The San Diego State Aztecs are a bad football team. We are inept and ill prepared. Five sacks, four fumbles, three of which were lost and the inability to catch a punt is indicative of a football team searching for its collective soul.
I, again, call for the end of Maxwell Smith’s reign as starting quarterback. 10 for 29 is not an Aztec quarterback. Another anemic performance (and I’m being polite). While acknowledging he was sacked five times, those sacks emphasize Mr. Smith’s lack of mobility that in turn results in an astonishingly bad 242 total yards of offense. This is Aztec football? Christian Chapman eludes some of those sacks because he can move from side to side, step into the pocket and actually run forward. Mr. Smith was the primary author of 6 yards gained in the first quarter. 6. The number found between 5 and 7. In the second quarter, he revved up the offense to 72 total yards. Feel the excitement. Why does Rocky continue to start Mr. Smith? Why does Jeff Horton remain blind to the need for change? Finally, when a starting quarterback’s longest completed pass is 31 yards, the defense stuffs any and all attempts to establish a running game since the first seven guys can stand at the line of scrimmage and wave “hello” to Pumphrey, Price, Penny and Gordon.
Our field position was so bad that Donny Hageman was not handed a single field goal opportunity. We converted a lousy 5 of 17 third down opportunities. Boo.
8:16 represents the Aztecs time of possession for the entire first half. Unbelievable. In the second quarter, we had the ball for less than 4 minutes. Incredible for the wrong reason.
The defense played better than the Cal and South Alabama games, but we continue to allow too many big plays especially on the back-end of the secondary.
Mountain West play begins this weekend. We stumble into MW town with a 1-3 record looking disheveled, dirty and disoriented. We haven’t played well the entire four games leading to MW play. Cold comfort can be found that the rest of the West division played about as poorly as we did in non-conference games. Fresno State and their loyal hordes of fans (yes, I’m jealous) roar into the Q next Saturday. Candidly, the Aztecs must steam roll the rest of the schedule for any chance at a bowl game. I trust change is underway and we will see a mobile, smart, redshirt freshman by the last name of Chapman directing our offense that will finally resemble an Aztec offense we can recognize.
tipmypitch 