\u201cThe Climb\u201d is a theme adopted this season by San Diego State football team.<\/p>\n
It serves as a metaphor for the journey that began in January with winter workouts. When SDSU picked up the season\u2019s sixth win over the weekend at Fresno State, it ensured the climb will extend into December with a postseason bowl game.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been very intentional of stripping it all down, starting from the studs, assuming nothing,\u201d SDSU coach Sean Lewis said when \u201cThe Climb\u201d was introduced on social media. \u201cLike climbing a ladder. One step at a time. The base of that ladder is going to be the connection and the people. And the strength of that base is going to determine how high we can go.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lewis literally brought in a mountain climber to talk to the Aztecs before last week\u2019s game against Fresno State.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe actually had a gentleman from Coronado who came in and spoke to our team who had climbed Mount Everest,\u201d Lewis said. \u201cI learned in that discussion that you actually get to 26,000 or 25,000 feet, and you\u2019re less than 5,000 feet from the summit, and you actually go back to base camp, and then reacclimate and go on with the suffering of this journey all over again.<\/p>\n
Richard Bailey, the former mayor of Coronado, scaled Mount Everest in May, reaching South Summit, which is 28,704 feet above sea level. It was his second attempt, according to a story in The Coronado Times, and followed three years of training to properly prepare for the ascent.<\/p>\n
It took more than a month for Bailey to reach the summit. He battled horrible weather, treacherous footing, infections, severe vomiting and depleted oxygen.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf it weren\u2019t for the always impending fear of death, it would be an incredible experience I would recommend to anyone,\u201d Bailey told the newspaper.<\/p>\n
The talk made an impact on SDSU\u2019s players.<\/p>\n
\u201cI drew a lot (from it). One, that he\u2019s a little bit crazy,\u201d safety Eric Butler said. \u201cTwo, a lot of grit, for sure. Preparation. You don\u2019t just start climbing and climb Mount Everest. There\u2019s preparation. Climb smaller mountains. \u2026 A lot of stuff that translates to our journey.\u201d<\/p>\n
SDSU tight end Seth Adams said he was \u201cdefinitely able to draw quite a few similarities, from our journey getting here in January, prepping, getting ready for our climb.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lewis said retreating to base camp before making the final ascent provided a \u201cperfect parallel\u201d to SDSU\u2019s journey during a midseason break before beginning the second half of the season against the Bulldogs.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe prepped our gear, we edited our lives,\u201cto know then that these final six weeks were going to be something really special,\u201d he said. \u201cThe guys have done great work and we\u2019re sitting here 6-1, but there\u2019s still so many goals that we haven\u2019t come close to attaining yet that fuel what we\u2019re going to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
SDSU (6-1, 3-0 Mountain West) puts its five-game winning streak on the line Saturday against Wyoming (4-4, 2-2), which is coming off a shutout win over Colorado State.<\/p>\n
Said Lewis: \u201cThe higher you climb, the harder it gets. You have to know that as you go. \u2026 You embrace the pain and the suffering that\u2019s probably often too much avoided in everyday life. But that\u2019s what makes it meaningful.\u201d<\/p>\n
By the numbers<\/p>\n
SDSU leads the Mountain West \u2014 and is among the nation\u2019s leaders \u2014 in several defensive categories.<\/p>\n
2 \u2014 Rushing touchdowns allowed. Second only to Ohio State (1).<\/p>\n
4 \u2014 Defensive touchdowns scored. Tied for third with Maryland and Troy and trailing Louisiana Tech (5) and Tennessee (5).<\/p>\n
10.4 \u2014 Points allowed per game. Second only to Ohio State (5.9).<\/p>\n
96.7 \u2014 Pass efficiency rating. Third in FBS behind Oregon (88.86) and Arizona (93.69).<\/p>\n
66.7 \u2014 Red zone percentage. Fourth in FBS, after Ohio State (50.0), USC (59.1) and SMU (64.5).<\/p>\n
26.6 \u2014\u00a0 Third down conversion rate (5th in FBS)<\/p>\n
255 \u2014 Yards allowed per game (9th).<\/p>\n
2.73 \u2014 Rushing yards allowed per carry (9th).<\/p>\n
88.4 \u2014 Rushing yards allowed per game (10th).<\/p>\n
10.1 \u2014 Yards per completion (15th)<\/p>\n
166.7 \u2014 Passing yards allowed per game (16th).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThe Climb\u201d is a theme adopted this season by San Diego State football team. It serves as a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23657,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[1327,181,74,76,75,305,127],"class_list":{"0":"post-26387","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-college-sports","9":"tag-latest-headlines","10":"tag-san-diego","11":"tag-san-diego-headlines","12":"tag-san-diego-news","13":"tag-sdsu-aztecs","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26387\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}