Utah State’s 20-point win over Colorado State on Saturday was as close as the Aggies have come to a complete game this season. It wasn’t that close to a perfect game, but with many bad starts, most of which led to losses, the Aggies fought back faster and ultimately won by a much larger point margin. The fact that this has been done makes things much more encouraging.
“I saw a more experienced group, a group that was together,” Anderson said. “We still had to come back, but it’s a good football team. I felt like it was going to be a battle. It really was. I love the fact that as the game went on, we got tougher. We got faster. He was physically stronger than them.”
In last Monday’s Cooldown, I made the argument that a win at UW isn’t necessarily a sign of good things to come for Utah State. The team managed to stumble their way to victory despite yet another terrible start and poor defense in the closing stages. One of those two was true this week, and even this week’s terrible start wasn’t all that disastrous in the end, but it’s mainly because at least one of his USU units, the defense, This is because he performed at a high level even after a rough start.
Colorado State entered Saturday as the third-best passing offense in the nation, with its top wide receiver (yards per game) in Torrie Horton and one of its top receiving tight ends in Darrin Holker. was proud of. Quarterback Brayden Fowler-Nicolosi has thrown for at least 300 yards in three consecutive games, and had 208 yards in part against Washington State. That elite passing offense was effectively shut down as Fowler-Nicolosi threw for just 225 yards on 57 pass attempts, zero touchdowns and three interceptions.
The Aggies were so good against the pass defense that, by definition, they ranked below 90th in passing yards per game, allowing 284.5 passing yards per game (excluding the game against Air Force). Considering that, it’s a bit of a miracle. Part of that was the youth in the secondary, and part of it was the lack of a consistent pass rush. However, against the Rams, Utah State made the game lively with a great performance from all sides on defense.
“It wasn’t one thing,” Anderson said. “We felt the pressure. We covered well. We disguised our looks. We made some changes when it came to quarterback. We had success against a talented team like Colorado State. You need all of these things to do that: Between the protection and the quarterback’s ability to throw the ball, and the wideout-tight end matchup.”
Utah State consistently pressured Fowler-Nicolosi, forcing him to leave the pocket on fast breaks. While it didn’t lead to more sacks (only one sack all night), it’s just one of the nice things that could lead to a lower defense. Incompletions and interceptions were also a result of pressure, and the Aggies forced many of them. Fowler-Nicolosi, who was completing more than 70 percent of his passes before Saturday, completed just 45.6 percent of his passes against USU and had three interceptions. Ike Larsen, who had two of those picks, gave due credit to the efforts of the defensive linemen.
“At the end of the day, 99 percent of our interceptions are pressures from the D-line or linebackers,” Larsen said after Saturday’s game. “It helps us that they’re putting pressure on us and doing their job. It makes our job easier, so it’s great for the quarterback to throw the ball like that. It’s easy to catch it when you’re down. D-line prop Hale Motuapuaka and all the other linebackers are putting pressure on us to make it happen.”
In fact, Motuapuaka was involved in one of Larsen’s two interceptions, showing how USU’s pressure forced Fowler-Nicolosi to pitch poorly. This was Larsen’s second pick of the day, coming midway through the second quarter. Motuapuaka applied pressure a little late in the middle, forcing the QB out of the spot, resulting in a desperate throw that Larsen reeled in for Holker.
The pass rush is still developing. You need to create more consistent pressure and reach your goals faster. The Aggies have a young defensive line that needs to continue developing. But we are watching its development in real time.
“We’re seeing a lot of our players improve every week,” Motuapuaka said. “We’re process-driven. And if you look at it from time to time, we don’t have the best game in terms of productivity, but as the game goes on, we get more and more on both the edges and the interior. I know it’s getting better.”
Utah State needed a serious rebuild on offense. But once again they got off to a slow start, gaining just four net yards on the first three drives of the game. It took the Aggies until 6:54 of the first quarter to get a first down. However, after those wasteful opening drives, the Aggies went on to gain a season-high 639 total yards.
The symbol of the improvement in the game would be Cooper Regas’ turnaround. He started the game by completing 2-of-9 passes for 21 yards and two interceptions, which was worse than when he came off the bench against Air Force (and had similar mistakes). , worked hard and persevered. Especially when you look at these interceptions, they’re both essentially the same problem, something we’ve seen before with Regas. He underthrew his receivers a little too much a few times. The worst part was that his first pick was thrown in the first quarter.
The second interception was about the same as the first, but not as bad. He attempted to lead Colby Bowman to the sideline, but Dom Jones was able to get close enough to Bowman to play with the ball and grab it from the air.
With both of these picks, Legas explained that he was trying to put the ball in a spot where he thought Colorado State wouldn’t be able to get it.
“I looked at the film and expected there would be enough separation to get it right to the receiver, so that’s what I was going to do initially,” Regas said. “DB made two really great plays that I hadn’t seen them make on film all year. Two really great plays, and I was the one who paid the price for that.” Ta.”
That’s not the greatest excuse in the world (though it’s not the worst either) considering he’ll be playing against FBS-level players who will probably be able to get the ball within reach. Anderson also called these plays “mistakes that shouldn’t be made,” so it didn’t bother him at all. So what did Regas do after making these seemingly unforgivable mistakes? He vastly improved on the exact same looks he had previously failed at. This is a throw to Micah Davis on essentially the same sideline go route as the previous interception. The difference is, he puts the ball on a dime where only Davis was going to get it.
Then on the same drive, Regas goes left and makes a play to Jalen Royals. Again, the ball is in a spot that only his USU players could take, and it’s still a very catchable pass.
“I was really proud of (Regas’) reaction,” Anderson said. “He was coached very hard on the sideline for the mistakes he made early on and went back to some of the same plays throughout the game and made big plays. So I give him a lot of credit for not giving up and continuing to do it.” It needs to be evaluated.”
This reversal presents a difficult question that Anderson will need to answer to determine whether Regas remains the starter or McKay Hilstead returns as starter: Regas has the potential to change the game. Have we really shaken off our tendency to make these potential errors? These turnover issues have surfaced every time Regas has started against an FBS opponent this year. Still, aside from those two bad passes, Legas completed 30 of 40 passes for 591 yards. His completion percentage is 75.0 and his yards per attempt is an impressive 14.8. He has seven touchdowns (no additional interceptions).
It’s hard to ignore those errors, and you can’t ignore Anderson, but you also can’t ignore how effective Regas was outside of those errors. Despite recording an interception, Regas has been excellent in his last two games. Part of Hilstead’s intention in starting is to give the Aggies the best chance to get the most out of their talented wide receiver group and win by advancing the passing game in a way they didn’t against Iowa State and Idaho State. Met. And about the first quarter of the Air Force game. And as Anderson explained after the game, Legas has the ability to run this offense at a high level, even when he makes terrible mistakes.
“I think what he’s doing really well right now is continuing to process. When things don’t go well, he doesn’t tank at me. He often reacts by biting me in the ass and then goes out. Go out there and do what I’m asking him to do. If he can do that consistently, I think we have the talent. We have the people to help him. He doesn’t have to carry any baggage.”
Anderson is just saying Hilstead doesn’t play Due to lingering symptoms from a concussion sustained in a college game, Legas will have another big chance to regain the starting spot he lost. Last week, he played the most dominant three quarters of his life, making no mistakes. He has to play four quarters this week.