San Diego State has proven it can win \u2014 and win convincingly \u2014 at home this season.<\/p>\n
The Aztecs (4-1, 1-0 Mountain West) now want to prove something on the road this weekend when they play Nevada (1-4, 0-1 MW) in Reno.<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t get it twisted: The record does not indicate or show how talented they are,\u201d SDSU coach Sean Lewis said of Nevada. \u201cThey\u2019re hitting their stride. it is going to be a hard-fought opportunity on the road, and we need to go put a full game together, which we\u2019ve yet to do on the road.\u201d<\/p>\n
SDSU\u2019s only defeat came on Sept, 6, when it fell 36-13 to Washington State in Pullman, Wash. The Aztecs defeated Northern Illinois on the road two weeks ago, but they needed a Gabe Plascencia field goal as time expired for a 6-3 win.<\/p>\n
Even after a convincing 45-24 victory over Colorado State on Friday night at Snapdragon Stadium, Lewis was looking at mistakes made as much as plays made when reviewing the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are things that we need to clean up.\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s some foolish penalties. \u2026 There\u2019s some opportunities for us where we left some meat on the bone in all three phases that we can maximize.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked to elaborate, Lewis said: \u201cThere\u2019s some tracks within the run game that, for as well as we ran the ball, I thought we could still be cleaner with.\u201d<\/p>\n
SDSU rushed for 281 yards against the Rams, most of it from running backs Lucky Sutton (21 carries, 113 yards 2 TDs), Byron Cardwell Jr. (15-129, TD) and Christian Washington (8-28).<\/p>\n
It was the first time in six years the Aztecs had multiple 100-yard running backs in the same game. Both Sutton and Cardwell rushed for career highs in yards.<\/p>\n
Defensively, Lewis said: \u201cI thought our tackling for the first time was not as clean or crisp as it needed to be.\u201d<\/p>\n
And the Aztecs need to display more discipline. They had nine penalties for 89 yards against Colorado State. Included among them were two delay-of-game infractions, a false start, a personal foul and an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe still continue to make some foolish penalties in all three phases that are going to come back to bite us in closer ballgames,\u201d Lewis said. \u201cThere\u2019s things that you\u2019re always going to point to where (we\u2019re) very, very grateful that we got the win, that we found a way to win, but rarely satisfied with the outcome.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur kids did a great job of coming in (Monday) morning and having the emotional and mental toughness to detach their feelings and really look at it from an objective standpoint on how we can grow and get better in all three phases.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lewis said the staff has the luxury of pausing and rewinding video and pointing a laser to \u201cnitpick\u201d during game review.<\/p>\n
They need to be mindful, he said, that players have \u201c4-6 seconds to make high-speed decisions and do that in real time, so I want them to be confident to do that consistently, play after play after play.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fast starts<\/p>\n
This is the sixth time in 10 seasons the Aztecs have won at least four of their first five games.<\/p>\n
SDSU had double-digit wins on four of the other five occasions: 2016 (started 4-1, finished 11-3), 2017 (5-0\/10-3), 2019 (4-1\/10-3), 2021 (5-0, 12-2). In 2018, they started 4-1 and finished 7-6.<\/p>\n
Bowl projections<\/p>\n
No teams have qualified for bowl eligibility yet \u2014 SDSU is two wins away from being bowl eligible for the first time in three years \u2014 but that hasn\u2019t stopped several sources from producing predictions. Some of those who have the Aztecs projected for a bowl game:<\/p>\n
CBSSports.com: L.A. Bowl vs. Washington<\/p>\n
ESPN.com (Kyle Bonagura): Arizona Bowl vs. Buffalo<\/p>\n
Profootballnetwork.com: New Mexico Bowl vs. Texas State<\/p>\n
Athlon Sports: Frisco Bowl vs. UTSA<\/p>\n
Sports Illustrated: Frisco Bowl vs. UTEP<\/p>\n
USA Today: Frisco Bowl vs. North Texas<\/p>\n
The Mountain West also has tie-ins with the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl and the Hawaii Bowl and is a primary backup for the Rate Bowl.<\/p>\n
Putting up numbers<\/p>\n
SDSU punter Hunter Green<\/strong> ranks first in the Mountain West and is tied for fourth in the nation with 13 punts inside the 20-yard line. Green also ranks second in the MW and 18th nationally with a 45.6-yard punt average.<\/p>\n \u2022 SDSU wide receiver Jordan Napier<\/strong> ranks third in the Mountain West in receptions (32), receiving yards (443) and receiving yards per game (88.6).<\/p>\n Napier is nearing last season\u2019s reception total (43) and surpassed last season\u2019s yardage total (440) with a career-high 153 yards against Colorado State.<\/p>\n \u2022 Sutton\u00a0leads the Mountain West in rushing attempts (88) and is second in rushing yards (450) and rushing yards per game (90). He is tied for third in rushing touchdowns (5).<\/p>\n Injury update<\/p>\n SDSU starting right tackle Joe Borjon<\/strong> is expected to be in the lineup this week against Nevada after suffering an apparent right elbow injury against Colorado State. Borjon, a 6-foot-8, 338-pound senior, will practice and play with a padded elbow brace.<\/p>\n San Diego State (4-1, 1-0) vs. Nevada (1-4, 0-1)<\/p>\n When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday<\/p>\n Where:\u00a0Mackay Stadium, Reno, Nev.<\/p>\n TV: CBSSN<\/p>\n Radio:\u00a0760-AM<\/p>\n Originally Published: October 6, 2025 at 6:50 PM PDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"San Diego State has proven it can win \u2014 and win convincingly \u2014 at home this season. The…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":283066,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,1369,1370,3549,7264,18257,62,7289,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-283065","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-top-stories-sdut","18":"tag-united-states","19":"tag-united-states-of-america","20":"tag-unitedstates","21":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","22":"tag-us","23":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115330670061391700","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283065","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=283065"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283065\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/283066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}