Gary Andersen Wants His Defense To Be More Physical
Nov 5, 2019, 5:28 PM
Utah State Aggies cornerback Cam Lampkin (18) intercepts a ball intended for Brigham Young Cougars wide receiver Aleva Hifo (15) in the end zone during the second half of an NCAA football game at Maverik Stadium in Logan on Saturday, Nov. 2, 2019. The Brigham Young Cougars took back the wagon wheel in a dominant 42-14 victory over the Utah State Aggies. (Colter Peterson, Deseret News)
(Colter Peterson, Deseret News)
LOGAN, Utah – Utah State has lost their last two games by a combined 73 points and are looking to what they can do to improve their defense.
Aggies head coach Gary Andersen, as he usually does, took the blame for how the defense has performed in the last two weeks. They lost 31-7 to Air Force two weeks ago and fell to BYU, 42-14 on Saturday.
Andersen believes that his defense just needs to be more physical.
“There’s no real reason to sit back when you’re struggling and you’re dealing with adversity,” Andersen said. “My style is to look back and say we’ll work to get the guys better, and when it’s good, it’s all the players. We can help them. That’s the key thing to help them and make sure that’s crystal clear in their minds and it’s clean, they play fast and precise. Just because it looks good on the board all the time doesn’t mean it always looks good out on the field, so we’ll work to do that. We need to be more physical. We need to put the players in a position to be more physical, also. We can help them do that.”
Cali Bound ➡️ Fresno State
NOTES ➡️ https://t.co/qDKbsqxqMa#AggiesAllTheWay pic.twitter.com/hxSUimufs6
— USU Football (@USUFootball) November 5, 2019
As well as allowing 73 points in the last two games, the defense has allowed 1,111 yards of total offense. Andersen agrees that his team needs to tackle better.
“There are a lot of things you can actually do,” Andersen stated. “It’s important to look at the whole field and what’s getting you into those one-on-one tackling scenarios, and those one-on-one tackling situations. You can improve angles, even if you’re not really physical in your tackling and you’re getting guys down to the ground. That’s a big part of it, obviously. There are times where you need to lay your hands on people and wrap them up, sometimes to the ground and sometimes just to get into the position to physically be able to take them to the ground. There are things we can work on. It’s disappointing, but the bottom line is we need to coach it better. That’s always been my philosophy. When something’s not good, we need to look at and take responsibility. And the players will, too. We’ll make sure we do, and we’ll work on it.”
Utah State will travel to Fresno State on Saturday at 5 p.m. on CBS Sports Network.
