LOGAN — With the state’s marquee college football matchup happening further south Saturday, another type of war was played in Logan on Friday night — one of attrition.
Just six days after Utah State turned a 1-point game into a fourth-quarter blowout at Hawaii, the Aggies found themselves in a similar dogfight once again against San Jose State at Maverik Stadium.
Utah State gave up 534 yards of total offense against the Spartans — 340 through the air and 194 on the ground — and averaged nearly 7 yards per play. They registered zero sacks and only one tackle for loss, allowed three sacks and nine tackles for loss, all while going 5-of-15 on third downs and allowed over 50% conversion rate defensively on third downs.
Utah State ultimately left the stadium with a 30-25 win, but by no means was it pretty. As unconventional a win as it may have been for the Aggies, the game was won in exactly the way it was planned to be won.
“I’ll probably be the least statistically aware coach that you work with,” head coach Bronco Mendenhall said. “We execute our plans in a way that we think we have to versus any given opponent. A lot of times the plans are different. I thought the plans that we had, the way we executed, ended up lending to the most important statistic, which is the success and winning … the rest of it really doesn’t matter to me.”
Mendenhall has frequently emphasized his belief that most football games are won or lost during three or four key plays throughout a game. A week ago, those plays were not made by his group.
“I haven’t prepared the team well enough to consistently make the critical play from beginning to end,” Mendenhall said after the loss to Hawaii.
Utah State put up a lot of glaring numbers on Friday, but in the end, they were able to make the critical plays to win.
San Jose State opened the second half with three consecutive scoring drives, getting two touchdowns and a field goal that would put them up 25-24.
The Aggies took the lead back on the ensuing possession, hitting a 45-yard field goal. But with the Spartans driving on their next possession looking to score, Utah State’s shaky defense came up with a stop, stuffing a fourth-and-1 run to give their offense the ball back with 3:41 remaining.
“Fourth down stops are hard to get,” Mendenhall said. “Fourth with a half a yard to go, it’s really hard.”
After another Utah State field goal off the foot of Tanner Rinker, the Spartans, again, had the ball with a chance to win the game with a touchdown. Again, Utah State came up with a stop in the form of a pass breakup on the 1-yard line and a pass breakup in the end zone as time expired.
The game ultimately ended with Utah State’s made field goals and defensive stands, but there were plenty of opportunities for both sides to take control of the game earlier. Due to either poor decision-making, a lack of execution or a mix of both, neither team was able to take advantage.
With 3:27 left in the second quarter, Utah State had the ball on the 14-yard line on a fourth-and-4. Rather than kick the field goal and take the points, the Aggies went for it, failed to convert and gave the ball to San Jose State.
The Spartans proceeded to take the ball 89 yards in seven plays for a touchdown, then missed the extra point.
After finding the end zone again early in the fourth quarter, San Jose State went for two in an attempt to make up the missed PAT, but the try was unsuccessful. Had the Spartans converted the first point after attempt and then merely settled for 1 point on their last touchdown, they would have been in a position to tie the game with a field goal on their final drive.
Similarly, had the Aggies taken the 3 points late in the second half rather than going for it on fourth down, they would have had a much more comfortable victory in hand.
“It doesn’t seem like a good (decision) now, does it? That’s just how it works in my job,” Mendenhall said. “I’ll live and I’ll learn, and I’ll put that one in the memory vault and do better next time.”
In a game that was sloppy and heroic at times for both squads, Utah State ultimately did just enough to get the victory in front of a homecoming crowd of 22,710. Friday’s win was also the Aggies’ fourth of the season, which already matches last season’s win total in Mendenhall’s first year in Logan.
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.