Aggies fall short in Salt Lake

SALT LAKE CITY – In what could be the last chapter of the Battle of the Brothers for some years, Utah State put up a fight but lost 24-14 after two fourth-quarter drives resulted in turnovers deep in Utah territory Friday night. Both head coach Matt Wells and quarterback Chuckie Keeton agreed there was noticeable improvement from week one, but that doesn’t mean they were happy about it.

“It’s a loss,” Wells said. “We’re not going to spin it any other way than that. This program didn’t come down here to play good. This program didn’t come down here to show improvement over game one, we came down here to win a dad-gum ball game. We came up short.”

Keeton completed 22 of 35 passes for 256 yards and two touchdowns. His last touchdown tied the school record for most touchdown passes in a career. He did all this while playing most of the night in pain after taking a shot to the knee early in the game. The hit resulted in a personal foul against Utah, but may have affected the Aggies more.

“Chuckie Keeton is a winner,” Wells said. “You guys can see it, he can’t even walk. After every other hit, he gets up and battles, he’s a warrior in every sense of the word.”

Keeton had much less to say about his pain.

“I took a hit,” he said. “I’m good.”

The Utes got the ball to start the game and scored on the opening drive. Travis Wilson capped off the 10-play, 75-yard drive with a 12-yard rushing touchdown.

After a couple of failed drives from both sides, the Aggie offense got going, but that is also when the big hit to Keeton’s knee came. Immediately after it happened, Keeton fired back and completed a 39-yard pass to Devonte Robinson. It set up a wide-open touchdown pass to LaJuan Hunt in the endzone on third-and-7.

“Anytime you can have a big ball completed, it’s going to be a positive,” Keeton said of his big pass to Robinson.

Utah regained the lead later in the half on a 73-yard drive. Wilson ran it twice on two consecutive plays for 41 yards. It helped set us a Utah score, but the senior quarterback was hurt during the last run and left the game. He was replaced by senior quarterback Kendal Thompson. Aggie linebacker LT Filiaga said some adjustments had to made defensively when Wilson left.

“We knew that Thompson could run the ball a lot better than Wilson can,” he said. “So that changed a lot of how we played in that second half.”

With time running down at the end of the first half the ball was in Keeton’s hands again. He used his arms and legs to pass and scramble his way down the field and into Utah territory on a nine-play, 76-yard drive. It finished when freshman wide receiver Zach Van Leeuwen caught a 15-yard touchdown that sent both teams into halftime tied at 14.

The Utah State offense failed to pick up a first down in the third quarter. During that time, a scoring drive gave the Utes a 21-14 lead to start the fourth. A big punt return on the first play of the last quarter helped set up an Andy Phillips 37-yard field goal that extended Utah’s lead to 10.

“We struggled a little bit in the third quarter, just getting out of rhythm a little bit,” Wells said.

The Aggie offense took the field and started to move the ball again. Utah State was threatening to score, but a nasty hit on third-and-7 forced the ball out of Keeton’s hands. USU’s chances of a fourth-quarter comeback took a serious hit when Utah recovered the fumble. The Aggies got the ball back after forcing a three-and-out, but bad luck returned when Keeton’s pass was picked off deep in Utah territory.

The Aggie offense had 117 rush yards and 256 pass yards. Utah picked up 195 yards on the ground against the USU defense and 132 through the air. Each team recorded 21 first downs. Despite the loss, there was some optimism from the Aggie players and coaches.

“I see everything uphill from here,” Keeton said. “I’m excited to see what this team can do.”

Wells said he believes this Aggie team is going to “win a lot of games.”

“We’ll make corrections,” he said. “There is a lot of good. There is a lot of things that need to get corrected. I already know that. We’ll be very diligent in doing that.”

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