Three thoughts after San Diego State’s 41-20 loss to Utah State on Saturday afternoon at Maverik Stadium.

1. Historically slow starts

Slow starts have plagued SDSU’s “AztecFAST” offense. The Aztecs have not scored on their opening drive in any of their 11 games this season.

Only three times have they had a drive of more than five plays. The shortest possession was two weeks ago, when quarterback Danny O’Neil was intercepted on the second play.

Only twice have they had a drive of more than 20 yards. Both of those possessions ended with the ball turned over on downs following failed fourth-down plays.

Eight possessions ended with punts. Average drive: five plays, 16 yards.

The opening-drive drought looked like it was going to end against the Aggies. SDSU reached the red zone in four plays. O’Neil, who has been slowed by a knee injury most of the season, made the biggest play with his legs. A 34-yard rush up the middle marks his longest carry of the season.

There was something else unusual about the drive — it included three passes to tight end Mikey Harrison, who had not been targeted that many times in eight of 10 games, let alone one drive, this season.

SDSU had a first-and-goal at the 10-yard line, then moved back 10 yards because of a holding penalty. Two passes advanced the ball to the 2-yard line. Running back Marquez Cooper got one yard on third-and-2. On fourth down, O’Neil threw a screen pass to Harrison that lost three yards.

And the Aztecs came up empty. Again.

“(O’Neil) got us off to a good start,” SDSU coach Sean Lewis said. “Obviously, we didn’t finish down there at the goal line. Again, that’s been an Achilles’ heel for us, to be able to punch the ball in in those short-yardage situations.

“We’ve got to do a better job there as we continue to move forward.”

Saturday night’s game against Air Force represents the last chance for the Aztecs to score on their first possession. In an online search dating back 25 years, SDSU never went an entire season without scoring on its opening drive.

2. Flags flying

The Aztecs are a game away from being the most penalized team in the nation, a distinction they currently share with Mountain West peer New Mexico.

Both schools have been whistled for 103 penalties, an average of 9.4 per game.

It all began with 16 infractions in the season opener against Texas A&M-Commerce. There have been eight or nine penalties in five games this season, with SDSU avoiding double digits since making 12 penalties in Week 3 at Cal.

Then came another dozen at Utah State. Included were five false starts, something that usually works itself out well before this stage of the season.

“A majority of them were on the offensive line, where we’ve been banged up,” Lewis said of a unit where half a dozen players have been hobbled. “There’s a lot of people there playing in different spots as we’re rolling through it. So, again, there’s got to be continuity, there’s got to be consistency within that group up front, so that you can have confidence that you can play together.

“When there’s any sort of doubt … it leads to hesitation. When you’re playing hesitant and you’re not playing confident, you’re not tied together.”

It was the fourth time this season SDSU has been penalized more than 100 yards in a game. UTSA (945 penalty yards) is the only team in the country with more penalty yards than the Aztecs (933).

3. ‘We aren’t doing our jobs’

Cooper was in no mood to celebrate after the game, despite becoming the 23rd player in NCAA history to go over 5,000 career rushing yards.

The Aztecs squandering a 13-point lead and allowing 41 unanswered points had something to do with that.

“I can’t be jumping with joy because we just got whooped,” Cooper said after the game.

With less than two minutes remaining in the second quarter, Utah State was being being shut out. Somehow, the Aggies had a 14-13 lead at halftime. They added four more TDs after intermission to win convincingly.

What changed?

“They didn’t do anything differently, honestly,” said Cooper, adding, “Guys got to do their jobs. We aren’t doing our jobs. That’s been the case all season long. The coaches tell us something, and we’ll do the opposite thing. That’s unfortunate. It isn’t the coaches’ fault. It’s 100 percent on the players. We’ve got to do our job.”

Originally Published: November 24, 2024 at 5:46 PM PST

Forecasters through the U.S. issued warnings that another round of winter weather could complicate travel leading up to the Thanksgiving holiday, while California and Washington state continue to recover from storm damage and power outages.

In California, where a person was found dead in a vehicle submerged in floodwaters on Saturday, authorities braced for more precipitation while grappling with flooding and small landslides from a previous storm.

The National Weather Service office in Sacramento, California, issued a winter storm warning for the state’s Sierra Nevada for Saturday through Tuesday, with heavy snow expected at higher elevations and wind gusts potentially reaching 55 mph (88 kph). Total snowfall of roughly 4 feet (1.2 meters) was forecast, with the heaviest accumulations expected Monday and Tuesday.

The Midwest and Great Lakes regions will see rain and snow Monday and the East Coast will be the most impacted on Thanksgiving and Black Friday, forecasters said.

A low pressure system is forecast to bring rain to the Southeast early Thursday before heading to the Northeast. Areas from Boston to New York could see rain and breezy conditions, with snowfall possible in parts of northern New Hampshire, northern Maine and the Adirondacks. If the system tracks further inland, there could be less snow and more rain in the mountains, forecasters said.

“The system doesn’t look like a powerhouse right now,” Hayden Frank, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Massachusetts, said Sunday. “Basically, this is going to bring rain to the I-95 corridor so travelers should prepare for wet weather. Unless the system trends a lot colder, it looks like rain.”

Frank said he isn’t seeing any major storm systems arriving for the weekend anywhere in the country so travelers heading home Sunday can expect good driving conditions. Temperatures, however, will get colder in the East while warming up out West.

Deadly ‘bomb cyclone’ on West Coast

Earlier this week, two people died when the storm arrived in the Pacific Northwest. Hundreds of thousands lost power, mostly in the Seattle area, before strong winds moved through Northern California. A rapidly intensifying “ bomb cyclone ” that hit the West Coast on Tuesday brought fierce winds that resulted in home and vehicle damage.

Rescue crews in Guerneville, California, recovered a body inside a vehicle bobbing in floodwaters around 11:30 a.m. Saturday, Sonoma County Sheriff’s Deputy Rob Dillion said, noting the deceased was presumed to be a victim of the storm but an autopsy had not yet been conducted.

Santa Rosa, California, saw its wettest three-day period on record with about 12.5 inches (32 centimeters) of rain by Friday evening, the National Weather Service in the Bay Area reported. Vineyards in nearby Windsor, California, were flooded on Saturday.

Tens of thousands without power in Seattle area

About 36,000 people in the Seattle area were still without electricity after this season’s strongest atmospheric river, a long plume of moisture that forms over an ocean and flows over land.

Northeast gets needed precipitation

Another storm brought rain to New York and New Jersey, where rare wildfires have raged in recent weeks, and heavy snow to northeastern Pennsylvania. The precipitation was expected to help ease drought conditions after an exceptionally dry fall.

“It’s not going to be a drought buster, but it’s definitely going to help when all this melts,” said Bryan Greenblatt, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Binghamton, New York.

Heavy snow fell in northeastern Pennsylvania, including the Pocono Mountains. Higher elevations reported up to 17 inches (43 centimeters), with lesser accumulations in valley cities including Scranton and Wilkes-Barre. Around 35,000 customers in 10 counties are still without power, down from 80,000 a day ago.

Precipitation in West Virginia helped put a dent in the state’s worst drought in at least two decades and boosted ski resorts preparing to open their slopes in the weeks ahead.

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Associated Press writer Claire Rush in Portland, Oregon, contributed to this report.

AAA projects that 79.9 million Americans will go 50 miles or more away from home over the Thanksgiving holidays.