The sky officially has NOT fallen. Gary staying at USU

Gary Andersen has said he wants to change the culture of Utah State football. That goes above and beyond just going to back-to-back bowl games, beating in-state opponents and winning a WAC championship. Changing the culture means changing the attitude of doom and gloom that some people just cannot resist having toward every good thing we have going for us. It also means helping build things up so that Romney is a packed house week in and week out.

We're seeing it though. And we're going to keep seeing it, because Romney Stadium is still Mr. Andersen's neighborhood!!

We knew his name was going to come up everywhere, and it likely will in the future, but Gary made it official that he's sticking to the culture change.

You've got to love a guy who is this committed to sticking things out with his recruits, his fans, his own kids and plenty of other people who love the hell out of him!

As far as Utah State is concerned, every year that Andersen is here sets up the program that much more for long term success. Whether it's in raising the national profile of Utah State even more, appealing to in-state recruits like we've already been doing, or just developing other coaches who are learning under Andersen to be great head coaches of their own one day, Andersen's presence at USU is monumental.

Thoughts on a Thursday - 11/29

There's been a serious lack of non-postgame content here lately, and to that I apologize. In my own defense, I could never suspend feelings of guilt of doing the Highs, Lows and I Don't Knows for football when we were blowing out teams every week. Without any "Lows", the triforce is broken up and there's no order to things.

So let's just bust out some quick hits on the news of the day! This is Thoughts on a Thursday (rhyming intentional on that one).

AGGIES WIN THE BEEHIVE BOOT
As many people had understood it, this was going to BYU this year because of their win over Weber State. Apparently that doesn't carry the same weight it used to though... Each one of the Aggies, Utes and 40+ women trying to date much younger guys were 1-1 against each other. And whether it was margin of victory that gave USU the nod to victory in this one, or the fact that they have a 10-win season to their name this year, the media voters sent the Beehive Boot to Logan this year. That makes two of the last three years that it's come to Utah State, and I dare say this is going to be much more of a trend than a rarity moving forward.

SOCIAL MEDIA EXPLOSION LAST NIGHT
After USU's comeback win at Santa Clara last night, Facebook and Twitter went nuts with posts about the game. With a lot of the more casual/lukewarm fans apparently lacking interest early this year, conveying that kind of excitement all over social media is a nice way to remind them there's still plenty to be excited about.

I've always held the belief that if you want to create a rowdy fan base, that all starts with the die hards. When other people see how much fun the die hards are having and how excited they get about games, eventually they want in on the good times. Some of those people grow into die hards themselves, and some fall away once things go bad. But still, it's the die hards that breed new die hards.

Last night was a thing of beauty!

KYISEAN'S DUNKS
Nice freakin job by the Santa Clara camera crew for managing to somehow miss the bulk of both of Kyisean Reed's monster dunks last night, as well as the play as it happened when Preston Medlin was shooting the game-tying 3-pointer.

THIS ARTICLE ABOUT GARY ANDERSEN...
THIS talks about Gary's plans to stay at USU. People seem to not want to believe it, and maybe that's because in many ways, what Gary has done seems too good to be true. The last line of the article is particularly comforting.


Alright. That's all for today

A rough road, but Aggies win at Santa Clara

Whoa!!! Just whoa!!!

And that's my reaction having only been able to follow the game from ESPN's gamecast on a cell phone while at a concert. I didn't get to see this game, and probably many of you did, so rather than talk you through a game you saw and I didn't, let's share some stories about following a college basketball game on a cell phone while at a rock and roll concert. Hopefully it'll at least be a tiny bit entertaining, since I'm not exactly taking this one too seriously. Plus there's tons of YouTube links, so that will add plenty to it. 

THE RIDE
When the current best band in the entire world (The Wonder Years) wrapped up their set of music, the first score update I got had USU down 30-18. First thought there was more or less, "Ah s***, we're not even going to hang with them in our first road game."

Come to find out later, that deficit wasn't too shabby compared to the 19-4 lead Santa Clara had after six minutes of basketball.

