By Mick McGrane, GoAztecs.com Senior Writer
(@MickOnTheMesa)
The credentials are piled higher than a tangle of bodies on a fourth-and-goal at the one.
The winningest coach in Mountain West history. Three-time MW Coach of the Year. An unprecedented seven straight bowl games and three straight 10-win seasons at SDSU.
And all of it on display in an overtime win over Eastern Michigan on Saturday that was considerably less bump-and-run than barroom brawl. If Rocky Long has resurrected a football program once so ghastly it drove fans away in droves, he's done so by signing his name with a fist.
He's lost his starting quarterback. He's lost an offensive lineman who started two straight games before going down. He's lost his starting nose tackle. On Saturday, he lost his starting tailback for the second half and later lost his starting fullback. One of his top receivers was unavailable due to an injury that flared up earlier in the week.
Yet, where once there was ragtag, there's now stubborn resolve. You don't back Rocky Long-coached teams into a corner and expect them to cower. "Next man up" may be trite, but in this instance, it's unequivocally true.
Ryan Agnew, who had never started a game at quarterback and had thrown nine career passes before taking over for injured starter Christian Chapman, is now 2-0.
Nick Gerhard, who had played in 10 career games, earned his first career start at center on Saturday, sliding versatile Keith Ismael over to right guard in place of the injured Zachary Thomas.
With senior nose tackle Noble Hall dealing with an injured wrist, junior Myles Cheatum, who began the season as a backup to defensive end Chibu Onyeukwu, has held strong in the middle.
With starting tailback Juwan Washington sidelined by a chest injury on Saturday, sophomore Chase Jasmin again proved the ying to Washington's yang, finishing with 94 yards. In the past two weeks, Jasmin has rushed for 213 yards.
With fullback Isaac Lessard joining Washington on the sideline with an undisclosed injury, senior Chad Woolsey, a former walk-on who averaged 5.1 yards per carry last season, answered the call.
With sophomore wide receiver Tim Wilson Jr. nursing a sore back after averaging a team-best 17.7 yards per catch, redshirt freshman and former walk-on BJ Busbee caught a 24-yard scoring pass from Agnew. Busbee entered the game with one career catch.
Reduced to simplest terms, this is coaching. This is about having reserves ready to roll at a moment's notice. This is about Rocky Long and a staff that in its own right is still finding its way. This is about accepting roles and shouldering responsibility, qualities that largely had vanished from the program prior to Long's arrival.
"We're playing about like I thought we would," Long said. "I mean, we have a young coaching staff and we have very young players. So, being consistent and good is really hard for both of those groups. I thought we were going to struggle. Sooner or later, we have to stop struggling and play more like a veteran team than we are now."
No small feat, that. The Aztecs went into Saturday's game starting seven seniors, two on offense (tackle Ryan Pope and receiver Fred Trevillion) and four on defense (defensive ends Anthony Luke and Chibu Onyeukw, linebacker Ronley Lakalaka and safety Parker Baldwin).
The team's other starting senior is a kicker who, if not a finalist for the Groza Award, presented annually to the nation's top kicker, should sue. John Baron II, who momentarily proved himself mortal by missing a 35-yarder, drilled a 50-yarder to tie the game with 1:16 left before delivering the game winner from 38 yards in overtime.
Baron, who had yet to miss a field goal in five attempts this season, with two coming from 50-plus yards, is now 8-for-9 and has accounted for 31 of SDSU's 89 total points.
Long, who consults with Baron about the potential success rate of a kick before utilizing the services of punter Brandon Heicklen, said there was no collaboration between the two prior to Baron's attempt in overtime.
"I told him after the game that I was mad he missed the one," Long said with a grin. "But I forgave him, because he made those two at the end."
The two that enabled the Aztecs to conclude the non-conference portion of the season at 3-1 for the second time under Long after going 4-0 in 2017. The win increased Long's second-half comeback victories at SDSU to a school-record 19, further distancing himself from Claude Gilbert's 13 (1973-80). Meanwhile, the Aztecs, who as members of the Mountain West won 18 non-conference games in 12 seasons prior to Long's arrival, have posted a mark of 14-3 in their last 17 non-conference games.
If SDSU has shown nothing else, it's certainly proven it can roll with the punches. Not only is Long dealing with the challenges of expediting the learning curve of a team short on experience, he also spent the offseason scrambling to fill coaching vacancies. In parting ways with defensive coordinator Danny Gonzales and recruiting coordinator Tony White, both of whom left for Arizona State, and associate head coach/special teams coach Bobby Hauck, who returned as head coach at Montana, Long lost three coaches who had been with him for a combined 30 years.
"When coaching changes happen, you have to get to know each other better and you have to communicate better," Long said prior to the season. "When you've been with the same group for a long time, there's a lot of (unspoken) communication, because coaches already know how things work."
Players at SDSU also know how things work. The Aztecs, who have lost just seven times under Long in their last 41 games, had three players contribute Saturday whose names seldom appear on a postgame stat sheet. Gerhard made his first career start at center, while true freshman receiver Elijah Kothe recorded his first two career catches and redshirt freshman Kaegun Williams posted his first career carry.
Meanwhile, it was another redshirt freshman, cornerback Darren Hall, who set up Baron's game-winning field goal with an interception in the end zone on Eastern Michigan's first possession in overtime.
Coaching.
"It makes it a lot harder, losing a starting quarterback (Chapman), losing your best defensive lineman (Noble Hall) and then losing Tim Wilson Jr., who was playing really, really well," Long said. "We had four or five guys on the sideline who are starters. So, not only are you young and you've lost starters, but obviously you're not going to play very consistently and probably not very well."
Maybe under some coaches. Not under Rocky Long.
McGrane: Rocky Still has Plenty in Reserves
