Oct. 9, 2016
SAN DIEGO -
2016 Mick McGrane Features
Continuity Makes a Comeback (Jan. 15)
SDSU Hits its Stride in Recruiting Race (Feb. 4)
Aztecs Knock Down Doors on Recruiting Trail (Feb. 9)
Ernie Lawson Comes Home to New World (March 17)
Washington now has Room to Roam (March 21)
Peer Pressure? Not for Chapman (Aug. 8) Penny is Worth Every Cent to Aztecs (Aug. 18) Football has Never Been More Fun for Siragusa (Aug. 19) Nobody is Perfect, but Barrett is Closing Fast (Aug. 28) Aztecs Force Future with a Premium on Past (Sept. 1) Chapman Earns More than Passing Grade (Sept. 4) Aztecs Have Put Critics in Their Corner (Sept. 9) College Football Makes Comeback in San Diego (Sept. 11) Veteran Leadership is Treasured Commodity (Sept. 15) SDSU Shuns Fence in Favor of Fortress (Sept. 22) Life is neither Necessarily Easy nor Fair (Oct. 7)
McGrane: Pumphrey, Penny and Pick Your Poison
By Mick McGrane, GoAztecs.com Senior Writer (@MickOnTheMesa)
It's an approach that seems simple on the surface yet is oh-so crushing at its core.
Run left, run middle, run right...run the table.
The same offensive philosophy that generated 10 straight wins and saw SDSU go unbeaten in Mountain West play last season, was in full display Saturday night.
Build a lead, run the ball until knees buckle and souls sag, turn it over to an ornery defense, locate your lunch pail and leave for home.
Basic, brutal, backbreaking. And if it's old-school, so be it. This is far less about fashion than it is proven formula.
"I love it," said junior running back Rashaad Penny.
Defenses? Not so much.
In a 26-7 win over UNLV that marked the opening of league play, the Aztecs, like a fighter probing the soft underbelly, ultimately delivered a roundhouse right. Paced by Donnel Pumphrey, who, despite what you may have heard, is still very much Heisman-worthy, SDSU battered the Rebels with 54 rushes for 245 yards. The Aztecs finished with 460 total yards offense while limiting UNLV to 122, an effort that tied for the 13th-largest yard differential (338 yards) in SDSU's Division I history.
In tying the Mountain West record (New Mexico's DonTrell Moore) with his 26th career 100-yard game, Pumphrey carried 31 times for 141 yards and added a career-high seven catches for 57 yards.
Penny, meanwhile, the ying to Pumphrey's yang, carried 10 times for 110 yards in posting his first 100-yard game. He also caught two passes for 50 yards, one of them a 41-yard touchdown reception to begin the night.
It's like dental surgery with a dull knife. And once you're in the chair, it's too late.
"When you play a team that runs the ball as well as we do, you have to decide what you want to try and take away," said coach Rocky Long. "If you're going to try and take away the run, you better have (cornerbacks) that play really, really well (in man-to-man coverage) in order to win."
On those occasions when UNLV did take away the run, quarterback Christian Chapman made the Rebels pay, completing 15-of-20 passes for 215 yards.
But it's SDSU's relentless pounding that eventually initiates surrender. The Aztecs have won 26 straight games when rushing for more than 200 yards and are 34-2 in the Long era when doing so.
"It's very difficult (to contain Pumphrey and Penny), because they have two different styles," Long said. "You can never feel comfortable. D.J. (Pumphrey) is one of those guys where he'll look like he's going to run wide, then he'll plant his foot and go straight up the field. If you overshoot him, he'll cut back on you.
"Then Rashaad comes out and does just the opposite. He runs in a straight line. Now, if you're sitting there waiting for a cut-back, all of the sudden you find yourself (lunging) on a straight-line runner. Rashaad is also 215 pounds, so he can break a lot of arm tackles.
"The combination of the two makes it very difficult on the defense. You have to be physical with (Penny) because he weighs 215 pounds, but you have to be careful with D.J. because he might leave you with nothing but dust."
Pumphrey, who moved into 14th place on the all-time NCAA rushing list with 5,163 rushing yards, recorded a rushing touchdown for a sixth straight game (10 total over that span). He scored his ninth rushing touchdown of the season and now has 54 for his career. SDSU, far from surprisingly, is 21-5 when Pumphrey rushes for 100 yards and 25-8 when he scores at least one rushing touchdown.
Penny, meanwhile, scored a touchdown for the ninth straight game. He has 10 touchdowns during that time, including five rushing, three receiving and two on kickoff returns.
"With the big offensive line that we have, it takes a toll on a lot of people," Penny said. "You can see the defense start folding a little bit once you start getting those 8- and 9-yard gains. That's when you finally come out of the back end and score.
"I did this in high school. This isn't new to me. We ran a double-wing offense in high school and we pounded on a lot of people. I'm glad I'm here, because doing it here is an awesome feeling."
Defenses? Not so much.
"There's a lot of wear and tear (on a defense), because you've got that 1-2 punch constantly coming at you," said Aztecs senior safety Malik Smith. "Our offense is really physical. They're going to run straight downhill, right at you on every down, and as a defensive player it really wears you down. That's an effect we've had on a lot of defenses."
An effect not altogether cheery.
"One of the things that Coach (Jeff) Horton (associate head coach/offensive coordinator/running backs coach) does so well is that he always uses two running backs," Long said. "D.J. is special and everyone knows who he is, but one of the reasons he has success is because of Rashaad Penny. Last year, it was Chase Price. Those guys go in and spell him and they have different styles than he does.
"If you run three or four plays (with Rashaad), and then all of the sudden D.J. comes back in, you're going to (miss tackles) once in awhile. And both of them catch the ball well out of the backfield."
Double trouble trebled by Chapman's growing confidence at quarterback.
"They (UNLV) totally tried to take away the run," Long said. "They had more guys near the line of scrimmage than anybody we've played this year. They had 10 guys within six yards of the line of scrimmage. It didn't matter how many passes we completed, they never backed off."
As Pumphrey and Penny are fast proving, there's a price to pay for that.