Floyd Foreman remembers looking a lot at his shoelaces last season.
It was the first Division I football game for junior-college transfers Foreman, Roger Grant and Ron Lopez, soon to become a winning backfield for Utah State. But in that 1990 season opener against the University of Utah, Grant was held to 23 net yards, Foreman to 2 net yards, and Lopez threw only four passes in a relief quarterback role.Foreman had the chance in that game to make a difference. It was 6-0 for Utah in the third quarter, and USU had moved to the Ute 2-yard line. Ute linebacker Anthony Davis burst through the Aggie line to catch Foreman 5 yards back. One play later, the Aggies were again on the 2 and Foreman got the call, trying to go wide left. A Ute caught him by the foot, and he lost a yard and the Aggies never scored in a 19-0 loss.
Teammates told Foreman it was a shoelace tackle. "I kept looking down at my shoelace. I was a shoelace away," Foreman says now, as USU awaits its 1991 season opener at Utah Saturday night.
This time, it will be Foreman's first Division I start, and it's the talk of Logan. Foreman was second-team All-Big West Conference last year as Grant's backup, but Grant was first-team and is the second-leading returning rusher in the NCAA with 1,370 yards to his name.
Foreman had a marvelous spring while Grant sat out recuperating from shoulder surgery. Foreman says all the extra repetitions he got in Grant's absence made him better. Foreman hasn't missed a spring or fall practice. Grant missed several fall practices with back and knee aches. His timing isn't perfect.
"Roger can play, and he'll play a lot," says Coach Chuck Shelton, who adds he doubts Grant could play the whole game. "It's an ideal situation for Roger because the burden won't rest on him," Shelton says.
"The injustice," says Shelton, "would be to not start Foreman."
Foreman earned a start. "I like
to think I did," he says. "I made the commitment to stay in Logan and train this summer. I felt I had to step up," he says.
In a way, that's what Shelton's looking for from his whole team Saturday night. USU is coming off a flat scrimmage last Saturday. "Saturday set me back," said Shelton, who's been optimistic about the season otherwise. "I left (the scrimmage) disillusioned."
The last two Ute games also hang heavy for the Ags. "A year
ago, we played hard but not very well," Shelton says. "The last time down there, we got embarrassed."
Inside linebacker and defensive signal-caller Del Lyles, who like Foreman spent the summer working out, particularly adding upper-body strength and extra speed, recalls, "We didn't come together as a team. This year, we're already together."
This should be a much better Aggie team with 16 returning starters and 16 with All-Big West credentials, either first, second or honorable mention teams. "I expect it to be a donnybrook," Shelton says of the Utah game. If it's one-sided, he says, he doesn't think the Aggies would be winners, "but if it's close, we would have the ability."
Some Aggie overachievers include junior backup split end Greg Watts - "He vaulted past other receivers," says Shelton, and inside linebacker Matt Martinez, "the shocker of the camp," says Shelton, a former walkon who's taken a starting spot next to Lyles. Lyles is impressed with JC transfer Israel Byrd, who'll start at left corner after Donald Toomer was lost for a few weeks to an injury. "Israel popped up and is still solid there," Lyles says, admiring "the way he caught on so quick."
The Ags will be without Dexter Pointer, second in the Big West and 10th nationally in kickoff returns in 1990. He's out five to six weeks with an injury.