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.