The San Diego State Aztecs (3-8, 2-4) lost their fifth straight game Saturday, falling to the Utah State Aggies (4-7, 3-3), 41-20, at Merlin Olsen Field at Maverik Stadium. 

For the first 27 minutes of the game, the Aggies seemed to have no answers for the Aztecs. SDSU took a 13-0 lead, out-gained USU 230 to 40, and knocked out starting QB Spencer Petras in possibly their best half against an FBS opponent all season.

But there’s 30 minutes in a half and by the time the last seconds ticked off, the Aztecs somehow found themselves trailing 14-13. Sums up the 2024 SDSU season fairly well.   

By the end of the game, the Aggies held a 488 to 412 total yardage advantage and dominated the final 33 minutes of the game. 

“We need to coach better, we need to play better, we need to do everything better in all three phases,” said SDSU head coach Sean Lewis postgame. “We got to make sure we do a great job bouncing back so we can send these seniors off in the right way as we go back home for this last opportunity of the year at Snapdragon a week from tonight.”

Backup QB Bryson Barnes led the Aggies to 41 unanswered points, completing 13 of 15 passes for 139 yards and three touchdowns and rushing for 193 yards and a score. Barnes, who started nine games for Utah last year before transferring to Logan, recorded his first career 100-yard rushing game. 

“There’s opportunities where we have players in position and then we have to do a great job of getting the ball to the ground,” Lewis said when asked about how the read-option run has hurt the Aztecs’ 4-2-5 defense all year. “Ultimately, we got to do a great job of stepping up and making plays when our number is called.”

His 63-yard run set up Kyrese White’s 5-yard touchdown run, and his 45-yard pass to White set up Herschel Turner’s one-yard run to cap off the Aggies’ scoring. 

Grant Page (5 rec, 66 yds) caught two of the scores, his first career collegiate touchdowns. 

Danny O’Neil (23/31, 199 yds) looked comfortable and in command for much of the first half, but the team was only able to score 13 points as a result. Once the USU onslaught began, O’Neil and the rest of the offense regressed to much of what they have been this season. 

When Lewis was asked about how the offense can go from looking so good in one stretch to bad right after, he pointed to the entire offense having to be tied together, connected, and cohesive. 

“Far too often this year, we are not doing that consistently enough, which leads to the inconsistencies and the results,” he added.

Marquez Cooper, the lone statistical bright spot for the offense all season, rushed for 118 yards on 23 carries and a touchdown. On a 14-yard run in the third quarter, he became just the 23rd player in FBS history to reach 5,000 rushing yards in his career. He entered the game needing 82 yards to hit the mark. 

“It’s just a reward, I guess, for the hard work I’ve been doing for a long time,” Cooper said postgame about the accomplishment. “I was told that I’d probably never get 1,000 yards in college, and now I’m at 5,000.”

Louis Brown IV led the Aztecs with seven receptions for 114 yards. 

The Aztecs, led by backup QB Javance Tupou’ata-Johnson, scored on a 12-yard reception by Mekhi Shaw on the final drive of the game to curtail USU’s 41-point run. 

USU recorded 13 TFL’s, led by Lawrence Falatea’s 2.5. Their nine by halftime had already set a season-high for the defense. Jordan Vincent and Jadon Pearson led them with ten tackles each. 

Dalesean Staley’s career-high 11 tackles led the Aztecs, while Trey White and Tupu Alualu added a sack apiece. 

The second-most penalized team in the country almost matched their season averages (9 for 82 yards) in the first half, as the Aztecs were penalized eight times for 65 yards. Their final tallies were 12 for 101 yards. USU was only whistled for four penalties and 55 yards. 

“The majority of them have been on the offensive line where we have been banged up,” Lewis responded when asked about the high volume of penalties. “There’s a lot of people that have been playing at different spots as we are rolling through it. Again, there’s got to be continuity, there’s got to be consistency within that group up front so that you can have confidence to play together. When there’s any sort of doubt when there’s a collection of young men playing together, it leads to hesitation. When you are playing hesitant and not playing confident, and you’re not tied together, you’re going to be a step behind… and being a little jittery in your stance as you go.”  