Anyway, throw in a few buckets by Kyisean Reed, some free throws by Slim and a trio of 3-pointers courtesy of Danny Berger and Spencer Butterfield, the Aggies somehow found themselves leading at halftime of this game.

Aggies finish regular season with school-record 10th win

There was one step left in finishing the regular season on a record-setting note for Utah State, and all it took was a win over an Idaho team that is pretty much dead men walking.

The first half opened up a little bit sloppy, leaving a tiny bit of a threat of that letdown that sometimes comes after a big win. The offense was held to a three-and-out on its first possession, then ended USU's second possession with an interception thrown by Chuckie Keeton on the second play.

The defense was getting its job done though, even if they gave up an unsavory amount of yards to Idaho in the first half. Three plays after Keeton threw his first pick, Bojay Filimoeatu got in on pickfest 2012 with an interception of his own, which he broke a handful of tackles to return 48 yards to Idaho's 11-yard line. Three plays later, Kerwynn Williams took a Keeton pass into the end zone for the score.

The defense kept things going, allowing Idaho just one yard before they were forced to punt on the next possession. The offense kept on struggling though, punting again after gaining just 19 yards. But B.J. Larsen got in on the turnovers with an interception of his own, setting up another short scoring drive for the offense, this time with the score coming from Keeton's legs.

Basketball wins free throw contest against Weber State

In keeping with this season's theme of winning ugly, Utah State outlasted Weber State in what seemed to be much more of a free throw contest than a basketball game at times.

USU came out looking about like we've seen them look so far this year offensively. Not the most crisp of things, but able to score on pure talent. Jarred Shaw was at the center of things once again, controlling the paint on both ends of the floor. Dude has established himself quite nicely so far this season, and that's without having the offense feeding him quality looks in the post like it will as these guys learn things better.

As things are, you can tell this team still has a long way to go in learning the offense and really just developing at this level. It's nothing out of the ordinary really, it just takes a bit sometimes, and the more rookies there are, the tougher that process becomes (maybe the same can be said for the crowd?)

Anyway, you could tell for the bulk of the first half that Weber State was the more experienced team, which became especially more obvious because they run such a similar system as we're used to seeing here. For once though, the Aggies got to be the team, who despite being much more raw, was able to capitalize on size and athleticism advantages.

Long story short with the first half: Weber had a slight lead for the bulk of it, but USU overcame sloppy play to keep pace and enter the break tied at 28.

Late Monday links for a top 25 program

Kind of a big weekend, wouldn't you say? Aggies win the WAC, crack the top 25, have a party at the airport and plenty more. Basketball has plenty going on too!

Let's round up what's been going on....

• The Utah State Aggies crack the AP top 25!!! Seriously unreal to think about... Utah State is a top 25 football program.
• Conference realignment is heating up again. The fallout of this round could mean an even better conference situation for Utah State and the Mountain West. I'd personally only care to see two of these three teams come back to the MWC.
• Even Stew Morrill was all kinds of stoked on football winning the WAC. Kraig Williams details that, and more.
• Tony Jones has his recap of Saturday's epic win. He also give some love to Jake Doughty and how far he's come. And don't forget mentioning the records set by Keeton over the weekend.
• Chuckie Keeton is the WAC's Offensive Player of the Week.
• The Front Row Show has an interview with Will Davis, and will have a new show online tomorrow. If you haven't seen it yet, check it out here and subscribe in iTunes.
• Kyle Goon has the details on basketball's 77-68 win over Texas A&M Corpus Christi.
• Basketball's fall signing class gets detailed by USU Athletics, including some comments on Kyle Davis.

WAC CHAMPS!!!!! Aggies beat La Tech in OT

A late arrival and some light rain didn't stop a couple hundred Aggie fans from greeting the 2012 WAC football champions as they got off that plane. Beating BYU in 2010 was incredible. The win over Utah this season brought Romney Stadium to its most epic of levels ever. But this win over Louisiana Tech and this WAC title represent the biggest thing to happen to Utah State football during the incredible rise of this program.

Utah State came out looking primed for a blowout against La Tech on Saturday, scoring on its first offensive play and holding one of the best offenses in the country to only three first half points.

