San Diego State coach Brady Hoke has stepped to the postgame podium six times this season following losses.
“Obviously, it’s the broken record that we don’t want to play,” Hoke said Saturday night after the latest loss. “I know one thing is that in the last few weeks these guys have come to work in the building, in the practice field, and we saw that tonight because I know they played hard.”
Playing hard hasn’t been enough to stop a slide in which the Aztecs (3-6, 1-4 Mountain West) now have lost six of the past seven games.
Here are three thoughts after SDSU’s 32-24 double-overtime loss to Utah State at Snapdragon Stadium.
1. Change for change sake?
As the drumbeat of dissatisfaction grows louder and louder with each loss, it strikes one how the bar being raised during more than a decade of success is what now could hasten top-to-bottom changes in the program.
The first losing season since 2009 could be the trigger.
One season.
That, after SDSU accepted mediocrity from its football program for years. Decades, in fact.
The Aztecs did not have a winning season from 2000-09, yet Tom Craft was allowed four years without going better than 6-6. Chuck Long couldn’t even get to .500, but still got three years before being shown the door.
Maybe their stays were extended because social media users had not yet picked up their pitchforks.
Ted Tollner coached from 1994-2001. He had three winning seasons during those eight years. His last three teams went 5-6, 3-8 and 3-8.
Is patience in such short supply, success taken so for granted, that after 13 straight bowl-eligible seasons one losing season is enough now for fans to demand a top-to-bottom tear down?
Is the vocal minority closing in on 50 percent plus one?
Maybe so.
Just be careful what you wish for going forward.
Accept mediocrity? No.
But neither should Aztecs fans entertain unrealistic expectations.
The question athletic directors usually pose: Is the program headed in the right direction?
Another consideration: If the program heads in a different direction, is there a likelihood of it being a better one?
It says here that NIL and the transfer portal have so changed the college football landscape that conferences like the Mountain West in general and teams like SDSU in particular will find it more and more difficult to remain competitive.
What is the most prudent course of action for SDSU? That remains to be seen.
2. Fake news
SDSU has become accustomed to first downs and touchdowns in recent seasons when running a fake kick.
That’s how it is when the breaks are going your way. When they’re not, you have instances like Saturday night, when Utah State stopped not one but two fakes.
Jack Browning was stopped for a 2-yard loss after holder Zechariah Ramirez flipped him the ball on a fake field 30-yard field goal in the second quarter.
“We had planned to do one,” Hoke said. “When we kicked the first field goal (a 42-yard miss in the first quarter), they lined up like we would like them to line up.”
On this occasion, however, the Aggies sent a man in motion parallel to the line of scrimmage as if he was going to rush in for an attempted block.
Then the player stopped — right where Browning was about to run.
“Once that happened,” Hoke said, “the cadence was already too far in to where you would have liked to have just kicked the ball.”
So, in a way, the Aggies lucked into the stop by what they ran?
“Yeah, I think so,” Hoke said.
On a fake punt in the fourth quarter, Browning was stopped for no gain on a fourth-and-3 from the SDSU 24-yard line.
“There was some miscommunication on the fake punt,” Hoke said. “There’s a look that you look for and if you see the look, then you’re going to run it. The look wasn’t quite there, so it didn’t work.”
And so it goes.
3. Penny for your thoughts
Redshirt freshman running back Lucky Sutton provided SDSU’s biggest run from scrimmage of the season late in the first quarter, when he took a third-and-1 handoff and raced 62 yards with the ball.
It was the Aztecs’ longest carry since a 62-yard touchdown run by Greg Bell against Hawaii in 2020.
The crowd roar that accompanied Sutton as he broke free up the middle of the field after hitting the hole stirred some memories from six years ago, serving as a reminder of Rashaad Penny’s greatness.
Remember, Sutton’s run was the first 60-plus-yard rush in three years.
Penny had seven such runs in 2017 alone — a 95-yarder against Arizona State, an 82-yarder against San Jose State, an 81-yarder against Army, a 67-yarder against Nevada, a 64-yarder against San Jose State, a 63-yarder against Hawaii and a 61-yarder against UC Davis.
All of them were for touchdowns.
That was another thing about Penny.
Once he broke free, there was no stopping him.
Sigh.
