If you read this blog regularly, you know I’m a positive fella who likes finding the good in everything. So before we dig into SDSU’s 42-24 loss at South Alabama – a nobody Sun Belt team that is now officially our daddy – let’s look for silver linings! Hey, I just thought of a few:
- It only gets easier from here as there are no invincible Sun Belt titans left on the schedule.
- We can officially stop giving a crap about how Cal or Houston or Western Michigan do.
- SDSU probably wasn’t going to a New Year’s Six bowl no matter what.
- I like listening to The Smiths in the dark, and I’m now inspired to do so.
- That No. 19 ranking made us look like conceited braggarts.
- Last time the Aztecs were ranked, it lasted only one week before they lost to a garbage team. Thanks to a bye, this year’s ranking lasted three calendar weeks!
- The Big 12 wasn’t watching anyway.
- You’ll have plenty of space to toss around the old pigskin in the Qualcomm parking lot on Saturday. Lotsa elbow room, yessir.
- Grim death stalks us all, and looms closer than you think.
SEE! It really wasn’t so bad! Oh god no
kjvfjuvfdjkhvdkjnbdkjdfbkjvdnvfjnfdkjnvkjvkjnvd OH MY GOD I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS BULLSHIT HAPPENED AGAIN!!! Why do we allow this team into our lives when we know it will only bring suffering? Why do we let SPORTS dictate our happiness? Why don’t I quit my job and disappear into the woods to subsist off a diet of berries, tubers and grubs (you know, again)?
Who can answer these questions, really? There is a question I can answer with a decent amount of confidence: The question of why this happened. That one’s pretty easy:
We’re not as good as we thought.
A lot of people over the next couple of days are going to be eager to pin this debacle on a backup longsnapper – a poor kid thrust into action by an injury, only to screw up an extra point and then airmail Tanner Blain at the worst possible time. And that kinda sucks.
The backup longsnapper – number 69 in your scorebooks, a big zero in some of your cold, embittered hearts – is not the reason the Aztecs looked so poorly coached tonight. SDSU, bitten by dumb penalties all season, committed another 10 for 85 yards. Most of those mistakes were the result of players being aggressive, which is usually forgivable. Forgivable, that is, so long as you’re not plowing over punters or jumping offsides over and over again to extend your opponent’s drive. Or doing an idiotic throat slash gesture after scoring a briefly held go-ahead touchdown.
The Aztecs jumped offsides twice while you read that paragraph.
The backup longsnapper is not the reason the Aztecs’ secondary keeps getting torched deep game after game. Giving up a bunch of deep strikes to Davis Webb and the Bear Raid is one thing – they do that to everyone. But for the second consecutive game, SDSU’s secondary looked leaky against a backup Group of Five quarterback. This time it was Brett Favre Cole Garvin – a sophomore transfer seeing the field for the first time in three years – completing nearly 80 percent of his passes, including TDs of 37 and 79 yards against SDSU’s veteran secondary. That seems like a thing that should not be happening.
The backup longsnapper is not the reason the Aztecs’ offense is unable to mount comebacks effectively. There’s a reason SDSU’s 13-game winning streak (RIP) included exactly one comeback win. Well, other then the fact that most of the opponents were bloody awful. SDSU’s offense can move the chains and control the clock, but playing from behind ain’t it’s forte. Christian Chapman is an adequate-to-good game manager, and may someday be more than that, but right now if opponents know the Aztecs need to pass, we’re in some shit.
Also it would be nice if our QB1 didn’t horrifically mangle key handoffs late in games. That one went for game-clinching pick-it-up-off-the-ground six.
It would also be nice if our Heisman candidate, or perhaps Mr. Rashaad Penny, would be the recipient of said key handoffs. The backup longsnapper didn’t make that decision either.
The aftermath
Something you probably don’t want to hear right now: This loss really didn’t change the Aztecs’ bowl prospects in the big picture of the season. Yes, the ranking is gone and the community will probably tune out now, as is our way. But before the game, SDSU’s realistic best-case scenario was probably the Las Vegas Bowl and it’s worst case was the Poinsettia.
That hasn’t changed in the slightest.
If the Aztecs run the table against a pretty bad MWC slate, they might just get their ranking back. And if they do, they’ll get a crack at Boise State with another banner and a trip to Vegas on the line.
Don’t get me wrong, this really sucks. This loss was awful and you are 100 percent right to feel like a dope for dreaming big dreams about the San Diego State Aztecs. Serves you right, really.
But know that the chance for a special season is still there. Well, special-ish anyway.
So do what you need to do to cope. You know what I’ll be doing.
KABEER THIRTY 