What San Diego State's latest loss means for the rest of the season
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Heading into Week 4, the San Diego State Aztecs already have half as many losses as they did last year, when they finished 9-4 in a turnaround season under coach Sean Lewis.
Now the Aztecs (1-2) need to turn around their fortunes as they have just one more non-conference game to prep for their Pac-12 opener against Texas State at home on Oct. 3.
The Aztecs must travel to face Toledo, which is 2-1 after a wild 49-48 overtime win against Temple. It’s never easy going up against a Mid-American Conference team, and the Aztecs will get an early wake-up call with the game kicking off at noon ET/9 a.m. PT.
Speaking of wake-up calls, that’s what the Aztecs need after failing to score in the first half of their last two games, both losses.
They played UCLA to a scoreless tie in the first half at the Rose Bowl on Sept. 12 before losing 28-10.
They fell behind James Madison 19-0 at halftime on Saturday night at home before losing 26-13 to the Dukes, who played in the College Football Championship last season.
The Aztecs also need to get a better performance from quarterback Jayden Denegal, who has four interceptions and four touchdown passes in three games.
And they don’t know if Lucky Sutton will be available after a “lower-body” injury sidelined him against the Dukes. That opened the door for Javion Kinnard to rush for a career-high 181 yards and one touchdown, and catch four passes for 70 yards.
The Aztecs didn't absorb their second loss last season until the ninth game.
A 1-3 record is not how the Aztecs want to go into Pac-12 play, so they have some work to do this week.
San Diego State has to find answers offensively
“I think we’ve got to continue to learn and refine who we are and who we're going to be,” Lewis said. “As we go forward with it, I’ve got to continue to sort through and really know the plays that we're going to execute consistently. That's my job as the play caller. I'm going to put them in the most advantageous situations in that regard. We’ve got to continue to educate our guys on what is a good play versus maybe being greedy at times on certain things. We need to understand how we can be efficient, stay ahead of schedule and finish as we go.”
Lewis noted that the Aztecs moved the ball well in the opening drive “until we got a little bit greedy.”
Denegal completed a shovel pass to Kinnard that turned into a 27-yard gain, but then tried a similar pass to Bert Emanuel Jr. and had it intercepted, leading to a field goal that gave JMU a 10-0 lead.
“We know that if we take what the defense gives us, eventually they'll give us points, they'll give us touchdowns and they'll give us the game because we're following and applying our rules and our tools appropriately, and all 11 guys are doing that collectively together,” Lewis said. “Right now, there's too many plays where there's maybe nine out of 11 or 10 out of 11, and football gods are always going to find that one guy.
“It's our job as coaches to impress upon them straining and finishing and the importance of each and every single play because if you strain and you finish and you focus a little bit more, you get the ball in the paint sooner. Then what does that look like as we move through the game?”
Denegal had two interceptions and just one touchdown pass as he was 18 of 33 for 209 yards.
Sean Lewis knows Denegal needs to improve
“There’s opportunity for it to grow,” Lewis said. “I think there's opportunity for all of us to grow, and I think it's everyone's opportunity to rally around him and support him and be better around him. We've talked a ton about it, and deservedly so. He's going to get a lot of praise, and he's going to get a lot of criticism. That's the name of the job. But there's a lot of things that go into it. There are just things that we’ve got to clean up, that we’ve got to refine.
“There are opportunities for his confidence to get better by how we continue to execute throughout the course of the week to give us the confidence that we know we can step into game day on Saturday against another really good opponent in Toledo.”
Up next
This will be just the second meeting between the schools. SDSU beat Toledo 17-14 on Sept. 24, 2022, the year Snapdragon Stadium opened.
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Bernie Wilson recently retired from The Associated Press after nearly 41 years, including stops in Spokane, Los Angeles and, for the final 33 years, San Diego. He grew up in Coeur d'Alene and graduated from the University of Idaho.