When San Diego State got the ball inside its own 10-yard line with 76 seconds before halftime Saturday night at Washington State, there were those in the viewing audience who wanted to see the Aztecs run a couple of times and head to the locker room trailing by a field goal at halftime.<\/p>\n
The viewers expressed as much on social media, although not until things had gone sideways, with a safety and Cougars touchdown that put the Aztecs behind 19-7 at the half.<\/p>\n
SDSU coach Sean Lewis said the Aztecs are not going to play conservatively.<\/p>\n
\u201cGonna be default aggressive,\u201d Lewis said during Monday\u2019s weekly midday press conference.<\/p>\n
Lewis considered that SDSU was at its own 8-yard line with 1:16 remaining in the second quarter. He thought about the Aztecs\u2019 uptempo offense and kicker in Gabe Plascencia, whose range extends beyond 55 yards. There was no reason, the coach thought, not to play for a game-tying field goal before the half.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe sit on it, what\u2019s the message that I\u2019m telling my kids?\u201d Lewis asked rhetorically. \u201c \u2018I don\u2019t believe in you.\u2019 That\u2019s the message. I believe in my guys. I can say that, or I can live it and I can do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
On first down, SDSU quarterback Jayden Denegal threw a 10-yard pass over the middle that wide receiver Jacob Bostick couldn\u2019t grab.<\/p>\n
On second down, Denegal was sacked in the end zone. Should he have gotten rid of the ball before Washington State\u2019s Isaac Terrell got to him off the left edge? Should SDSU left tackle Christian Jones have prevented Terrell from getting past him?<\/p>\n
No, Lewis said, it was on him for not putting the Aztecs in a better formation.<\/p>\n
\u201cCan I imagine it a little bit better?\u201d Lewis said. \u201cSure. Absolutely. Can the kids execute it better? Yeah.\u201d<\/p>\n
What the coach didn\u2019t think is that any players or coaches wanted to be conservative in such a situation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think all of us in the foxhole together would rather us be default aggressive there,\u201d Lewis said. \u201cNot reckless, but default aggressive so that we can go down, get points, it\u2019s 10-10. We know that we haven\u2019t played our best ball. We circle the wagons and we go and respond.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat happened? Worst-case scenario. Absolutely. We give up the safety. They go off the ensuing kick, get points, come out in the second half (and score again).\u201d<\/p>\n
The Cougars put 16 points on the scoreboard in five minutes of clock time and blew open a three-point game into a 26-7 advantage.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt becomes this huge difference,\u201d Lewis said. \u201cSo, yeah, we\u2019ll Monday-morning quarterback. \u2026 We\u2019ll second-guess it. But I was telling the boys about it (Monday) morning. We\u2019re going to be default aggressive.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll manage it the right way. Get us in a different protection. But that\u2019s why I\u2019m sitting in front of you (media) guys. That\u2019s my style of play. That\u2019s what all the questions have been about in the past. High-flying offense that\u2019s going to push the ball vertically down the field. That\u2019s going to be something that the fans haven\u2019t seen. Yeah, that takes time. Now we\u2019re asking, like, ok, \u2018should we be more conservative?\u2019 No.<\/p>\n
Concluded Lewis: \u201cI am who am. We\u2019ve talked about that before. I\u2019m going to be authentically me, and I know my guys got my back. We\u2019ve got to put them in a better call. We\u2019ll execute better. At the end of the day, there\u2019s a little bit of risk. We can\u2019t be risk averse in all that we do. No risk it, no biscuit.\u201d<\/p>\n
At one point in the first half, the Aztecs had four straight three-and-outs against the Cougars. Lewis was asked about his mindset as a play-caller and whether he feels pressure to change things up when things aren\u2019t going as planned.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t feel any pressure,\u201d Lewis said. \u201cPressure is something you feel when you\u2019re not prepared. We apply pressure and you look at (the situation) and you evaluate, you don\u2019t take a generalized approach, like, \u2018Oh, hey, well, there\u2019s been three, three-and-outs, there\u2019s been four, three-and-outs.\u2019 So, all of a sudden, we\u2019re going to pivot, right?\u201d<\/p>\n
Wrong.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have the beauty of knowing why there\u2019s been a breakdown,\u201d Lewis said. \u201cLike, intimately, within the call. Why did it break down? Is it because of the call? Is it because of execution? Is it because of lack of communication? Is it a fundamental skill?<\/p>\n
\u201cDepending on what the \u2018why\u2019 is, then that drives our processes, not just, \u2018Oh, there\u2019s been three-and-out, three-and-out, three-and-out, three-and-out. Hey, throw this plan away that we\u2019ve been preparing.\u2019\u00a0 There\u2019s got to be a detailed \u2018why\u2019 behind what it is that we do, or why we\u2019re going to pivot in the manner in which that we\u2019re approaching everything.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lewis said the efficiency and consistency in SDSU\u2019s execution needs to get better. It is something that will be addressed over the next two weeks before the Aztecs\u2019 Sept. 20 game against Cal. SDSU (1-1) is idle this week.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe details of our fundamentals and the physicality of our play needs to get better, in all three phases,\u201d Lewis said. \u201cBy doing that, that\u2019ll lead to greater execution, by putting the kids in better position to be successful with the calls, then we\u2019ll have a better opportunity to have success over the long haul.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut, no, we\u2019re not going to abandon the plan. When the reason the plan is not being executed properly has nothing to do with who the gray, faceless opponent happens to be on the other boundary.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When San Diego State got the ball inside its own 10-yard line with 76 seconds before halftime Saturday…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":192966,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,1369,1370,3549,7264,18257,62,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-213491","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-college-sports","12":"tag-latest-headlines","13":"tag-san-diego","14":"tag-sandiego","15":"tag-sdsu-aztecs","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-united-states","18":"tag-united-states-of-america","19":"tag-unitedstates","20":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","21":"tag-us","22":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213491\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/192966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}