Immediately following the fourth Utah State touchdown of the night, between the first and second quarters, the University of Hawaii T-shirt cannon lobbed some shirts into the sparse crowd at Aloha Stadium.
Or tried to. A couple of the compacted shirts unfurled in midair and drifted down near the Aggies’ sideline. A USU player plucked one out of the air and smoothly deposited the souvenir in his holstered helmet on his waist.
Everything the No. 18 Aggies wanted they got in a 56-17 road win Saturday, and then some.
“To come over here and win at Hawaii against a good Hawaii team, it’s a hard win,” said sixth-year USU coach Matt Wells. “There’s all the distractions. You name it. The travel, all that kind of stuff. Changing humidity for us and heat. I’m just so happy with our guys — they adjusted. I’m happy with the way they reacted and the way they played. This was a big one.”
USU improved to 8-1 for the first time since 1963. The Aggies are 5-0 in the Mountain West for the first time and contending for their first championship since winning the WAC and subsequently leaving that conference in 2012.
The Aggies, who flew commercial via travel subsidies conveyed from UH, were on the fast track home Saturday night — reflecting their spastic, snap-snap-snap offensive pace during the game — and did not make any players available postgame.
Running backs Darwin Thompson (141 yards on 13 carries) and Gerold Bright (121 yards, 16 carries) had their say on the field. They accounted for six rushing touchdowns — a hat trick apiece — as the Aggies rolled up 426 yards on the ground and 601 yards overall. It was USU’s eighth straight win since dropping its season opener 38-31 at No. 11 Michigan State.
“I think our guys up front — our O-line and our tight ends — did a nice job, and obviously anytime you have long runs like we did, there’s some good blocking down the field,” Wells said. “I saw a few by our receivers. But our running backs, both Gerold Bright and
Darwin Thompson, ran
behind their pads. They got their legs up, they’re tough to bring down and they’re
a load.”
There were broken tackles for USU and broken spirits for most others present. The Aggies had four runs of 40-plus yards. Thompson busted free from roughly seven different Warriors on his 26-yard third-quarter touchdown.
“We always want to try to stop the run first, make the team pass the ball,” UH linebacker Kana‘i Picanco said. “Our first thing was to make sure we stop the run. But they were a good team. But all we had to do was execute and we came up short.”
USU had UH on its heels all night, but especially in 28-point first and third quarters. Their second-quarter let-up coincided with Jordan Love, the reigning Mountain West player of the week, taking a big hit and sitting the rest of the way. But his backup, Henry Colombi, ably filled in as a dual threat and guided the team to its next explosive quarter coming out of intermission.
“I think he’ll be fine,” Wells said of Love. “I think he’ll be good next week (at home vs. San Jose State).”
There is already talk of Utah State making a New Year’s Six bowl game, but there is still work to be done, particularly at Boise State in the Nov. 24 regular-season finale, then in a theoretical Mountain West title game against either Fresno State or San Diego State.
