Frustration is rife among those involved with San Diego State football, based on Internet posts, postgame comments and talk show calls following Saturday night's 20-17 last-second home loss to New Mexico.
Conservative play-calling, an ill-timed fumble by quarterback Kevin O'Connell and a win-preventing prevent defense all drew ire and blame for the loss, which dropped the Aztecs to 2-5 overall, and 1-2 in what's turning out to be a typically weak Mountain West Conference.
Ordinarily, fans of the red and black would be pleased with coming close against a team which had won the previous six meetings, and led last year's game 24-0 after just one quarter in Albuquerque. However, the Aztecs led this year's meeting nearly the entire way and had the ball several times in the second half with a chance to stretch their advantage to two touchdowns. That would have put the game away.
Alas, O'Connell's fumble on a run that otherwise would have resulted in a first down with under two minutes left in the game and would have sealed victory gave the Lobos a last chance at victory. They seized the opportunity. The Aztecs did not, which is why they lost.
And that's why we fans spent late-Saturday night frustrated.
But frustration in this program is actually a step up from where it once was. In 2006, the Aztecs lost that match with New Mexico 47-14. They fell to Texas Christian 52-0. They were similarly uncompetitive in losses to San Jose State, Brigham Young and Utah. They dropped a contest to Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo, for goodness sakes!
This year, things are better. Much better. They've been blown out just twice, to Washington State and Cincinnati, schools which just aren't out of their conference but at the moment out of their league, thanks to the hated BCS. They played very well in Tempe against an Arizona State squad that remains undefeated and is tied for the Pac-10 lead. They won in the final seconds on the road at Colorado State in difficult weather conditions -- leaving Rams fans feeling then like we do today. While they lost at Utah, their defense for the first time displayed the strides that were apparent last night.
Then came the New Mexico game. For the first time in about a decade, a San Diego State coach out-game planned and out-prepared the Lobos staff. The offensive line did not allow a sack after giving up 12 the previous two weeks. The defense kept an efficient quarterback and the conference's leading rusher bottled up most of the night, the only exceptions being drives against the prevent defense late in each half.
The bottom line is that the Aztecs are back to being competitive again in the Mountain West. That means games will be relatively close and some will come down to the wire, like last night, so mistakes like O'Connell's fumble, a worthless prevent defense and a failure to go for it on fourth and one at midfield in the third quarter will be magnified. Just as O'Connell's interception at Utah turned out to be huge. Just as his scramble on the game-winning drive in Fort Collins that led to a key third down conversion pass to Brett Swain was the play of that game.
So when we win these games, we'll celebrate and all will be right with the world. When we lose, our blood pressure goes up and we point to all kinds of individual things that happened throughout a game that maybe, by themselves, contributed to a heart-sickening loss.
Me, I'll take a couple doses of frustration over what I felt last year. And, to be honest, what I felt again while watching the Cincinnati game.
I know now that we can compete with BYU and Wyoming in the next two weeks and believe we should win one of those games. If all goes well, maybe we win both. We'll see. This team remains greatly undermanned, but with recruiting going well and some youngsters stepping up, that's something that won't last much longer.
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A lot of fans appear to be blaming the New Mexico loss on coach Chuck Long and his staff. In such a close call, as noted above, it's easy to point at some individual failure and say it cost us the game. Most of the ire goes to conservative play calling that resulted in 12 runs and 6 passes in the fourth quarter, or that third quarter decision not to go for it on fourth down.
None of it would have mattered if O'Connell hadn't fumbled. Okay, maybe I'm pointing at just one thing, but the game was over if he'd protected the ball. It's just how the plot line went. It's magnified.
Really, though, San Diego State football fans should be pleased with this coaching staff in two of the three main areas of their duties: their game-planning and their Monday-Friday work of recruiting and changing the character of their losing program. Considering the resources they have available, they've been tremendous in those areas.
The last remaining area is game management. On Saturdays, between the opening kickoff and the final gun, these coaches have often resembled Keystone Kops. They've needed timeouts after TV timeouts. In the New Mexico game, a problem in the secondary required a timeout, before the first play of the fourth quarter!
There's been three fourth-and-shorts in the past couple games in which this staff has decided not to go for it. Hard to say whether their decisions were correct. Considering they've lost the last two games, maybe they were not. At some point, though, they are going to have to show some confidence in their players, or their athletes -- who have fought hard loss after loss -- might give up on their coaches. Which would be a shame.
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