Observations from the press box on a night of cautious optimism at the Q…
Saturday night’s 35-19 win over Southern Utah demonstrated both the progress made under Brady Hoke, and just how far the Aztecs have left to go in their return to respectability. For the most part, San Diego State controlled the action at Qualcomm Stadium. Against a totally outmanned bunch of Thunderbirds, the Aztecs pushed their food around the plate a bit but generally ate well.
But when you are playing a team that is SO much smaller, SO much slower, and has maybe half the players on their sideline as you have on yours, you really need to do better than 35-19. Mistakes, sloppy defense, special teams breakdowns and turnovers left Brady Hoke red-faced and hoarse after the game, sounding more like an angry coach after a loss than a satisfied coach after a win.
Hear from Aztecs players Vincent Brown, Ryan Lindley, Nick Sandford & Brandon Sullivan after the jump:
“We had way too many penalties, way too many mistakes,” said Hoke (in comments you can hear here), “You can’t play football that way.”
Hoke drummed his fingers on the podium like an impatient husband waiting for his wife to get out of the bathroom. His voice was in tatters once again, sounding like Tom Waits gargling glass. And his displeasure is the best sign that comes out of Saturday’s game.
Last season, Chuck Long was guaranteed to cry in the postgame interview after every win. It only happened twice, but he was two-for-two. Weeping with joy that his silly little team actually won a game. Maybe they were tears of surprise. Brady Hoke wasn’t crying on Saturday night. He was coughing, trying to clear a throat that will never quite clear.
Ryan Lindley agreed that things have changed quite a bit around Montezuma Mesa, where winning is good but playing football the right way is the true goal.
“Maybe last year, we’d just be satisfied with the win. This year, we always want to get better. I think we improved from last week, but we’ve got a long way to go.” (Hear Lindley’s postgame comments below:)
Vincent Brown is developing into a terrific receiver and showed great chemistry on Saturday night with Lindley, hauling in 6 passes for 142 yards and a touchdown. He made a tough catch with a defender on his back for the touchdown, and showed great balance on a spinning catch over the middle in the second half. Brown also dropped a possible 77-yard touchdown pass and was run down with what looked like an open field in front of him twice.
Listen to Vincent Brown’s postgame comments:
This leads to one of my general concerns about the Aztecs, which is team speed. SDSU wasn’t that much faster than Southern Utah last night, and that’s trouble. Teams like TCU and Utah will fly past State, and teams like Air Force and UNLV may have better speed than SDSU. You can’t really teach speed, you can only recruit it, so this is a problem that Hoke can’t fix for a while.
Southern Utah was able to generate 19 first downs against the 3-3-5 defense, which blitzes a lot but didn’t get there very often. While I thought their QB, a D-1 transfer named Cade Cooper, acquitted himself well with some heady scrambles and throws on the run, again…you project forward and wonder how quality offenses will handle this unit. I doubt it will be with kid gloves. UCLA is very raw and limited offensively and Southern Utah is much worse, but both teams were able to put up points on SDSU. What will quality Mountain West teams do?
Hear Nick Sanford’s comments on the performance of the defense:
Lastly, I will hold out hope that Brandon Sullivan is the #1 running back that Brady Hoke is looking for this season. Walter Kazee, a true freshman, started at tailback on Saturday night but was locked in the doghouse after two first-half fumbles. Anthony Miller scored a touchdown but saw limited action. It was Sullivan’s night to step forward, and the Poway alum did so with 24 carries and a career-high 111 yards rushing. I will re-submit that given the opponent, the numbers are a bit deceiving. Still, there is at least a little more hope for a running game in 2009, and Al Borges had to be pleased with the balance his offense displayed against Southern Utah.
Hear Brandon Sullivan’s postgame comments:
A final key I was curious about was the fan response to Brady Hoke and Aztecs football. This program was below square one after last year, they were at square zero. On Saturday night, the most encouraging sign of all was a packed student section. Regardless of how quickly the Aztecs improve as a program, it will take a while for the average San Diego sports fan to start coming out to the games. (It may take as long to get the local media to show up as well, check out this pic of “radio row” from the Q, a whole row of seats dedicated to XTRA, KOGO and XX1090. You can see how many decided to come out for Aztecs football!)
If Hoke can get the SDSU campus excited for Aztecs football, he will have taken a big step toward repairing the program. I’ll have a close eye on the end zone student section for the Aztecs’ next home game, to see what type of carry-over effect they have.
