Story from the Northern Wyoming Daily News:
CASPER (AP) — They are stronger.
The bond is tighter.
Most importantly, the San Diego State football family made it through an unscheduled bye week largely unharmed, perhaps turning a true trial by fire into a turning point for a struggling program.
“We were already pretty close, but when your coaching staff gets evacuated and three, four or five guys on the team have their families evacuated throughout the county, everybody kind of comes together,” Aztecs quarterback Kevin O’Connell said. “We obviously all wanted to make sure everybody’s doing OK, and once you get through it and everybody makes it through unscathed, you become a lot closer because of it.”
They’ll find out on Saturday against Wyoming (5-3, 2-2 Mountain West Conference) at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego if it also helped make the Aztecs (2-5, 1-2 MWC) a better team, though they haven’t played nearly as poorly as their record indicates this season.
Before their date with BYU was postponed last week by the wildfires, they’d already pulled out a late win on the road against Colorado State and been competitive in all three conference games.
“We’re playing much better football this time this year than last year,” Aztecs coach Chuck Long said. “We have a lot of youth on our football team, and those guys are just getting better and better.
“Our guys are playing hard every week and I just now at some point it’s going to open up for us. We’ve just got to keep striving for that point.”
The Aztecs have shown signs of life, but they’ve still likely got some ground to cover before they get to that point.
They’re not suddenly a real threat to surge into league title contention or a bowl bid, but Long said there are plenty of reasons to be excited and more important things to play for.
“Sports are always a good diversion and very helpful,” Long said. “Our guys were very helpful in the community last week, and I think the feedback we got from the community was that we needed to go play some good football for them.
“We’ve taken that to heart, and we’re back to playing football.”
Their attention wasn’t fully focused back on football until late last week, when everybody was accounted for and the air quality improved enough to let the Aztecs get back outside.
It certainly was far from an ideal way to spend a bye week, but San Diego State was able to get a little more healthy, gain some perspective and didn’t end up losing any preparation time for the Cowboys.
“We got a chance to take it all in and make sure that everybody was all right,” O’Connell said.
“Once it all kind of blew over and we were able to get stuff contained, it just became about school and football and trying to get into that groove that you get into during football season.
“We’re completely focused on Wyoming and just trying to get ready for a very good football team. It’s pretty much back to normal.”
Maybe even a little better.
CASPER (AP) — They are stronger.
The bond is tighter.
Most importantly, the San Diego State football family made it through an unscheduled bye week largely unharmed, perhaps turning a true trial by fire into a turning point for a struggling program.
“We were already pretty close, but when your coaching staff gets evacuated and three, four or five guys on the team have their families evacuated throughout the county, everybody kind of comes together,” Aztecs quarterback Kevin O’Connell said. “We obviously all wanted to make sure everybody’s doing OK, and once you get through it and everybody makes it through unscathed, you become a lot closer because of it.”
They’ll find out on Saturday against Wyoming (5-3, 2-2 Mountain West Conference) at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego if it also helped make the Aztecs (2-5, 1-2 MWC) a better team, though they haven’t played nearly as poorly as their record indicates this season.
Before their date with BYU was postponed last week by the wildfires, they’d already pulled out a late win on the road against Colorado State and been competitive in all three conference games.
“We’re playing much better football this time this year than last year,” Aztecs coach Chuck Long said. “We have a lot of youth on our football team, and those guys are just getting better and better.
“Our guys are playing hard every week and I just now at some point it’s going to open up for us. We’ve just got to keep striving for that point.”
The Aztecs have shown signs of life, but they’ve still likely got some ground to cover before they get to that point.
They’re not suddenly a real threat to surge into league title contention or a bowl bid, but Long said there are plenty of reasons to be excited and more important things to play for.
“Sports are always a good diversion and very helpful,” Long said. “Our guys were very helpful in the community last week, and I think the feedback we got from the community was that we needed to go play some good football for them.
“We’ve taken that to heart, and we’re back to playing football.”
Their attention wasn’t fully focused back on football until late last week, when everybody was accounted for and the air quality improved enough to let the Aztecs get back outside.
It certainly was far from an ideal way to spend a bye week, but San Diego State was able to get a little more healthy, gain some perspective and didn’t end up losing any preparation time for the Cowboys.
“We got a chance to take it all in and make sure that everybody was all right,” O’Connell said.
“Once it all kind of blew over and we were able to get stuff contained, it just became about school and football and trying to get into that groove that you get into during football season.
“We’re completely focused on Wyoming and just trying to get ready for a very good football team. It’s pretty much back to normal.”
Maybe even a little better.
