thanks redsfann, yeah im not too sure either on the pick...
some articles of interest from sd..
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The Big Ten, which can't properly count how many schools it has, is big, not impregnable. Northwestern lost a football game 34-17 to New Hampshire over the weekend. Illinois visited Rutgers and was shut out 33-0. So David lives on. He still can work his magic sling on large people. San Diego State can't. Or hasn't.
The Aztecs have threatened. They've recently scared Ohio State and Michigan in their huge homes. Maybe scares count on Halloween. Remember: There's no such thing as a bad win and no such thing as a good loss. The Aztecs' cigar humidor remains empty. They've failed in their last nine tries against Big Ten schools, and they'll be two-touchdown underdogs Saturday when they pop in on Wisconsin.
Can the Badgers be had? Of course. They're 2-0, but they've eaten up cream cheese, Bowling Green and Western Illinois. Still, the fact remains that they're a Big Ten team, which means they're large, and State had problems blocking lighter UTEP in its opening loss on Aug. 31.
So here's Chuck Long, the latest Aztecs football coach.
He dropped his opener at home, 34-27, to a team his guys outgained 384 yards to 223.
He lost his starting quarterback, Kevin O'Connell, to a thumb injury. Now he goes with sophomore Darren Mougey, similar in size (6-6, 230) and mobility to O'Connell. Mougey was very good after O'Connell went down in the third quarter and led a terrific comeback, completing 12-of-16 passes for 178 yards and running for 41 more. But the sophomore never has started a game and his first comes in a difficult place to win.
The Aztecs lost because O'Connell fumbled the ball away on his goal line and punter Michael Hughes, considered one of the nation's best, had an awful night (although he had a good excuse), shanking two short kicks. UTEP really couldn't sustain much.
?It's like having two more turnovers when you don't punt the ball well,? Long says. ?We have to get better on special teams and that's always an unknown part of the game going in. It takes a game to see who the special-teams producers are. We'll have a much better idea going into this game.?
Long wants to run the ball. He has a nice livery of backs, but they can't run when there's nowhere to go. Scrambles by Mougey and O'Connell were by far the most productive running plays in the opener. The coach must have better run blocking and Wisconsin doesn't look like an enticing place to start.
History is with the cheeseheads. The Aztecs have played the Badgers four times, winning the teams' first meeting ? in 1979 ? but haven't been close since. The teams have played 240 minutes of football against each other and State has held a lead for 28:24, 18 of those minutes coming in the teams' first rendezvous.
At least Long will be walking familiar acreage. He played and coached at Iowa, one of the Big Ten's 11 schools.
?We were overanxious in the beginning,? Long says of his offensive line. ?We were trying too hard. We finally got them to relax at halftime, settled them down. We stayed on our blocks better in the second half and things opened up for us a bit.
?Wisconsin's a Big Ten type of team. They play smash-mouth football. They try to lean on you every down. We have to counter by keeping our guys fresh. For us to go toe-to-toe with them is not something we want to do all day long, although there will be moments when we have to.?
As a rule, coaches don't like early-season byes, but the week off following UTEP was welcomed by Long. It gave him more time to prepare for Wisconsin. It allowed Mougey to take more practice reps he wasn't getting during fall drills, when he even did some work as a receiver. And it gave Hughes, who had two surgeries in July to remove a cancerous growth from his kicking foot, time to regain his rhythm.
?We treated the off week as another week of training camp,? Long says. ?It was perfect for us. We needed it, just to get better in our system and it gave us time for more Wisconsin preparation.?
Long, a former Iowa quarterback who finished second to Bo Jackson in the 1985 Heisman Trophy voting, knows the position. And he likes Mougey, who came to State with a pedigree, considered one of the best pass-run quarterbacks in the country as an Arizona prep.
?During my career, I have learned how to deal with these situations,? Long says. ?I've basically had this situation every year I've coached. Having a quarterback hurt is familiar territory.
?We named Kevin our starter and he got most of the reps, but Darren acted as though he didn't believe us. He put blinders on and kept working. I wasn't surprised he did so well.?
But that was UTEP. This is Wisconsin.
?This is a map game for us,? Long says. ?Win this game and it puts you on the map.?
