This morning, we continue this week’s UCLA football previews with a look at the San Diego State Aztecs offense. The Aztecs had quite the week offensively last week. They put up 53 points last week. At the same time, they played Portland State, an FCS school from the Big Sky Conference. So, 50 points was likely the bare minimum floor for the SDSU offense.
San Diego State runs an offense created by former Baylor head coach Art Briles called the “Veer and Shoot.” The name was popularized by Stewart Mandel and it was called that in an article by Ian Boyd on Football Study Hall. Boyd has also written this article explaining the concepts used in this offense. It describes it far better than I could and if you want to learn about what to expect from Sean Lewis’ team tomorrow, it provides a good primer.
Let’s look at the Aztecs’ offensive personnel.
Quarterback
SDSU will start senior Jayden Denegal at quarterback. Last week against Portland State, Denegal was 12-of-17 for 137 yards and two touchdowns before being relieved by redshirt freshman Stone Sanders. Sanders was 2-of-4 for 20 yards in last week’s game.
On the ground, Denegal ran the ball three times for 21 yards while Sanders is credited with one rush for -8 yards, which was a quarterback sack by the Vikings.
Admittedly, the total stats for the Aztec quarterbacks from last week are surprisingly small given that the option plays such an important role in the Veer and Shoot offense. At least last week, SDSU didn’t need to throw the ball much to put up 53 points and they didn’t need to rely too much on Denegal’s legs either since he only ran the ball three times all game.
Running Backs
If the Aztecs didn’t throw much last week or rely on Denegal to take off, the SDSU offense did primarily focus on running the ball. In fact, they ran it 38 times excluding the carries by the two quarterbacks.
Senior running back Lucky Sutton will start at running back. Last week, Sutton carried the ball 18 times. Despite carrying that many times, he only managed to gain 63 yards on the ground. That’s an average of 3.2 yards per carry. At the same time, three of his carries took him into the end zone.
Sophomore running back Javion Kinnard provided the second punch last week for the Aztec rushing attack. He carried just eight times for 82 yards against the Vikings for an average of 9.9 yards per carry. So, while he had fewer than half the carries Sutton had, Kinnard actually gained more yards overall.
Three other running backs carried a total of 11 times for 80 yards with five of those carries going to redshirt freshman Jordin Thomas. Thomas gained 38 yards on those five carries. He also added a touchdown.
Passing Game
Three seniors will start at receiver for San Diego State. Lining on the outside will be Bert Emanuel, Jr. and Donovan Brown, while Nathan Acevedo will work as the slot receiver. While Emanuel got the start last week, he didn’t catch a pass. In fact, his only touch of the game came on a running play where he gained seven yards. Acevedo led the receivers with four receptions for 47 yards and a touchdown. Meanwhile, Brown made two catches for 24 yards.
Off the bench, senior receiver Justius Lowe led the Aztecs in receiving yards with 56 despite only making two receptions. Two freshmen also caught some balls for SDSU last week.
Others catching passes last week included junior Jordan Napier, freshman Daishaun Davis, and freshman Carson Diehl. Javion Kinnard also caught one coming out of the backfield.
While junior Jackson Ford started at tight end, he did not catch a pass last Saturday. In 13 games last year, Ford caught ten passes for 86 yards and one touchdown.
Outlook
Overall, SDSU’s offensive output of 394 yards seems to be somewhat unimpressive given the number of points they put up last week, especially when you consider that Portland State racked up 375 yards while only scoring 20 points. Of course, the flipside to that is the overall efficiency of the Aztec offense.
To be sure, much of that efficiency was due to the fact that Portland State is an FCS school, which makes me hopeful that SDSU won’t be as efficient tomorrow.
That will likely depend on how the Bruin defense plays. At times, UCLA’s defense looked very good last week, but there were enough challenges which need to be cleaned up that Bruin fans may find themselves concerned again.
At the same time, it’s frequently said that a team’s biggest improvement comes between game one and game two. Hopefully, that proves to be the case for the Bruins.
Go Bruins!!!
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