It is Saturday night in Romney Stadium, and Utah State split end Kevin Alexander has just run with the football into the end zone. Again. He will do that three times this night against UNLV and has done it five times in the four Aggie games this season, scoring on passes of 35, 15, 41 and 85 yards and a kickoff return of 82 yards. Twice he's won AT&T long-distance awards for the NCAA's longest plays of the week.
Kevin is still taking deep breaths and not noticing as his identical twin brother Korey, an Aggie cornerback, is out goading UNLV players. "I was saying a lot to the corners who were trying to cover him," says Korey. "As soon as he scored, I'd run out on the field and try to get close to one of them - `Aw, you can't cover him; he's going to kill y'all,' " Korey says, quoting himself."That sounds like Korey," says Kevin, the quiet one in this brother act. "I'm more relaxed. He's hyper. He's always into something. If I ever need to do any talking, he could do it for me."
Kevin says it used to be the other way around, but as they got older, their personalities changed, and they've begun to look different enough that people can now tell them apart.
The close-knit twins from Placentia, Calif., now USU juniors, did not demand to be recruited as a package deal when they came out of Valencia High, which was 14-0 and won the CIF title in their senior year, when Kevin was a receiver/DB and Korey was a running back/receiver/DB who outscored Kevin because he got the ball more often. Once, Korey had three TDs in the first quarter and only touched the ball three times, Kevin says, adding, "He was more productive."
Both were also high school sprinters, though Korey was hurt as a senior when Kevin won the CIF 100 meters. Korey says Kevin has better form, but each could beat the other at different times.
Some schools recruited Kevin, others Korey. Utah State offered scholarships to both; that and being able to play as freshmen brought them to Logan. Kevin says they had their choice of positions, so he chose receiver. Korey says coaches wanted him as a DB, and he's happy there because he can use more skills, like backpedaling. Both play on special teams. "It's all paying off," says Korey. "My brother is getting things coming to him, and I'm getting things coming to me.
"We get along fine," says Korey. "We're far from home, and we rely on each other." Korey lives downstairs with four roommates; Kevin lives upstairs with six roommates. They practice against each other and argue who's better, but they watch movies or go to parties together. Both are majoring in communications. Korey wants to get into special film effects or journalism, and Kevin, who has a vivid imagination, has wanted to be a film cinematographer ever since his father sent him to the library to read up on that subject.
Their majors will require graduate school. For now, they concentrate on football and their friendship.
"I'm happy for him any time he scores," says Korey. "I feel like, hey, that's me, too."
In the case of Kevin's first TD on Saturday night, it almost was Korey. Korey set up the one-play, 15-yard scoring scenario by recovering the ball at the 15 when UNLV's Rodney Mazion fumbled a USU punt. "I was thinking he was going to score, but he got pushed out of bounds or something," says Kevin. "I thanked him big-time for that one."
Korey says, "He told me, `You should have had it.' "
Kevin also fumbled a punt away Saturday. He'd just scored his 41-yard TD, and Profail Grier had just run for a two-point PAT to cut UNLV's lead to 23-15. The Aggies forced UNLV to punt in four downs, but Kevin, on his very first punt return, dropped the ball and lost it. He hadn't wanted to return punts because it's dangerous since USU tries to block a lot of them and there's no help deep.
The fumble challenged him. "I've got a taste for it now," he says. That night, with USU losing, "I was just hoping to get another chance," he says.
UNLV drove to the Aggie 15, but Spencer Waggoner intercepted to give USU the ball on its own 2 and give Kevin that other chance. "Matt (Wells, QB) wanted to go deep," says Kevin, "and the receivers were going back to the sideleines and letting coaches know we could get past them, but we didn't want to separate from our game plan." Finally opportunity knocked on the sixth play of the drive, and Kevin darted 85 yards with Wells' pass. A failed PAT pass kept USU from tying the game it eventually lost 23-21.