yet somehow, someway, people found the motivation to click their way over here 100,000 separate times in only 50 weeks. It's a number that I still almost can't wrap my head around, and as badly as I wanted to write some elaborate, fancy, well-written way to say thanks to everyone, each attempt at starting such a thing fell flat because I didn't feel it could do justice to gratitude.

I fancy myself an okay writer. A person who possesses a way with with words, if you will. Even still, I feel like whatever I write would be understating how grateful I really am to everyone for their support!!!

Pick your swear words... Aggies fall flat

Utah State got outplayed on Friday.

There's not a whole lot to say about this game other than that, and really that's a good summary of what happened.

To put it into more detail, you can really pinpoint where USU went wrong with just a few different things that went wrong. So let's just get to it, because talking about this game just doesn't sound the slightest bit enjoyable.

NOTES

• Utah State's offense got absolutely stuffed by BYU's defense. The run game never got going, and the passing game was totally inconsistent. The game plan just didn't seem to be up to par, but mostly BYU's defense just played lights out.
• Letting BYU score before halftime was inexcusable. Defense seemed to let up and think they had the clock on their side enough. It was the difference in things.
• Dropped passes were horrible tonight. Chuckie Keeton's throws weren't exactly on target a lot of the time, especially on the deep ball, but there were some big drops sprinkled all over this game.
• Third down conversions by BYU's offense killed USU. Taysom Hill actually made throws, which nobody thought he could do. He also ran the ball well, which we did know he could do.
• The Aggies' defensive line pretty much pulled a no-show tonight. They get essentially no pressure on the BYU passing game, and that ended up having a major impact on things.
• Not a single sack or even a tackle for loss by USU...
• Utah State turned the ball over on its first drive of the second half for the third time this year. In the two games against D-1 opponents where the Aggies didn't turn it over to start the third quarter, they had a three-and-out.
• Cam Webb's decision to throw the ball on that trick play was killer. He might have been able to run for a first down, and instead USU ended a possible game-tying drive with a turnover.
• Josh Thompson still could be better, but he was also the only Aggie to score tonight. Team didn't do him any favors in getting closer in the fourth quarter.

SUMMARY
Sloppy as hell for the Aggies. The offense was flat, the defense got vulnerable with some of the worst timing possible to allow a score and turnovers at terrible spots cost USU some prime opportunities.

Last year's loss in Provo was a result of the mind-blowingly shitty play calling by Dave Baldwin that stagnated an Aggie offense that was moving the ball effortlessly before he sabotaged it. The Aggies blew that game a year ago when they should have won easily.

This year, BYU just outplayed Utah State. They won the game much more so than USU lost it for themselves. That hurts to have to admit, but it's undoubtedly the case both from watching the game, and from looking at the numbers.

BYU fans proved again that they are the shittiest people in the history of sports, and sadly, that's about the only thing that went as expected for Utah State on Friday night.

Utah State vs. BYU: Position Breakdown

Welp... Here it is...

Last time this was done regarding BYU back in basketball season, their fans lost their shit like this website has never seen before. But it can be fun to hear them whine (case and point), especially when a prediction comes about as close as you can come to totally nailing it.

Predicting football can be a little tougher though. There's a lot more positions that are tougher to have nailed down, injuries factor in quite a bit, and once-projected starters sometimes end up beat out for spots by this point in the season. But after five games each, there's enough out there to make a solid judgement about both teams.

On one hand, there's a team who is a chip-shot field goal away from being undefeated, with a trilling win over Utah mixed in with a few blowouts. On the other side is a 3-2 team who has pounded the weaklings they've played, but both above average teams have solidly outplayed them, even if the final scores didn't indicate it. And on both sides, you have very good defenses.

Six more years!!! Andersen signs through 2018

Cause for celebration

The more success that Gary Andersen has, obviously the more it makes sense for Utah State University to make a deeper financial commitment to the guys that basically saved USU athletics.

Thursday marked the second contract extension announced for Andersen in the past year, with a contract running through 2018 and giving a nice, hearty raise to both Andersen and his assistants. It undoubtedly also increases the buyout that USU would receive if Andersen were to depart for a bigger job at some point.

But more and more, I get the sense that Andersen really does plan on staying at USU for at least a decent amount of time. He's said it a hundred times at this point, yet the speculation continues that he's going to just up and leave the Aggies as soon as he gets a chance.

Tony Jones (still rocking the Aggie football coverage), tweeted a handful of things related to this very topic. One was about Andersen being sick of the those rumors that he would leave, another about those rumors taking some of the fun out of this season's success. Other schools are even trying to use the speculation of Andersen leaving as means of negative recruiting against the Aggies.

Andersen genuinely looks to be here for a while. His oldest son is just a sophomore on the team, and he has two boys in their senior year of high school who will likely end up coming to USU as well.

On top of that, he seems to love everything about carving out this legendary legacy that he's well-underway of leaving. He also appears to know that if he keeps doing what he does for another decade in Logan, a big, brass version of himself will end up sitting in front of Romney Stadium sometime in the future.

