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.