That rascal John L. Smith.
Ron McBride's Utes just don't seem to know how to cope with the Aggie coach - whether he's at Idaho or Utah State.Last year it was Abu Wilson running all over the Utes for 144 yards and two scores.
Saturday night in Rice Stadium, where construction rubble in the parking lot mirrored the look of the hobbled Ute defense, Aggie sophomore Demario Brown ran anywhere he wanted for 153 yards and a TD as USU took its second straight victory over Utah, this one 21-14.
It was Smith's third win over McBride's Utes, and he's lost to them only once in his career.
It was Brown's fourth 100-plus-yard career game, the fourth in his last five games.
It was USU's first non-Big West road win since September 1994. It was Utah's first season-opening loss at home since 1995. It was the first time since 1974-76 that USU beat Utah back-to-back.
Groin Gate?
It wasn't mentioned.
"No, those guys played a wonderful game," said Aggie receiver Nakia Jenkins, talking about Utah and sounding sincere.
USU started with a 14-0 first-half lead, only to be tied 14-14 by late in the third quarter. Then the Aggies fell apart. A high snap had rookie punter Jerry Arguello chasing the ball back on his 15-yard line and finally kicking it off the ground out of bounds - a penalty - to give Utah possession with 14:19 left and all the momentum in the world.
The Utes didn't score.
The Ags then made an illegal block in the back on what would have been a 36-yard touchdown run by Brown, calling it back. But Utah's veteran defensive back Clarence Lawson ran into Aggie Stevie Smith on a long pass to give Utah State new life.
The Aggies did score.
Quarterback Matt Sauk, with TRIPS right and Brown left, found no one open, stepped left, found a lane and rushed eight yards for his second touchdown of the night for a seven-point lead.
"Coach called my number, and I wanted to prove I could run it," said Sauk (19-for-30 for 212 yards). "We were clicking real well in the first half."
The third quarter was a flat one for the Ags, "but in the fourth quarter, we took control of the ballgame," Sauk said.
Sauk said it was Aggie heart that won it. That and a defense that held Ute backs Chris Fuamatu-Ma'afala to 66 yards on 12 carries and Juan Johnson to nine carries for 26 yards. That forced Utah to pass, and rookie quarterback Jonathan Crosswhite was 19-for-30 for 222 yards and one touchdown. The Utes found a new star receiver in Daniel Jones, who grabbed nine passes for 151 yards, but it wasn't enough, despite the fact USU killed several of its own drives and even a score with penalties.
Utah still had nearly five minutes left after Sauk's second score. This is the kind of game the Aggies have often lost in the past. Not this time.
Last year, the Aggies had been indignant that the Utes were bragging up a win in 1995, and they thought that attitude helped them win. This year, the Utes were indignant that the Aggies were talking smack, but the Aggies smacked 'em twice. They earned the right to talk smack.
"They said it was a fluke," said Brown. "We knew deep down inside it wasn't."
An irritable McBride said USU "had more will to win than we did. You get down to the fourth quarter, you've got to have the will to win.
"They took it to us," McBride said. There was little else he could say except, "We had a lot of chances because of their penalties."
McBride was asked if it was a wakeup call. "There should be no wakeup call," he said.
The Aggies took up where they left off last year, holding the Utes scoreless for most of the first half and scoring twice in the second quarter as the experienced quarterback, USU's Sauk, looked very sure of himself.
Utah's rookie QB, Crosswhite, wasn't exactly full of the jitters.
"He wasn't a problem," said McBride.
It was the mistakes of others that kept Utah driving erratically. "We fooled around," McBride said, noting receivers in the wrong places, and the Utes lining up wrong on Tommy Truhe's first career field-goal try late in the first quarter. The Utes lined up for a right block and were supposed to be on the left. The kick was blocked.
That led to the Aggies' first score, although it didn't seem likely when they took over the ball on their own 5-yard line. With the help of a Ute face-mask penalty on third-and-2, USU put together a 95-yard drive with the longest playing being the first, an 8-yard run by Brown.
Sauk scored on a quarterback sneak from the 1, and Brad Bohn made the kick.
Ute scores were a 3-yard pass from Crosswhite to Tai Lepule with 1:49 left in the first half and a Fuamatu-Ma'afala 2-yard run late in the third quarter o tie it at 14-14.
NOTES: Crosswhite suffered the first big mistake of his Division 1 career at 13:18 of the third quarter when he went back to pass from the Ute 28 and dropped the ball over his shoulder, losing 8 yards. Next play? A 38-yard pass to Jones. Not bad poise for the youngster . . . Utah's student section in Rice Stadium looked a little smaller than usual, but it really wasn't, said Utah athletic director Chris Hill. The Salt Lake Olympic Organizing Commitee used up what is normally a student section with about 1,200 brightly clad people who were involved in the halftime ceremony to help launch Salt Lake City's new 2002 logo. But, said Hill, there was an equal amount of seating put aside for students in an end zone general-admission section . . . Wonder why P.A. announcer Mike Runge read the Olympic-themed halftime script near the end of the third quarter? The P.A. went out in the first half, and he couldn't talk.