And even if that doesn't end up being the case as long term as Aggie fans would hope, this extension gives USU some financial security should the big boys come calling and Andersen is willing to listen. In the meantime, Gary will get more of what he deserves, as will his assistants (which he credits as being the most important part of this deal).

If I were a betting man, I would say that if the head coaching job at the University of Utah were to open up, Andersen would accept if/when he was offered. But Kyle Whittingham doesn't look to be going anywhere, much to the dismay of those who thought he would jump ship after an undefeated 2008 season. Whittingham is another one of those guys who seems to love where he is and what he's doing and doesn't see the need to take on a whole new challenge along with all the uncertainty that comes with it.

Regardless, this deal is huge for Utah State. It gives Andersen more of what he's earned, his assistants are getting taken care of and USU has more security down the road. This is a great day for Utah State University!!!

Football: Highs, Lows and I Don't Knows - 10/3

Look what's become of us... Five years ago, a 35-13 win for USU would have had me rioting in the streets and throwing TV sets through store windows in celebration. Now we've won 9-of-11 football games dating back to last year and I'm finding critiques among all the positives in these wins. Weird what winning can do, but maybe I just see the potential that is so close to being realized.

Anyway, this one's going to be a lot little shorter than last week's, so in the spirit of saving time, let's cut right to it.

THE HIGHS

Chuckie Keeton - Busting out 404 yards of passing will probably be an easy way onto this part of the list. Four touchdowns didn't hurt either. We've seen much he can impact a game when he takes off running with the football, so to see him throw up that many passing yards in a game is awesome to see. He's going to need to bring the best of both worlds on Friday to move the ball against a defense as good as the one those asshats down have (painful as it is to give them credit for that).

Kerwynn Williams - Repeating on the highs is K-Dub with another stellar performance. This time it was with 113 yards rushing and 147 receiving yards as a part of ruthless shredding of UNLV's defense. In a lot of ways I want to say we all knew we had a weapon of incredible power in Williams, but I feel like with the last two games especially, he's gone above even what I expected to see out of him. Dude is absolutely killin it!

Tyler Bennett and Josh Thompson - Yep... Giving the special teamers some love. They got ripped apart a few weeks ago, and for good reason. They both been solid each of the past two games though, and it's made a difference. Now it's time to keep doing it when the stage gets a lot bigger on Friday.


THE LOWS

The Third Quarter - This chart taken from the season statistics tells pretty much the whole story.

Score by quarters	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	OT	Total
Utah State	51	34	14	35	7	141
Opponents	0	16	35	20	0	71

So far this year, the third quarter has been the death of the Aggies. If they can't keep from letting teams back into games in spots where USU should be twisting the knife, another game or two are going to slip away this season. Any one of BYU, San Jose State and Louisiana Tech could easily be losses even without an atrocious third quarter. Keeping up the third quarter trend that's been set through five games makes those three games a whole lot harder than they need to be.

Holding Three Fingers in the Air on Third Down - Alright HURD... We've talked about this before, and for whatever reason it seems to persist. On third down, MAKE NOISE GODDAMMIT!!! Wiggling three fingers in the air doesn't do shit! Stomp on the benches, scream your lungs out and clap your hands; that makes for crazy third downs!! I'm starting to think a sign or two being held up from the front rows outlining this notion will be the only way to fix it. And really, I think it would work.

This is one of those things though now where the team has gone to the next level, as have the fans... But we can't go letting that old habit keep us down as we move forward. Let the habits from the losing days be a thing of the past.


THE "I DON'T KNOWS"

Tavaris McMillian - After having four tackles against UNLV, T-16 has been upgraded from the Lows to the "I don't knows". But this week could be a major shot to jump start this season, or at the very least, leave a major impact on things. With his speed at the linebacker spot, he could be a major player in keeping BYU quarterback Taysom Hill from breaking into the second level in running the ball. And seeing as how Hill has more than 200 yards rushing over the last two games combined, that's going to be an important factor. McMillian could be crucial in that part of the defense.

Will Davis' hands - He got hosed out of an interception in the Wisconsin game, and he's also one of the nation's best in passes deflected. But he's also missed a few prime opportunities at interceptions too, one or two that could have gone for six.

Still, Davis has been incredible as a cornerback this season, and is easily one of the most likable guys on the team. It would be a tragedy to not seem him take at least one interception back for a touchdown this year though. If/when that does happen, my head might explode with joy. But he's got to actually pull in one of these picks.

Let's Get Classless!!! Rivalry Week Is Upon Us

WARNING!!! - This entry WILL be labeled as "classless" by BYU fans. They will also probably come and read in droves but continue to insist that they don't care about USU one bit.

But it's rivalry week, and I'm not going to pretend like I don't want to crush these bastards, because I do. And no matter what they say, this game means something to them, they just can't bring themselves to admit it. They are afraid that they're about to slip down another level on the totem pole of college football in the Beehive State.

I don't care much for trying to play nice with the team down south, so read/enjoy this at your own risk.