What San Diego State coach Sean Lewis said after heartbreaking double overtime loss at New Mexico

Loss leaves Aztecs waiting to find out if they’ll play for Mountain West title

San Diego State Aztecs head coach Sean Lewis. | Photo courtesy of San Diego State University Athletics

A devastating double-overtime loss at New Mexico left the San Diego State Aztecs wondering if they’ll even get a spot in the Mountain West championship game. 

All the Aztecs had to do to host the title game was win at New Mexico on Friday. But they lost a 23-17 decision and now must wait until Sunday morning to find out whether they get to play for the title. 

The situation became clouded when Boise State won at Utah State, leaving the Aztecs, Broncos and Lobos at 6-2. UNLV could join them if it beats Nevada on Saturday night. The conference will use a composite average of computer metrics to determine which two teams play for the championship on Friday.

“Obviously, a heartbreaking loss there,” Lewis said. “You know, guys competed their tails off. We’ve got to do a better job making sure that they're prepared and ready to play. Obviously, there's some key factors, some fundamental things like ball security and obviously alignment assignments and all three phases that we need to do a better job with. That’s on us as a staff and myself most importantly, making sure that our guys are prepared and ready to go.

“Again,  emotional loss, major letdown there in double overtime. It felt like we had control of the game for the majority of it, but at the end came up short. Now we’ve got to respond. It's the beauty of what this game teaches and the life lessons, right? The sun's going to come out tomorrow. There's lessons to be learned. There's opportunities for us to go forward and continue to play. There's still going to be a championship moment for this team. And you know we'll see where that's at and we'll bounce back and get back to work and that's truly the reward to have another opportunity to have postseason play and looking forward to more time with this team.”

Here is more of what Lewis had to say after the loss:

Lewis on the first overtime 

“So yeah, highs and lows. We’ve got to be more consistent with how we handle those situations as we go and all the situations from the start to the finish knowing that all these moments that we've created these championship moments are going to be a four quarter and beyond fight and we got to be prepared to play for as long as it takes for as many snaps as it takes.”

Lewis on getting backed up in the second overtime

“Yeah, I mean obviously there's not a whole ton of plays on your call sheet for that, but know that you have four downs to operate it with. You're just trying to get to a manageable situation as you go there and obviously I did a poor job managing that situation so I'll learn from that. We'll grow from that and we'll be better if we're in that situation again.”

Lewis on how the Aztecs responded after falling behind by 10 points

“Yeah, I mean again you know the characteristic of this team and one of the traits that they've shown is their ability to respond. Right. We've done that week to week. We've done that within moments. There's no quit in this team. They have tremendous fight. They have tremendous competitive spirit.

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And so again, right, like this one hurts. I mean, it hurts bad and we got to do a great job of responding yet again. Coming back to work in a couple days and knowing who the next opportunity and next opponent is going to be and then leaning into that work and making sure that this one doesn't beat us twice because there's going to be a really meaningful game here coming very, very soon that we're going to get to be a part of.”

Lewis on his message to the team 

“Again, just point to all the things that we control, right? That there's a lot of things in that game that we control as a staff and that we control as a team that we need to do a better job of um so that we can control our own destiny. Now obviously things are kind of outside of our hands. We were in an advantageous spot where we were controlling our own destiny and with a win we all know what that would have been and we came up short on a very, very competitive game. And so again, like, how we respond, what our attitude is, what our effort is, what our mental focus is as we approach the work when we know what the new OP is. That's what we need to pour into those things that we can control and then do a better job when we have another opportunity to step in between the white lines and control all the controllables at a much higher level.”