The football God’s giveth and they taketh away. This SDSU football season may be the perfect case study in this phenomenon.
Saturday afternoon the Aztecs fell to 3-5 (2-2) on the season, when they got out scored by the Rams 3-4 (1-2), 56-29. It was the first PAC-12 victory for Colorado State in their inaugural season as full members of the conference.
For SDSU, though they’ve notched two conference wins previously, they have yet to secure a victory of any kind on the road this season. But at least for one game, the offense put up a game worthy of one. Or did they?
Stone Saunders earned the first start of his young college career when he led the Aztecs against the Rams in Fort Collins and he quickly showed why the anticipation for his opportunity was so great from SDSU fans.
23-33 for 369 yards are numbers that only tell half the story—for good and bad. Saunders first play of the game was a short pass to emerging WR Jaylon Hawkins that he took for 46 yards into Ram territory. From there you immediately could tell there was a different energy coming from the offense.
And that held true for the entire game. Saunders performance overall was much more sound in both mechanics and explosiveness than what we’ve seen from the Aztecs offense all season long.
Saunders connected on two scoring passes including a 46 yarder to Jaylon Hawkins in a beautiful over the should pass & catch and he also connected to a wide open Jordan Napier late in the 4th quarter to bring the Aztecs within one score.
Several other completions and even missed attempts all built around a much more cohesive performance that moved the chains, got the offense out of tough downs, and really ignited a sense of confidence to the rest of the team.
Seven different receivers caught multiple passes including to RB Javion Kinnard and TE Ryan Wolfer—options that just haven’t been on that end very often this season.
The upgrade in the passing game was balanced even more by a resurgent & healthy rushing game led by Lucky Sutton and Javion Kinnard. Each rusher gained 98 and 92 yards respectively against the Rams, as well as recoreding 2 TDs each on the afternoon.
They ran hard through, around and over the Rams, who have allowed running backs to do exactly that all season long. Kinnard facing his former team, had rushes of 19 and 32 yards in highlight fashion. Lucky was the bulldozer that punished the Rams defense to take some stress off the passing game.
All of this sounds better than good. But what beats better? For this game—a better offense.
Colorado State came into this game missing their QB1 Hauss Hejny the previous three weeks. He returned for this matchup and he clearly took over the game. Passing 24/31 for 333 yards and 3 TDs to 1 INT, Hejny was both dominant in dissecting the Aztecs defense through the air and on the ground where he also ran for 2 TDs.
The Rams rushing attack was also very good totaling 216 yards against SDSU and controlling the line of scrimmage at times. Both teams allowed over 500 yards of offense. That is crazy.
Rocky Long would not be happy watching this brand of Aztecs football.
The Aztecs defense was absolutely brutal. Porous to say the least. Missed tackles, blown assignments, soft coverages, not a lot of pressure on the QB like what we saw last week vs Fresno State. When there was opportunities, credit to Hejny for escaping the pocket and knowing exactly where to go with the ball to keep the Aztecs one step behind, every time.
The matchup between the two was the Aztecs struggling offense against the Rams struggling defense, and the Rams good offense against an Aztecs defense that has performed better than their rankings would suggest.
In the end, the Aztecs on both sides of the ball just weren’t as good as the Rams.
Though Stone Saunders performance should solidify him being QB1 the rest of the season with his decisiveness, pocket presence, and ability to open up Sean Lewis’ playbook—it was his errors and the wide receivers who let the offense fall behind in this one.
Just before the half and down 28-24, the Aztecs defense came up big picking off Hejny to give Saunders and the offense great field position near midfield. With under the 2 minute mark to score some points of any kind—as SDSU would receive the kickoff to start the 3rd quarter would’ve been just what the doctor would order.
The offenses first play after the turnover, Saunders held the ball for far too long and took a big loss of yards on a sack. SDSU then called a timeout to regroup. Very next play Saunders telegraphed a short pass attempted for Jordan Napier.
A Rams defender jumped the route and took it to the house for six. Immediately Aztecs went from down 4 to down 11. It was a game of catch-up the rest of the way, that also held another interception in the 4th quarter as well.
A lot will have to be looked at in this game as to why the Aztecs struggled so badly to stop the Rams. On the day CSU was 9-12 on 3rd down conversions, 2-2 on 4th down conversions, and were a perfect 100% of scoring in the red zone.
But no matter what those answers arrive to be, perhaps the Aztecs will make each game at least entertaining knowing they have a QB who can run this offense to always be in the fight. And just having a fighting chance is always half the battle.
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