AP Photo by Denis Poroy

Due to injuries and early heart wrenching losses SDSU is very light up the middle. They have good sideline-to-sideline speed but have a hard time standing toe to toe with their opponents in the trenches. After some bad losses in recent weeks this SDSU team is coming into Provo with desperation in their eyes. If our offense or defense comes out and lays an egg on their first series it could end up being a long day. BYU instead must comes out and blast SDSU straight in the chest, they won’t be able to withstand the disappointment, and the day will be ours.

Don’t get me wrong SDSU has some guys who can play. Both corners are good players who have good feet good hips and they stay tight in coverage -their safeties on the other hand aren’t the best in coverage. They also have good all around team speed, but their linebackers and DB’s often take bad angles and end-up in difficult position to make plays.

I feel for this team, but I won’t feel sorry for them until the 9th of November.

The SDSU defense scheme is a 4-3, but they often have a fifth outside linebacker on the line to help in protecting the defenses edge. When the Aztecs need to stop the run they will bring their safeties into the box and rely on their corners abilities to hold up in coverage. SDSU will also brings numerous zone blitzs if they feel the run support is lacking.

Their defense is at its best when they can stretch play horizontally allowing them to use correct angles and momentum to make tackles and plays.

-I am watching the UNM game for the second time as I write this and it really must have been the worst defensive game I have ever seen. It’s like watching a really nasty injury; you don’t want to but when the moment of impact comes you just have to peek between your fingers to see the damage.

To be completely honest their defense is like swiss cheese. SDSU’s best players are their two corners, but they will only be effective if their defensive front gets their pass rush working.  I just don’t see that happening due to our size and ability advantage.

In passing situations the Aztec’s go to coverage is cover two, and in third and long situations they will be in a nickel package with 5 underneath players and 3 over the top players. This type of max coverage forces the offense to take a short throw and have the ball carrier weave their way through the defense in order to pick-up the first down.

The only way SDSU can stop our offense is if we completely breakdown. Their defense if good enough to get a couple of stops, but as long as our offense comes out blazing points shouldn’t be hard to come by. My worst nightmare has the Cougars coming out completely flat, turning the ball over early and our defense being unable to stop the run.

Wait a second that scenario seems all too familiar.

Do you know what I would like to see from our offense? I would like to see a demoralizing run game, which is complemented with play action passes with Max on the edge whipping the ball around on the run. Than Fui and Harvey -yes I said that in the right order, Harvey needs to rest up and get back to 100%- softened SDSU’s middle up enough that SDSU has to devote every body they have to stopping the run. As they put more and more players in the box we than begin to use Dennis and Andrew. When the Aztec defense then feels inadequate to the task of stopping our TE’s we begin using our wide receivers and so on and so forth.

It’s a simple formula, but I think if we can start scoring early this fragile team will lose what confidence they have and they’ll begin making more and more mistakes.

I wish San Diego State the best on Sunday the 9th, but until then I would ask that the Cougs start playing like they want a piece of the MWC Championship. With the Utes win over TCU we still have a waaayyyy outside shot at the BCS and we could still share a portion of the MWC title. If our team can show some improvement over the next two game we could enter the Black-out stadium to play the most significant rivalry game in the Holy Wars long history.

(Let’s just not forget to beat the cadets in Colorado Springs.)