Three thoughts after San Diego State\u2019s 38-6 Mountain West loss to Hawaii late Saturday night at the Clarence T.C. Ching Complex.<\/p>\n
1. Defense rests<\/p>\n
After SDSU\u2019s 36-13 loss at Washington State, SDSU coach Sean Lewis called the Aztecs \u201ca good team that had a bad game.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the time, SDSU did not have the body of work necessary for outside observers to come to a conclusion. The ensuing six-game winning streak added legitimacy to the statement. And raised expectations for the remainder of the season.<\/p>\n
The loss to Hawaii was not surprising in that it was a defeat. Few could have expected the Aztecs to run the table the rest of the season. The surprising part comes from the fact SDSU\u2019s defense had been so good during the winning streak, whereas against the Rainbow Warriors it was so not.<\/p>\n
Could missing linebacker Tano Letuli, who suffered a season-ending knee injury two weeks ago against Wyoming, and cornerback Chris Johnson, who was out Saturday with an unspecified injury, have been so disruptive?<\/p>\n
After all, Mister Williams had been solid behind Letuli at a position with experienced depth. And Deshawn McCuin, who replaced Johnson, got off to a strong start against Hawaii with an interception of quarterback Micah Alejado on the Rainbows\u2019 first drive.<\/p>\n
How might the game have unfolded had SDSU cornerback Bryce Phillips not been called for taunting on a third-and-17 incompletion that would have gotten the Hawaii offense off the field? We\u2019ll never know. Instead a three-and-out, the Rainbows had a first down. And a touchdown six plays later.<\/p>\n
Things quickly unraveled from there. Hawaii had 300 yards of offense in the first half. The Aztecs only allowed that many yards in a game twice this season. The Rainbows totaled 396 yards for the game, matching what Washington State collected in Week 2.<\/p>\n
SDSU (7-2, 4-1 Mountain West) rebounded from its first loss with a 34-0 shutout of Cal. We\u2019ll see how the Aztecs respond this time with Boise State (6-3, 4-1 ) coming to town Saturday night for a first-place showdown.<\/p>\n
The Aztecs opened as a two-point favorite.<\/p>\n
2. Denegal\u2019s health<\/p>\n
No one is 100 percent at this point in the season.<\/p>\n
SDSU quarterback Jayden Denegal hasn\u2019t been 100 percent since the season opener against Stony Brook. That\u2019s when the junior transfer injured his left shoulder on a tackle and briefly left the game for treatment. He has been playing with a brace ever since.<\/p>\n
This isn\u2019t news to upcoming opponents, who break down game film with the same scrutiny as conspiracy theorists examine the Zapruder film.<\/p>\n
Denegal injured his right shoulder when he was tackled following a 17-yard run in the second half at Fresno State. The way Denegal left the field, with his arm hanging at his side, looked bad. But he only missed nine plays before returning.<\/p>\n
Denegal has been listed as questionable the past two weeks on SDSU\u2019s Availability Report, but been behind center nevertheless. He seems inclined to tough this out.<\/p>\n
The quarterback\u2019s toughness is not in question here. It is uncomfortable watching him at times, though, because he is playing with considerable pain.<\/p>\n
Denegal threw some beautiful balls in SDSU\u2019s midseason win over Colorado State. Just when you wonder if he is still capable of doing that, he makes a throw like the one agianst Hawaii that went for a 45-yard gain to wide receiver Donovan Brown.<\/p>\n
Hawaii wasn\u2019t convinced the Aztecs were going to do that with any regularity, however. The Rainbows loaded up to limit SDSU\u2019s run game. The Aztecs didn\u2019t do anything through the air to alter that line of thought.<\/p>\n
Denegal had his biggest struggle of the season against Hawaii, completing only 10 of 27 passes (37 percent) for 132 yards with two interceptions. After completing more than 80 percent of his passes in wins over Colorado State and Nevada, Denegal\u2019s completion percentage dropped to 57.9 percent against Fresno State and 50 percent against Wyoming. Now this.<\/p>\n
The question facing the Aztecs is whether Denegal can gut it out and still be the offense\u2019s best chance for success over the final three games of the regular season.<\/p>\n
3. Determing their destiny<\/p>\n
The loss certainly took the air out of SDSU\u2019s balloon, but the Aztecs\u2019 hopes and dreams for a conference championship remain alive and, in fact, within their control.<\/p>\n
The difference now is that there is no margin for error.<\/p>\n
SDSU is tied atop the Mountain West with Boise State. Beat the Broncos, San Jose State (Nov. 22 at home) and New Mexico (Nov. 28 on the road) and the Aztecs not only win the Mountain West regular season title but they host the conference championship game.<\/p>\n
Things get more complicated if SDSU slips again.<\/p>\n
For one thing, Hawaii (7-3, 4-2) holds a head-to-head tiebreaker edge with the Aztecs.<\/p>\n
There are four other two-loss teams \u2014 UNLV, Fresno State, New Mexico and Utah \u2014 that are all 3-2 in conference and looking for a chance to move up. Some of them will knock each other off in head-to-head meetings, so the pool of contenders will be more shallow in a couple of weeks.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, there\u2019s a sense of urgency with the next opponent,\u201d Lewis told San Diego Sports 760 after the game. \u201cBut there\u2019s always a sense of urgency that winning requires. Part of that process is to learn and to grow and become your best self \u2026 and for this team to continue to grow and evolve is for us to learn from what transpired (against Hawaii). We\u2019re not going to rush through learning the lessons.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Three thoughts after San Diego State\u2019s 38-6 Mountain West loss to Hawaii late Saturday night at the Clarence…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":45971,"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-45970","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\/45970","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=45970"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45970\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}