Were the Aggies really as bad as they looked against USC?

After last weekend’s loss to USC, the general narrative surrounding Utah State football is that the Aggies are not good.
ESPN’s Football Power Index now has USU as the second worst team in the Mountain West Conference, ahead of only Wyoming, which is 0-2 with losses to Arizona State and Idaho.
Nevada Sports Net’s Chris Murray similarly rates the Aggies No. 11 in the 12-team league following the loss to USC, the scoreless nature of the Aggies’ loss to the Trojans being a real issue.
Mountain West Connection’s Mike Wittmann is a bit more optimistic at this point, ranking USU No. 6 in the MW, but that placement has as much to do with what the Aggies have done in past seasons — rallying from poor starts to become bowl eligible — as it does with how this season has gone.
Nevada head coach Jeff Choate, while discussing his team’s schedule this season, bemoaned missing the Aggies this year, describing them, along with Wyoming, New Mexico and San Jose State, as the bottom half of the league.
None of it is all that surprising.
Losing 48-0, even against a team the caliber of USC, tends to deflate opinions.
Throw in early struggles against Robert Morris, an FCS team that lost to a Division II team (Edinboro) last week, and the fact that Utah State entered the season with plenty of question marks to begin with and it would be much more surprising for anyone to be optimistic about Utah State.
Were the Aggies actually as bad against the Trojans as they appeared, though?
That is one of biggest questions looming ahead of Utah State’s rivalry matchup with No. 12 Utah this Saturday.
If the Aggies are really as bad as 48-0 against USC suggests, then it is likely another blowout awaits them, this time at home in Maverik Stadium.
If USU is better than the final scoreboard reflected in Los Angeles, though, perhaps the Aggies can give the Utes a game.
As far as Utah State interim head coach Nate Dreiling is concerned, the Aggies played better on the whole against the Trojans than the final score indicated. Film review suggests that, at least.
“Learned a lot from the tape,” Dreiling said. “We were really close on some plays, but when you are playing an opponent of that magnitude, everything has gotta be perfect and we just weren’t there that night. I thought the kids competed extremely tough, players were resilient the whole night. Whether you watch the first half of the last half, you wouldn’t know the difference in terms of players playing hard. That was the best takeaway.”
Where Dreiling came away most pleased with the Aggies’ performance was, interestingly enough, on offense. Specifically the run game.
Running backs Rahsul Faison and Herschel Turner averaged six and 4.8 yards per carry on the night — the duo combined to rush for 92 yards on 17 carries — an encouraging showing by both USU’s offensive line and its tailbacks.
“So we ran the ball pretty well,” Dreiling said. “It was just hard to continually do it every snap. As soon as you get behind the sticks, it was just too tough to overcome.”
That was the major issue for the offense, Dreiling continued. The passing attack struggled and the run game alone couldn’t sustain the type of drives that would lead to points.
“I think it is just hard with that type of defense,” he said. “They are obviously extremely talented. It is hard to sustain 8 to 15 play drives.”
Pro Football Focus tends to agree with Dreiling.
Seven of the top 10 rated Utah State players thus far this year — on offense — are either linemen or running backs, with Faison rating second on the team behind only tight end Will Monney.
This issue against USC was that Utah State’s passing attack proved ineffective for most of the night, even though the O-line only surrendered three sacks.
“Probably could’ve ran it a little bit more,” Dreiling said. “… When we were ahead of the sticks and it was 3rd and 3, those drives were rolling. When it was 3rd and 9, that is just too hard.”
Defensively, Dreiling noted that the Aggies played better than the scoreboard indicated, but it took a little too long for that side of the ball to settle down and play how it needed to.
“We were close on some things,” Dreiling said. “We just didn’t have the detail that we needed. They knew the scheme, they trusted it, but we just kind of panicked a little bit out of the gate and by that point it was too hard to catch up.”
A good indication of that was how USU fared against the Trojans’ rushing attack. The Aggies were gashed on the ground early in the game — USU allowed more than 100 yards rushing on the ground in the first quarter and 174 total rushing yards in the first half.
USC finished with 249 yards on the ground in the game, though, as the Aggies stiffened up considerably even while USC tried to shorten the game by running 37 times in total.
“We emphasized that we had to be big on stopping the run,” linebacker Clyde Washington said. “… Hopefully people saw that we showed tremendous effort. We don’t lay down easily. We showed fight to the end.”
That Utah State was able to slow USC down on the ground, at least a bit, while also limiting big plays — the Trojans longest play of the game was a 34 yard reception — was notable.
For Dreiling, the game really game down to his team not being perfect in a game where they needed to be.
USC was too talented and too well coached for the Aggies to not play at their best. And they didn’t for much of the night.
“You saw some good football in the second quarter,” he said. “When we were calmed down and playing our style of football. The score was 20-0 with two minutes to go in the first half and we had the ball with a chance to make it a 20-7 game. And we were getting the ball coming out of halftime. But then we have an interception. It was just that kind of night. We needed things to go right.”
None of the Aggies came away happy with the loss to USC. Especially not in the manner that it happened. But they’ll argue that things weren’t as bad as they initially looked.
“Obviously no one is excited or happy with the outcome,” Dreiling said. “We know we have to continue to move and work in that direction. It was close. It was a lot closer than you think if you just look at the scoreboard, but everything has to go perfect in those games. We are just going to continue to harp on the details and sticking with our identity.”