The Aztecs early lead could have been much more, if not for a failed fourth down conversion at the USU one on their opening drive. O’Neil threw to his left to TE Michael Harrison, but he was tackled immediately for a three-yard loss. 

The biggest play of the drive was O’Neil’s 34-yard after a fake pitch to Cooper shifted the defense to Cooper’s side, opening up the middle of the field. O’Neil entered the game with only 31 rushing yards on the entire season. 

On the Aztecs’ third drive, back-to-back false starts on the offensive line in the red zone killed any chance of a third down conversion and led to a Gabriel Plascencia 35-yard field goal as the first quarter expired. 

White’s sack in the first quarter, which ended his three-game sackless streak, tied him for third on SDSU’s single-season record list with 12.5. He trails Mike Douglass (21 in 1976) and Brett Faryniarz (13 in 1987). 

He lost another sack in the second quarter when he easily beat the right tackle and forced the ball loose from Petras, but Brady Nassar caught the tipped ball in the air at the USU 46 for the interception. The play ruled an interception negated the possibility of a sack on the play.

Given the short field, the Aztecs offense took advantage, scoring the first touchdown of the game on a Cooper 14-yard scamper. 

Behind 10-0, the Aggies made a desperate decision to go for a fourth and one from their own 34, and the Aztecs defense came up big again, stopping Derick Jameson short of the first down line. 

Plascencia’s second field goal of the game extended the Aztecs’ lead to 13-0 late in the first half. Plascencia has made his last 12 field goals and 17 of 18 career attempts. 

This is where the tide turned towards the end of the first half. 

The Aggies drove 65 yards on three plays, scoring on Barnes’ 19-yard run. Up to this point, Barnes had been used as their short-yardage QB but was thrust into starting duties after Petras’ injury. 

After forcing a quick 3-and-out, the Aggies again drove 65 yards for a score to take the halftime lead. The scoring play came on a fake-spike throw into the end zone from the nine that Page hauled in with his left hand while getting his right foot down inbounds. Officials initially ruled the pass incomplete and did not immediately decide to review it as the Aggies lined up to snap the next play. The Aztecs called timeout to regroup their defense, which allowed officials more time to decide on a review and reverse the decision.

The Aggies kept their momentum going on the first drive of the second half, going 75 yards for their third touchdown in as many drives. Barnes found TE Josh Sterzer for a 10-yard reception in the right flat, who broke a tackle from Chris Johnson and walked into the end zone for the score. 

Barnes’ third touchdown pass of the game put the game out of reach early in the fourth when he found Page again, this time from six yards out. 

Both White and Cooper spoke to the media postgame and put the onus on the failures of this season on the players not performing to what the coaches have taught them. 

“We just never collectively got things going how they should have been going all year long,” said Cooper. “It goes back to guys having to do their jobs because they are getting coached to do it. But we’re not doing it.”

The Aztecs close out the 2024 season by hosting the Air Force Falcons next Saturday night at Snapdragon Stadium. Kickoff is at 730pm on Fox Sports 1. 

Quick Notes

• SDSU still leads the series record 13-5 but has lost the last three contests; Saturday’s loss was the first in six games on the road
• Starting TE Jude Wolfe did not make the trip to Logan, Utah. The school did not provide a reason for his absence. 
• The Aztecs’ 13-point lead in the first half was their largest lead against an FBS opponent this season
• Tyler Pastula shanked a punt off the side of his foot in the second quarter, landing out of bounds for only a 23-yard gain; he found his stride on the other five punts, still averaging 47.7 on the day with a long of 68
• Attendance was 12,583

Andre Haghverdian

Avid sports fan and historian of basketball, baseball, football and soccer. UC San Diego and San Diego State alumni living in America’s Finest City. Diverse team following across multiple sports leagues, but Aztecs come first in college athletics.