AU FOOTBALL 2011 PREVIEWS: Getting to know Utah State
EDITOR’S NOTE: In the weeks leading up to Auburn’s 2011 football season, the Opelika-Auburn News will take a look at the Tigers’ upcoming opponents. This week: Utah State, which will travel to the Plains on Sept. 3.
If anything, Utah State could be one of the FBS leaders in syllables.
The amount of double vowels and diphthongs, along with the sheer number of letters that populate the Aggies’ roster, makes the pronunciation guide in the spring prospectus a must when getting to know Auburn’s first opponent of the 2011 season.
Funaki Asisi.
Bojay Filimoeatu.
Taani Fisilau.
Elvis Kamana-Matagi.
Just to name a few.
Beyond the names, the Aggies are a WAC team coming off back-to-back 4-8 seasons under third-year coach Gary Andersen, but returning 16 starters, including nine on the offensive end.
Andersen came over from Utah, where he was the assistant head coach and defensive coordinator for five years. He ended his stint there with a 31-17 win over Alabama in the Sugar Bowl.
The Aggies run a spread offense that featured a 48.6-51.4 run-pass split in yardage last year — eat your heart out, Gus Malzahn — and a 3-4 defense that is designed to let senior All-WAC linebacker Bobby Wagner run around and hit things.
But it’s also a defense that allowed 428.8 yards and 38.8 points per game last year, including a 50-14 shellacking at Boise State to end the season.
Here are five more things you should know about the Aggies:
1) They’ve got a quarterback race going on, too: Playing the role of Cam Newton is three-year starter Diondre Borel, who accounted for 2,406 yards and 15 scores as a senior last year.
The Aggies’ battle consisted of three men throughout the spring — junior-college transfer Adam Kennedy, sophomore Jeremy Higgins and redshirt freshman Alex Hart — but Higgins has since opted to transfer to Hawaii after it became clear he wasn’t one of the Aggies’ top two.
Those two would be Kennedy, the 6-foot-5, 210-pounder who spent his past two years at San Joaquin Delta College in Stockton, Calif., before throwing for 131 yards in the annual Blue-White game, and Hart, the 6-2, 195-pound homebred candidate from Draper, Utah, who threw for 261 yards and two scores in the spring scrimmage.
The Aggies are also expecting freshman Chuckie Keeton, a 6-2, 185-pound, dual-threat quarterback out of Cypress, Texas, to challenge for the job once he gets on campus in the summer.
“We will look at the film on those two young men and evaluate it hard,” Andersen told the Logan (Utah) Herald Journal after the spring game. “We will let them compete for the (No. 1) spot a little bit in the fall. We will let it go for a week or week-and-a-half at the most before we make a decision.”
Sound familiar?
2) They have speed to burn at running back: The Aggies lost last year’s leading rusher Derrvin Speight and his 779 yards to graduation.
But they’ve got a 1,000-yard rusher returning.
Robert Turbin, a 5-10, 216-pound junior, ran for 1,296 yards in 2009, but sat out last year after tearing his ACL in offseason workouts.
He was limited during the spring and held out of the spring game, but is expected to take back over as the Aggies’ feature back in the fall.
They also have 5-9, 184-pound junior Kerwynn Williams back there, a burner who ran for 451 yards and caught 12 passes for 110 yards last season.
But that’s not the most impressive part of his resume: He set the FBS record in kick return yards (1,444) last year and already holds the WAC career record (2,575) after two seasons.
3) Seriously, Wagner gets around: The 6-1, 230-pounder from Ontario, Calif., led the WAC with 11.1 tackles per game last season — including 17-stop performances against Fresno State and New Mexico State — and tied for seventh in the FBS in tackles per game.
He has double-digit tackles in 14 of his 35 career games and led the next closest Aggie tackler by 42 stops last year. He had the third-place guy by 71.
4) They had a third-round draft pick this year: Cornerback Curtis Marsh, who went to the Philadelphia Eagles with the 90th selection.
He’s one of three Utah State players who graduated from the secondary, players that accounted for more than half of the Aggies’ interceptions last year.
They do return junior nickelback Quinton Byrd, who picked off three passes last year, and senior safety Walter McClenton, who had not one, but two pick-6s off of Kennedy during the spring.
5) They’ve been here before: Utah State traveled to Norman, Okla., for the opening game of the 2010 season and almost knocked off the future Fiesta Bowl-champion Sooners.
A 31-yard pass from Borel to Xavier Martin, who returns this year, brought the Aggies within a touchdown with 2:31 left in the third quarter against No. 7 Oklahoma last Sept. 4.
The two teams traded punts and turnovers the whole final frame, with the Sooners picking off a pass with 4:12 to go and running the clock out on a 31-24 win.
ABOUT THE UTAH STATE AGGIES
Coach: Gary Andersen (Utah, 1986); 3rd season, 8-16
2010 Season: 4-8 (2-6 WAC)
Returning Starters: 16 (9 offense, 6 defense, 1 special teams)
Base Offense: Spread
Base Defense: 3-4
Key Offensive Returner: RB Robert Turbin (Jr., 5-10, 216) – ran for 1,296 yards as a sophomore in 2009 before missing last season due to an ACL tear.
Key Defensive Returner: ILB Bobby Wagner (Sr., 6-1, 230) – led the WAC and tied for seventh in the FBS with 11.1 tackles per game last year, 133 total.
Cream of the Recruiting Crop: DE Bojay Filimoeatu (Jr., 6-2, 250) – the hybrid DE/OLB fits well into the Aggies’ 3-4 scheme. The transfer from Mount San Antonio (Calif.) C.C. also had offers from Iowa State, Kansas State and Nevada.
Fun Fact: The Aggies play on Merlin Olsen Field, named after the recently deceased legendary Utah State and Los Angeles Ram defensive tackle who went on to be a commentator for NBC and an actor on such shows as Little House on the Prairie. You can find Olsen Field at Romney Stadium, named for the Aggies’ all-time winningest football coach Dick Romney, who was a cousin of 2012 Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney.