Colby Cameron threw his first interception of the year to Will Davis in the end zone to kill La Tech's last chance at a first half touchdown. Then USU opened up the second half with a short scoring drive to go up 24-3, then recovered a botched ball on the ensuing kickoff which resulted in three more points. With Chuckie Keeton picking apart the Bulldog defense without a shred of mercy, the blowout looked to be on at that point...

But La Tech is in the top 25 for a reason. They're a very good football team, and one capable of scoring a lot of points in a very short span of time, and that's exactly what they did.

Aggies bounce back, even if it wasn't pretty

While WAC championship mania was taking over Logan, and even The Spectrum, we still had some basketball to played and revenge to be had!

Saturday's game in The Spectrum was once again nothing pretty, but as was the case with Idaho State, the Aggies did enough of what they needed to to win. I don't know if TAMCC just has USU's number or what, but that game went from a close one, then opened up to a blowout for a bit, then slowly got interesting again.

Looking at the stats, it's hard to see how the Islanders stayed into this game. USU outrebounded TAMCC by 10, had 21 assists to only nine turnovers, shot 56.8 percent from the field, and made 23 free throws. The Islanders made a handful of 3-pointers and only committed six turnovers, and that ended up being what made this close.

Shots won't fall. Aggies do. SMC wins 67-58

Right there with you Danny...

Some days it's just not your day.

It doesn't seem like the team has too bad of an attitude about this game either, realizing that the shots just weren't falling for them. It was agonizing to watch that many shots rim out like they did, but it's not like the Aggies lost to a cupcake. USU just got beat by a very good team.

We knew this one was going to be an uphill battle. Saint Mary's has one of the best players in the country, a handful of other seniors and plenty more talent filling out its roster. The match-up problems they had, especially in the back court, were one hell of an advantage over USU. Matthew Dellavedova was absolutely lockdown defensively on Preston Medlin, and when it comes to his own offensive game, Dellavedova probably won't be slowed down by much of anyone with how many ways he can score the ball.

Really, the bulk of the credit needs to go to Saint Marys' entire defense. Utah State missed most of the open looks they got Thursday, but even still, those open looks were sparse at best. Saint Mary's wouldn't let the Aggies get anything going, and the ability to do that is something few teams will have this season. 

CLOSE, BUT NO CIGAR
Outside of the early lead USU had, the Gaels controlled the bulk of this game. Their lead slowly grew as the game wore on, and the Aggies couldn't put together enough of a run to close the gap. The closest they got was with just under 5 minutes left when Danny Berger hit a 3-pointer to cut the SMC lead to only three.

Signing day for Shanks and Moore

Carson Shanks (left), Jalen Moore (right)... for those who didn't already know.

Signing day has finally arrived, and for two guys who could be among the top prospects Stew has brought into this program, the ink is now dry! Let's run this thing down with the two newest Aggies, Jalen Moore and Carson Shanks.

JALEN MOORE
A local baller from Sky View high school, Moore stayed true to his commitment to USU after a summer where he grabbed a lot of attention in the AAU scene. He is the son of former Aggie Jimmy Moore, and by all accounts, looks to be an incredible talent. He's currently listed at 6'7, and with that kind of height on the wings, should bring the kind of height and athleticism coaches dream of having and opposing coaches fear.

He may not have gotten all sorts of crazy national attention that we see on the major recruiting sites, but that is due to him committing to Utah State a long time ago. Those sites want to pump up players who aren't committed and sell story lines of "who is going where."

Mid-Monday musings: 11/12

Sounds like someone has a case of the Mondays...

Since this week is going to explode with storylines in the next few days between the basketball game against Saint Mary's, the WAC Super Bowl at Louisiana Tech on Saturday, all wrapped up with another basketball game Saturday night, let's keep things brief for today.


MORE VOTES IN THE FOOTBALL POLLS
This week Utah State jumped up to 20 votes in the coaches poll and stood at four votes in the AP poll. With La Tech squeaking out its win on Saturday to stay ranked, a win on the road for Utah State, over a ranked team should just about ensure the Aggies' inclusion in next week's top 25 polls. Not a slam dunk, but very likely. All that's left is to take care of business.


