The #21/22 Aztecs will play the 2nd of back to back road games this Saturday when they travel to the altitudes of Colorado Springs and take on the Air Force Academy football team. The game will take place at Falcon Stadium on the grounds of the academy and will be the 37th game between the two sides. Air Force leads the series with 19 wins, while SDSU is two games off at 17, but have won each of the last 8 games in a row.
The game kicks off on Saturday, October 23rd at 16:00 hour, or 4:00 PM PST for all you civilians. The game will be available to watch via CBS Sports Network and the radio call is on the home of the Aztecs Xtra Sports 1360 AM.
This contest is a very interesting matchup. The Aztecs are coming in on a roll—obviously undefeated and feeling good after a game winning double-OT touchdown pass & reception, to get past last years Mountain West champions, the San Jose State Spartans.
Each week Sons of Montezuma sits down with our resident head coach, Coach Carrasco, or Coach ‘C’ to take a deeper look at Aztecs football. All of these amazing weekly videos can be found in our Film Room page or at our Sons of Montezuma YouTube channel. This week we looked at two plays that Coach C analyzed for Aztecs football. One play of SDSU against the San Jose State defense–and the other play of Air Force last week against the offense from Boise State. We’ve transcribed some of the conversation here and for the Film room video, just click below!
But looking forward, Air Force will drive you nuts. One thing about Air Force, they are going to win the time of possession. Their whole game plan is to keep as many possessions away from the opponent as they can. They’re going to milk that clock–have six to seven, to eight minute drives, and you might get two possessions a quarter. So you’re looking at eight to nine positions for the whole game. The Aztecs have to make not only all of those positions count, but they’ve got to find as many touchdowns as they can get against this team. If they don’t get sevens and end up punting the ball, you run the risk of not seeing the ball again for another eight to nine minutes.
Even if the Falcons don’t score on their long time consuming drives, that’s just the way they do it and if they get within a yard or two on fourth down, they’re gonna go for it. Air Force throws the gauntlet of every run play at their opponent—it is what they do and with Haaziq Daniels as their quarterback, he’s a great athlete who’s tough enough. The running backs are tough, but really, the Offensive line is the key to that whole operation.
So how do the Aztecs got to do to make sure that we find a way every time we’re in the red zone and this is what this clip is all about. We got a 33 situation and you have to come up with sevens every time you’re in the red zone. But what goes into a pass play and how difficult is it when you’re talking about a simple pass play here. Number one is pass protection. The quarterback has to have the ability to understand is there any threat of a certain pressure coming because if you’re going to send three receivers and we don’t see the number one receiver down here, and all but you got to tie it in here.
San Diego State runs the ball so well that all defenses are gonna honor their play actions. San Diego State just has to be careful they don’t play action each and every pass play—Because timing is crucial. So it’s no surprise that after all of the timing issues with quarterback Jordon Brookshire, that new QB1 Lucas Johnson got the move up.
Because San Diego State is also a run heavy team. This is going to be a fast football game. And in so that aspect of it all, even if San Diego State doesn’t pass the ball at a high level—if they run the ball at a high level—if you’re getting to the promised land, who cares how you do it! If you get to the promised land, you keep that pressure on Air Force and put Daniels in a position where he’s forced to pass. Air Force did pop a couple on Boise State with some nice passes, but it’s not their comfort zone.
