Defensive struggles catch up to Utah State in blowout loss to Georgia State in Famous Idaho Potato Bowl

BOISE, Idaho — At Friday’s pregame press conference for the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl, Utah State football coach Blake Anderson said, “You always remember the last game you play.”

That may be more of an unfortunate truth for the Aggies after Saturday afternoon, as they turned in arguably their worst performance of the season in a 45-22 blowout loss to 6-6 Georgia State.

The performance came in front of a mostly Aggie blue crowd of over 12,000 on the blue turf of Albertson’s Stadium at Boise State.

Anderson’s Aggies finished 6-7 for the second straight season while losing their second consecutive bowl game by more than 21 points, and it was yet another postseason in which Utah State looked thoroughly outclassed in all aspects of the game despite playing a fellow 6-6 team.

Whether from the transfer portal or early declarations to the NFL draft, Georgia State entered the game down several starters on both sides of the ball and was a three-point underdog to the Aggies.

Utah State’s defense instead had absolutely no answer for a Panthers offense that had averaged just 25.7 points per game and had scored just 14 points in three of its last five contests.

“We’re very disappointed in how we played. We’re a better football team than what you saw today,” Anderson said. “That’s the hard part. We did a lot of work to get here, overcame a lot of adversity to get here, but then just did not play in any phase the way we’re capable of.”

Thanks to all-time performances by Panthers three-year starting quarterback Darren Grainger and third-string running back Freddie Brock, the Aggie defense was scorched to the tune of 643 total yards.

Georgia State racked up rushing yards that would have made a military school proud, totaling 387 yards on the ground with three touchdowns, averaging 7.9 yards per carry.

The Panthers had 11 rushing plays of 10-plus yards, including five over 30 yards. Brock alone carried the ball 24 times for a mind-boggling 276 yards.

While Utah State consistently lost the battle up front defensively, Grainger humiliated the Aggie secondary with blistering efficiency, completing 19 of 22 passes for 257 yards and three touchdowns with zero turnovers.

“We’re frustrated with how we played in all three phases,” Anderson said. “Gotta give (Georgia State) credit. They manhandled us from beginning to end and had a better plan. We got outcoached and outplayed. That’s not how you want to finish a season.”

USU junior wideout Jalen Royals and freshman defensive end Paul Fitzgerald, who were both available to the media, were two of the few bright spots the Aggies could find.

Royals caught his 15th touchdown pass of the season in in the first quarter, breaking the school’s single-season receiving touchdown record. Fitzgerald, meanwhile, set a new postseason record for Utah State in sacks with three as the Aggies got to Grainger five times in the game.

“It felt good, but at the end of the day, we still lost,” Fitzgerald said of his record. “Kinda takes away the enjoyment of it, but it still feels good to be able to produce and make some plays.”

Various points of the season showed that both teams were more than capable of catching fire offensively, and the first quarter suggested that both of them were going to.

Georgia State got on the board first and stayed ahead in an initial shootout with a 21-14 first quarter lead.

Both of Utah State’s touchdowns, arguably the only two great plays the Aggies had in the first three quarters, came on big plays: A 35-yard bomb to Royals and a 65-yard breakaway TD run by junior running back Davon Booth.

All told, the Aggies racked up an admirable 161 total yards in the first quarter, though they ceded 218 to the Panthers.

After that, however, their ability to move the ball fell flat as they managed no more than 65 yards in any of the final three quarters while converting just 27% of third downs.

Utah State quarterback Levi Williams, who famously chose to forgo his remaining eligible year to train to become a U.S. Navy SEAL, faded quickly in his final collegiate game, completing 12 of 21 passes for just 131 yards with a touchdown and an interception (which he threw inside USU’s 40-yard line).

When things truly got out of hand in the third quarter with Georgia State scoring its fifth touchdown for a 38-14 lead, Anderson ultimately cut Williams last appearance short to send in true freshman Mcae Hillstead to finish off the contest.

Hillstead fared slightly better in garbage time, completing 7 of 11 passes for 57 yards with a touchdown.

“We mismanaged a couple opportunities, I think, lost one-on-one battles up front,” Anderson said. “I felt like as the game kinda went on, they were able to stretch it out and play a little differently.

“We’re not really built right now with Levi at quarterback to play catch-up a whole lot. We’re much better when we stay balanced. They started dropping eight playing a bit differently. They handled us, when we needed to make big plays, we struggled to protect. They did a good job keeping us off balance at times.”

Fans of the Aggies would remember well that the team went through a litany of departures through the transfer portal last offseason, and many of those were defensive starters.

Anderson made reference to that fact, however removed from it they might have been now in the postseason, that the thinness of skill on defense made impact on the game, saying his defensive coordinator, Joe Cauthen, is “about as frustrated as anybody is.”

“This season was about managing what we had, not really worried about what we didn’t have,” Anderson said. “There are eight starters that should be out there helping us on defense that are playing on other people’s rosters across the country.”