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No one would blame Utah State football if morale was low right now.
A 1-3 start to the season is far from what internal hopes were, after key players frequently talked about about contending for the Mountain West Conference championship and maybe even being a dark horse candidate to make the College Football Playoff.
The loss at USC was understandable, though the nature of it was difficult.
The loss to Utah made sense too, even if the Aggies felt that let that one get away with one too many mistakes.
The loss to Temple was something else, though, a mistake-filled affair against an opponent the Aggies could have — most would say should have — beaten.
And now entering Mountain West Conference play, bowl eligibility looks like it will be a steep challenge, let alone a true run at the conference crown. With upcoming games at No. 21 Boise State and against No. 25 UNLV, a 1-5 start for Utah State is pretty much roundly expected. Anything better than that would be something of a surprise.
And yet, ahead of Saturday’s conference opener against the Broncos, belief remains.
“I think there is a lot of excitement,” quarterback Spencer Petras said. “The bye week came at a nice time, a good time to recover physically and also get away a little bit mentally.”
For Petras, the week off that the Aggies just had was ideally situated. With conference play on the horizon USU was able to “regroup and refocus.”
“That was huge,” Petras said. “And I think we are all excited and ready to get out there and compete. Help make the changes we want to see and help get this team trending in the right direction.”
It isn’t all sunshine and rainbows, of course. The Aggies know what their record is and they know that their performances have largely been lacking this season.
They own that. They aren’t hiding from it.
“Obviously our record is not what we want,” Petras said. “It is not where we expected to be and it is not what we are capable of. But it is what we earned. We have lacked the consistency over four games to achieve the results we want.”
Added linebacker John Ross Maye: “We are 1-3 and we earned that record. We are not where we want to be and we are going to improve that.”
They also understand that there is a sense of urgency. Losses have piled up in a hurry and the Aggies can’t really afford many more. Not if they want this season to be successful in a tradition wins and losses sense.
“We have no time,” Maye said.
For interim head coach Nate Dreiling, the single most important thing right now for USU is to remain confident. Something he admits is difficult given the frequency at which losses have come so far this fall.
“It is hard to have confidence when you are not winning at the level that we need to be winning at right now,” he said.
During practices the past two weeks, Dreiling and the coaching staff have tried to keep the Aggies’ confidence up. Tried to “give ourselves a spark.”
“Obviously the schedule is what it is,” he said. “We are going to play four ranked teams in our first six games. I don’t know the last time that happened (for Utah State). But at the end of the day it is still about us. Every single one of our games, other than SC, we’ve been up, we’ve been moving and we’ve been looking really good. Now its about finishing. And that needs us to instill that mindset in our players, to have the confidence to win.”
Whatever the coaching staff has said has worked. At least that the players are saying things to indicate it has worked.
“The good thing is the majority of the season is still in front of us, all of Mountain West play and we are excited to get back out there,” Petras said.
“We want to send a message to the conference,” added Maye. “We haven’t been as successful as we’ve wanted through the first four (games) but now we get more games.”
Utah State can only hope that the next time it takes the field, things go a little bit differently than the first quarter of the season went.
Otherwise keeping up morale and the team’s confidence will only get more and more difficult.
“It is time to finish it,” Dreiling said. “And get off the field with a W.”