LA TECH'S LAST THREE WEEKS
Nobody in their right mind was impressed with La Tech's win over Texas State. Against a team that USU had destroyed by halftime, the Bulldogs let this one go just about down to the wire. And it's not the first time Tech has struggled with a team USU blew out the previous week. In fact it's the third week in a row.

An ugly win is still a win... 56-48, Aggies

Nobody said winning had to be pretty, and Saturday night in The Spectrum sure as well was an ugly one! I want to tell myself that this game was just the slumpbreaker that USU needed to get its game back on track after a rough go last season. Just like I want to believe that winning a few postseason games last year, even if it was in the lowly CIT, was beneficial just to shake that monkey off our backs.

And since the team stands at 1-0, ugly as that one might have been, I'll stick with the slumpbreaker theory and hold on to the hope that things only get prettier from here.

For the bulk of Saturday's game, the Utah State offense was out of sync. And while that's nothing out of the ordinary for a team early in the season, it kind of seemed to be even more out of sync than we'd normally see to start things off.

Defensively though, USU managed to make up for just enough of the offensive woes to keep Idaho State out of it for the bulk of the game. The Bengals only hit on 39.6 percent of their shot attempts from the field, and just 27.3 percent from the 3-point line. The Aggies also outrebounded ISU 36-23, had seven steals and three blocks.

So when the Bengals had only scored 37 points with just under 10 minutes remaining in the second half, that'll usually be a solid enough defensive game for the Aggies to hold on and win... Except that the offense was only at 37 at that same point. USU scored just seven points through the first 10 minutes of the second half, which is as bad of an offensive cold streak as I can remember seeing here.

Basketball schedule predictions - Preview part 2

Part 2a of 2c

As promised, here is part two of this little bold basketball preview, or at least part of part two. Today's task is predicting the schedule.

But for all of you out there hoping I'll do something stupid and set myself up to be brutally chastised for bad picks down the road, sorry to tell you that I'm only doing the first eight games, which is close enough to one third of the season. Why you ask? Well, teams grow up along the way, and getting too far ahead of things just would be irresponsible for making accurate predictions. Gotta get a feel for both USU's squad, as well as the competition.

Now on the downside, this means you'll have to deal with another set of predictions like this in a few weeks. For now though, let's try and accurately predict the start of this season.
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Idaho State - 11/10
In ISU's last three visits to The Spectrum, Utah State has won by an average of 31 points. This Bengal team lost to USU by 13 in their own house last year, and in a game where even Igor Premasunac even played double-digit minutes. Adam Thoseby also started that game and scored 16 points.
Prediction: Blowout win

Saint Mary's - 11/15
Things get real interesting in just the second game of the year. Saint Mary's returns a ton of talent from a very good team, including Matt Dellavedova. Joining them will also be former Aggie James Walker, as well as former SUU Thunderbird and first opposing player to cry in The Spectrum in the 2010 season, center Matt Hodgson. Not returning however will be Clint Steindl, who hit numerous big shots against USU in past games. This will be an epic battle of which only something as powerful The Spectrum prevails... That, and Brady Jardine heckling on the front row to remind Mitchell Young of the manhood he lost forever back in 2011.
Prediction: Aggies win a thriller

Texas A&M Corpus Christi - 11/17
Sad that this has to be a revenge game, but it is, and revenge will be had. Preston Medlin goes off for 40 points to bring his scoring average against these guys to 20 points per game.
Prediction: USU wins by 22

Weber State - 11/24
Speaking of revenge games... Weber State was a great team last year with the early frontrunner for NBA Rookie of the Year running that show. This year will be a step back, but probably not nearly as much as people expect. They're still a talented team with a fantastic coach, which will make this game a far cry from a cakewalk victory.
Prediction: Aggies win by 9