We know where San Diego State is. We just don't know where it's going.
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On Wisconsin means a heavy dose of the ground game
September 14, 2006
It was an open-door policy, a get-out-of-jail-free card that allowed opposing running backs to frolic like kids in a fun house.
San Diego State's rush defense a year ago ranked 95th in the nation among 117 Division I-A teams. The Aztecs finished eighth in the nine-team Mountain West Conference, allowing more than 185 yards per game.
It began with UCLA's Maurice Drew rushing for 114 yards and two touchdowns on just 11 carries in Week 1. The following week it was Air Force fullback Jacobe Kendrick carrying 26 times for 128 yards and four touchdowns. In the two games combined, SDSU yielded a whopping 85 points.
Should such a collapse occur Saturday at Wisconsin, things could get nasty in a hurry. In redshirt freshman P.J. Hill, the Badgers offer a replica of former Wisconsin great Ron Dayne. Hill, who at 5 feet, 11 inches and 242 pounds is just three pounds lighter than SDSU defensive end Antwan Applewhite, has rushed for more than 100 yards in each of the Badgers' first two games and ranks third in the Big Ten with an average of 115.5 yards per game.
?We know what they want to do, and what they want to do is smash the football in there a number of times,? Aztecs coach Chuck Long said of a Wisconsin offense whose line averages nearly 320 pounds. ?I'm very impressed with P.J. Hill. Like Ron Dayne, he's strong, he's compact and he runs very hard. We're going to have to do a good job of gang-tackling, and that's going to be a very big focus for us going into the game.
?If you watch their first two games (wins over Bowling Green and Western Illinois), that failure to swarm to the ball is what got those other teams in trouble. He (Hill) would break that first tackle and then there weren't enough guys around to slow him down. We know they're going to run the ball.?
Wisconsin, which is averaging 153 yards on the ground, has recorded 123 total plays in its first two games. It has run the ball 80 times.
In their season opener against UTEP, the Aztecs allowed just 30 yards rushing and 248 total yards. Only twice last season did SDSU surrender fewer than 250, once in a win over San Jose State and the other in a loss to UNLV.
Part of the recent success may be because the Aztecs now offer two 300-pound tackles in Jonathan Bailes and Ornan Nwansi. A year ago, Nwansi was a reserve and 260-pound Nick Osborn, now the starter at right defensive end, was moved inside. End result? Mismatch. ?It's all about fundamental football when you play against a team like (Wisconsin) and a guy like (Hill),? said defensive coordinator Bob Elliott. ?Keep your body square, get lower than the guy with the ball, all of those things that you preach all the time are going to have to come home to roost on Saturday or a guy like (Hill) is going to run right over you.
?We're going to have to be very stout up front, and I think we will be. Our guys up front have been battling pretty good, and I think we have better depth this year than we've had in the past. It's allowed us to rotate some guys through there and give other guys a blow.?
That additional depth (projected starting tackle Fred Amano has returned after recently undergoing arthroscopic knee surgery) figures to prove invaluable against the Badgers, who also offer 241-pound senior tailback Dywon Rowan and Lance Smith, whose 41 yards rushing against Bowling Green were the most by a Wisconsin true freshman in a decade in a season opener.
The key, however, will be finding a way to slow Hill, who had 130 yards against Bowling Green before finishing with 101 last week against Western Illinois. The 19-year-old native of Brooklyn, N.Y., is averaging 5.2 yards per carry.
?The thing about P.J. is that he's a player who's really into the game,? said Badgers coach Bret Bielema. ?As football coaches, we're always trying to measure players by how fast they are, how big they are or what their vertical jump was at the Nike combine. P.J. is a guy who enjoys the game and is very competitive. I know our kids feel it, and our crowd feels it when he's got the football.?
It's a feeling SDSU would prefer to avoid experiencing.
?Most of the time (Wisconsin's rushing) yards are coming after the first contact,? Bailes said. ?From film, we've seen players who have been in position to make the tackle, but they haven't done it. These backs we'll face are pretty good. We also know we're going to be facing one of the biggest offensive lines we'll see all year, but we're not intimidated. We need to have everyone swarming, hustling to the ball and making plays.?
