Utah State had one of the more embarrassing performances in Week 1 of the college football season with a 29-17 home loss to Idaho State. However, the Aggies clearly had something to prove and played with much more grit in Saturday’s road game against No. 19 Washington.
Still, the result was the same, as Utah State fell to 0-2 after the 16-14 road loss to the Huskies when a Hail Mary attempt in the final seconds resulted in an interception.
“There’s no chance that I’m going to be faulting their effort or their preparation that they put in all week to give us a chance right to the very end,” Utah State coach Bronco Mendenhall said. “That’s short of our goal. I’m still proud of the growth and the development of this team and who they’re becoming.”
Starting with the good, Utah State played really well in two of the three phases of the game Saturday.
The defense played especially well and was outright dominant in some portions of the contest. It allowed only one touchdown all afternoon and just one field goal off three turnovers, though the last turnover ended the game.
Utah State trailed by two points with 1:49 to go, and the defense forced a quick three-and-out to give the Aggies a chance to win.
The defensive line did particularly well to stop the Washington run, especially on third down. The Huskies converted on only six of their 17 third downs and were 0 of 1 on fourth down.
“Third down is obviously a huge part of the game,” said safety Brevin Hamblin, who had seven tackles. “Anytime we can get off the field and allow our offense to have the opportunity to move the ball and get points on the board, it’s huge. It’s a big momentum shift when you get the (third-and-short) stops.”
Special teams also had a nice outing, and punter Landon Rehkow really helped out the defense. Rehkow averaged 46 yards on his six punts, and five of them landed inside the 20.
“He might have been the MVP of the game, as well as our punt return team,” Mendenhall said. “We were able to play complementary football most of the night, meaning our field position compared to their field position really allowed the style of play and the way the matchup was tonight to give us a chance.
“So really impressed with Landon, our cover team, but also, on the flip side, our punt return. I thought those two units complemented very well.”
However, Utah State’s most significant issues came on offense. Starting quarterback McCae Hillstead was out with an injury, and backup Grady Brosterhous made his first career start.
Additionally, just as in Week 1, the Aggies really struggled to run the ball as the offensive line just didn’t create the lanes necessary to establish the run.
Brosterhous had a few scrambles that netted first downs, but he was the only player with positive rushing yards. Running backs Javen Jacobs and Sesi Vailahi combined for -6 rushing yards, and Utah State finished with just 75 total.
“Quarterback scramble is our only running game, just to be blunt,” Mendenhall said. “Blocking, execution of blocking and just consistency of being able to have holes that our backs can find is apparent for sure.
“Our plus-one runs with the quarterback weren’t much better, but our scrambles were, with Grady just creating. Lots of work to do in the run game.”
The Aggies also really struggled to move the chains and keep the offense off the field. They were just 6 for 13 on third downs.
The sole first-half touchdown for Utah State came on a 78-yard catch-and-run from Javon Robinson. Outside of that play, the offense couldn’t do much.
A stretch to start the second half was especially bad. The Aggies went three-and-out on all three of their drives in the third quarter and netted only two total yards.
In all, seven of Utah State’s drives ended in either a three-and-out or an interception.
However, Brosterhous looked like he was starting to figure it out late in the fourth quarter, as he had a couple of nice passes and runs, which culminated in a touchdown reception for Eli Wood to cut the Aggie deficit to 16-14 with 1:50 remaining.
But toward the end of that drive, Mendenhall was forced to use one of his remaining two timeouts to avoid an illegal formation penalty, which also ended up burning the two-minute timeout before the offense could use the field.
The defense forced a three-and-out to give the offense a chance and Utah State quickly marched down to the Washington 39-yard line with just four seconds left.
Mendenhall elected to try for the Hail Mary, but Washington picked it off for its third interception of the game.
Brosterhous finished his first career start with 196 passing yards, two touchdowns and three interceptions.
“He’s tough. He scrambled, he took hits and he didn’t play perfect, but our team believes in him,” Mendenhall said. “He epitomizes, I think, what resiliency and tough people look like.
“We have a long, long way to go offensively in terms of production and points and scheme and discovering and executing exactly what we need to do.”
A date with No. 20 Utah looms ahead for the Aggies next week.