@Santa Clara - 11/28
Finally hitting the road after four games at home, USU faces off against a Santa Clara team who returns its top NINE scorers from last season. Problem is they were a team that went 8-22, including 0-16 in West Coast Conference play. Because of the experience and home court, they'll be tough, but a nice early road test for this USU team.
Prediction: USU by 6

@BYU - 12/5
The second straight road test against a WCC team gets a lot tougher down in that hellhole of Provo. Both teams look solidly loaded with talent, but BYU's squad has more experience playing together, which should give them a decent advantage. Not to mention, Brandon Davies will probably want to try and put on a show in front of his kids. My shameless homerism/ambition wants to pick a win, but since such picks in the past have backfired when going on the road to Provo/Hell, I'll defer to the team to prove me wrong on this one. It's a prediction I'd gladly be horribly incorrect about.
Prediction: Aggies fall short by 8 points... (insert swear words)

Western Oregon - 12/8
A nice little, "thanks for coming guys" kind of game to lump into the middle of the early part of the season. Against this team three years ago, Modou Niang outscored Brian Green and Preston Medlin combined!!! And no, that wasn't made up.
Prediction: Aggies win by however much they feel like


@Utah Valley - 12/15
These guys are a bit of a wild card this year. They hung with USU in The Spectrum last year, but are now without their light-it-up scorer Isiah Williams. While Ben Aird and Holton Hunsaker are decent players, it's tough to imagine them overpowering Jarred Shaw and Tenale Roland by any wide margin, if at all. They'll probably make it interesting for a bit, but Shaw, Roland and that Medlin kid will be too much for them to handle. Plus, UVU has one of these guys on its roster.
Prediction: Aggies win by 11
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That right there carries us all the way into the Gossner's tournament, where I'll get back here and make some picks on how the next part of the season will go from there. As is, I'm picking the Aggies to start off 7-1. A few of those games could swing a different direction, most notably Saint Mary's and Santa Clara, but hell... that's part of what makes it fun!!

Basketball previews and predictions, part 1

Part 1 of 2

The start of the regular season is upon us, which means it's time to start busting out some previews on this year's team. Rather than just rehash who is who and what position they'll play, we're going to do things a little differently here at The Sagebrush Spot. Today we're going to get a little more bold with predictions of what each player is going to do this season, all the way down to predicting the numbers they'll put out.This one is especially tough with having what looks to be a deep team and only so many minutes and points to be spread around.

Then tomorrow things will get even more bold in trying to predict the first part of this season's schedule. Will these predictions be accurate? Impossible to know, but let's just have some fun with it, eh? Worst case scenario we all get to look back at these in a few months and laugh at how stupid of predictions these were.
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POINT GUARDS

Tenale Roland - Rollin Roland, as the kids are calling him, is going to be the starter at point guard. He's looked solid through the exhibition games in running the offense and as an outside shooter. Could very much be in the mix for the WAC's all-newcomer team.
Stats prediction: 5.6 points, 2.3 rebounds, 3.8 assists

Remember, remember the fifth of November...

"Remember, remember the fifth of November, when the Aggies seemed dead but were not...
I plead you with urgence that this Aggie resurgence, shall never be forgot..."

It was one year ago today...

One year ago that the despair and doubt we all knew, and knew all too well, reached its peak of the 2011 season. We had seen flashes of improvement in 2009, followed up by injuries and missed opportunities haunting much of the 2010 season. Then to start 2011, USU established an unwelcome identity as the heartbreak kids, destined to let games slip away in the closing seconds.

With a 2-5 record overall, and an 0-2 start to WAC play, things looked to be headed down an even darker road with a 28-7 halftime deficit and the Aggies star freshman quarterback in an ambulance. Feelings of emptiness, helplessness and hopelessness were in the minds of every Aggie fan at that moment. There was also that terrifying feeling of worry that things actually might never get better. And while those feelings aren't anything foreign to those of us who have been around USU for a while, we still hope that each time around, things will be finally be different. In this instance though, doubt and heartbreak trumped every glimmer of hope...

Basketball rolls again in second exhibition game

The funny thing about Saturday's exhibition win over Simon Fraser is that there were a few stretches where it seemed like the Aggies weren't even playing that well. Yet during those stretches, the USU lead continued to widen, eventually leading in a dominating final score of 92-56.

