Practice moves over to Romney Stadium on Tuesday

To calm a lot of people's nerves, Tuesday marked the first sighting of wide receiver Ronald Butler practicing with the team. Due to the rules stating that players must have x-amount of practices before adding shoulder pads, and then full pads after that, Butler was limited in what he do, but it appears everything is sorted out now.

Things are starting to look more crisp all around as guys look to have the bulk of their rust shaken off after a few practices. Now with contact entering the mix, you can see just how competitive so many of these guys are. Even after some plays are blown dead, you'll see ballcarriers still running, while defenders are still trying to stop them, and both sides trying to get the best of one another. Things get a little chippy at times, but after those little shoving matches are over, you've still got two guys competing at a high level. Pretty alright if you ask me.

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.

Football: Highs, Lows and I Don't Knows - 9/25

We all know that the past few decades of Aggie football had been some dark times until Gary Andersen arrived.

Just how bad were they though? Let's use three wins as a measuring stick, since that was often as good as it got for USU football since the turn of the century before Andersen came around. And even since GA has arrived, the third win has taken its sweet time to get here. Below is the date in which Utah State finally got its third win of the season for each year over the last 12 years...

2000: Oct. 21
2001: Nov. 10
2002: Nov. 9
2003: Nov. 1
2004: Nov. 20
2005: Nov. 26
2006: 3rd win?
2007: Seriously, what 3rd win?
2008: Nov. 29
2009: Nov. 14
2010: Nov. 6
2011: Nov. 5
2012: Sep. 22

This marks the first time since 2000 that the team's third win has come prior to the month of November. And if you want to know when the last time USU won its third game in September prior to last weekend, you have to go all the way back to 1978.

Preseason Previews and Vibes, Part 3: Defense

Part 3 of 4: Defense

Offense wins games, but defense wins championships. Even with all the crappy rule adjustments in this era of football that make it practically illegal to hit quarterbacks or play pass defense, you still need a great defensive unit to go places.

Luckily for USU, it looks like we finally have exactly that! We knew it was only a matter of time with Gary Andersen at the helm, and the last two years have shown flashes of being great, but I think this year is where they finally take the next step. With the tenacity shown by past defenses under Andersen, coupled now with what looks to be a great complimentary philosophy of creating turnovers brought on by Dave Aranda, this defense should be the best USU has seen in a long time!

So let's break it down...

DEFENSIVE LINE
How this unit performs is about as essential as anything to this team in my book. Connor Williams is ready for prime time after two quality years of backing up Quinn Garner and Levi Koskan. And on the opposite side of Williams is Al Lapuaho, sliding over from the tackle spot to get rough on the outside. His attitude is the kind that seemed to get into opposing players' heads last year, and even if he lost his cool a few times too, his mean streak will be great to have out there. B.J. Larsen and Jordan Nielsen should get plenty of run there too.

The tackle position is a lot less clear cut. Travis Seefeldt opened camp as the projected starter, with Havea Lasike and Elvis Kamana-Matagi right up there with him. A duo of Snow College guys should be in the mix too with Sini Tauauve'a and AJ Pataialii, both were somewhat of unexpected additions to the team going into camp, but bring great size to the table.

10 crucial Aggies: No. 3 - Tavaris McMillian

It seems like a yearly tradition at this point for USU to have a freshman linebacker step into the college game and waste no time making a major impact.

For example...

2005: Jake Hutton
2006: Paul Igboeli
2007: Kyle Gallagher
2008: Bobby Wagner
2009: C-c-c-c-c-combo breaker!!!
2010: Jake Doughty
2011: Tavaris McMillian

And with the Kyler Fackrell hype machine running at full speed, it looks like he'll take care of 2012's entry on this list, making it seven of the last eight years a freshman linebacker was an impact player. But before we crown his ass, let's keep things within context of the sure things...

The bar for excellence here was obviously set by Wagner. Nobody in their right mind will dispute that. He was the cornerstone for USU's defense for the last three years as he earned first-team all-conference honors in each of those seasons (which will now be termed "Pulling a Wagner", formerly known as "Pulling a Harris" and possibly known in the future as "Pulling a Medlin")

Here's my prediction though: Of all the guys on that list from 2005 to 2011, McMillian will come the closest to having the impact that Wagner did. As a freshman last year, T-16 tied for the sixth most tackles on the team and was behind only Wagner, Levi Koskan and Bojay Filimoeatu in tackles for loss with 7.5. He finished the year strong too with 17 total tackles and four TFLs over the team's final three games.

Offense wins the Blue and White game

Saturday's Blue and White game had a much better feel to it than any other USU spring game in recent memory. For starters, there was all the buzz about the new logo already stirring about the atmosphere. Throw in a higher attendance for the spring game than any other one for longer than many of us can remember, and things were all coming together.

Things were made especially interesting with a new scoring system in place that made for a true offense vs. defense setup. Both teams were given points for scoring, while points were also awarded to the offense for big plays, first downs, etc. The defense got points for sacks, tackles for loss, turnovers, points, three-and-outs, etc.

The end result was a 58-57 win for the offense, which came on the basically the last place of the game. It was awesome, and without a doubt the best spring game setup I've ever seen. All in all, just a tremendously well-done event.