Regardless of how it appeared, the Aggies dominated on Saturday against an actual NCAA team, even if they're Division-2. That's a classification that not a lot of past exhibition opponents can claim, and that Simon Fraser team was certainly bigger, more athletic and much more skilled than the likes of Laval University that past USU teams have played in exhibition.

Now consider that Laval is the only exhibition team that the Aggies have beaten worse in the last six years than the 36-point win against Simon Fraser on Saturday. Suddenly this team is looking pretty solid with that in mind. And things are only going to continue to tighten up and get more crisp for USU as this season goes on.

To me, that says that this Utah State team will be able to win ugly this year. Even when things aren't exactly in rhythm offensively, USU's size, athleticism and just natural skill will help them still put points on the board and frustrate teams defensively. That's the one thing I take most from this game, and that's one hell of a positive attribute to have!

Weird, a blowout win for football? 38-7, Aggies.

Let's start off with the stat of the game: 27 yards allowed by USU's defense in the 2nd half!

That is insane!!!

Utah State came out swinging once again with a six-play, 51-yard touchdown drive. Then after allowing a l4-play, 63-yard drive by Texas State, Will Davis put an end to that with an interception in the end zone. USU only needed five plays to go 80 yards for another score.

The Aggies had six possessions in the first half, five of them for touchdowns. 35-0 at half, game already in hand.

SECOND HALF
I'm not going to worry about this at all. The offense had already built an insurmountable lead and all that was left to do was to keep the fancy stuff off the film reel and get the second unit some reps. And they accomplished both of those in the second half.

It wasn't pretty, and maybe it would have been nice to see Chuckie Keeton get a sixth or seventh touchdown, but it got the job done. And when your defense is allowing absolutely NOTHING, at least outside of a couple yards when the Bobcats picked off a pass deep in USU territory resulting in their only score of the game.

Things I want to see this weekend

This weekend is going to be a fun one with a home football game to occupy Saturday afternoon, followed by basketball's second exhibition that night. And with how things are going for football and how early along basketball is right now, I'd feel overly nitpicky to point out any lows as part of a highs, lows and IDKs.

So for the sake of doing something mid-week this week, let's just talk about a few things I want to see this weekend.

MORE THAN ANYTHING...
Both Romney Stadium and The Spectrum should be packed with students for both of these games. Especially Romney. The attendance against New Mexico State was kinda about what you'd expect during Fall Break, but the crowd needs a strong showing to rebound from that. This team is on the verge of a historic season, and we already know they aren't going to get much love from the stands for the last home game over Thanksgiving break.

So basically, this is the last time Romney will really be rocking this season, so it needs to rock hard!!! This team has earned a packed house, and dammit they had better get it!

And after the football game is finished, take a quick break, maybe grab some food, and head right up to The Spectrum!

It's gonna be one hell of a day!!!

Also, wear blue. 


FOOTBALL

More reps for the second unit - This one will require another blowout, but that is becoming more the expectation with this program rather than a rarity. With each week the second units are able to get into games and get reps, the more experience they gain, the more film they have to break down of what they're doing right or wrong, and better prepare this team for the future.

Three turnovers -The defense set a goal to have at least three turnovers per game this year, but they have yet to actually make it happen in any games this year. Last game was encouraging with a pair of interceptions by Will Davis and Kyler Fackrell, but they still need to do a bit more with stripping the ball and rocking the worlds of opposing quarterbacks.

A 120-yard game from Joe Hill - Gary Andersen said he's finally back to 100 percent, so it's time to get him involved once again. Like Kerwynn Williams, Hill can be a major threat both running and catching the ball, and we got to see a little bit of that last game. Time to light up the box score once again for him.


BASKETBALL

5+ assists for Tenale Roland - In the first game, Roland had zero turnovers, but only one assist. This time around, I want to see Roland take a few more risks just to test himself in the assist department. even if it means he ends up with a couple turnovers, I want to see him take some risks in passing at game speed and rack up some assists this time around.