After an hour-long meeting, you walk over to the water cooler for a little chit-chat with coworkers. Immediately, you find yourself waterboarded with painful small talk. You don’t have any interest in it because you have more pressing matters on your mind like SJSU Football.
I present to you: Water Cooler Talk. A column that supplies you with three (hopefully interesting) topics about San Jose State’s (6-4,4-3) 35-31 loss to Utah State (6-5, 5-2) to steer your dull conversation into a more ‘survivable’ direction.
Groundhog Day
Swap quarterback Chevan Cordeiro and wide receiver Elijah Cooks for Bill Murray and Rita MacDowell, and Logan, Utah for Punxsutawney, Pa. SJSU football was doing their own “Groundhog Day” rendition.
Similar to last week against San Diego State, a Cordeiro-to-Cooks touchdown put the Spartans up in a jiffy. The Spartans subsequently nabbed an interception and then allowed a flood of unanswered points.
Also mirroring last week, the unanswered points fiasco included a special teams touchdown.
That ominous time loop of same-stuff-different-day was broken when Cooks reeled in a touchdown to stop the unanswered point streak at 21 and not 38.
The games weren’t identical, but they weren’t strangers either.
Classify them as second cousins because SJSU still lost despite an unmistakable fight being shown.
SJSU took a 31-28 lead with six minutes left from a touchdown reception by third-year tight end Jackson Canaan.
Unfortunately, Utah State grabbed the game right back when fifth-year running back Calvin Tyler Jr. stomped in for his third rushing touchdown of the night.
SJSU lost, but they didn’t tuck in their tail and let Utah State run laps around them like SDSU did the week before.
After the “nightmare” punt-block touchdown (SJSU head coach Brent Brennan’s description, not mine) the Spartans allowed one touchdown in the five subsequent drives.
Clearly it wasn’t enough …
Fell a couple punches short
Two things can be true at the same time.
You can pat SJSU football on the back for showing a strong fight and also recognize that it shot itself in the foot on many occasions.
Cordeiro missed key third down throws and the offense looked feeble on a four-and-out to end the game.
The defense was repeatedly gashed as well.
They allowed 430 yards of offense, let Utah State convert 10-of-17 third downs, 2-of-3 fourth downs and gave up 184 yards on the ground.
Third-year quarterback Cooper Legas pioneered a nine-play, 75-yard drive to clinch the win.
When commiserating with your co-worker, there’s two plays that should come up.
Obviously the first one is the punt-block returned for a touchdown.
Not a math guy, but carnage was bound to happen when six Aggies rushed first-year punter Alex Weir and only three Spartans were left to protect him.
The second and nearly just as costly was a dropped pick from fifth-year cornerback Nehemiah Shelton because this happened on the next play:
Shelton has been solid this year, but without exaggeration Legas laid the pick out for him on a silver platter and he whiffed on it.
Hat trick Cooks
There’s something spectacular about watching an extraordinarily talented person at the peak of their powers.
Doesn’t matter if it’s Jay-Z on “The Blueprint,” 2004 Barry Bonds or Robin Williams and Matt Damon in “Good Will Hunting.”
You can add Cooks to this upper echelon following his three touchdown performance last Saturday night.
The sixth-year wide receiver notched his first career hat trick and the first one from an SJSU wideout since Chandler Jones against Fresno State in a 62-52 win on Nov. 29, 2013.
He illustrated all of his special and unique talent on his second touchdown of the night.
There’s the gazelle-like gallop to dash past a cornerback melded with an iron-strong grip on the ball.
If a different Aggie, say one used in the running of the bulls collided with him, chances are he’d still have hung on.
Not to mention his breakneck speed and ability to put opposing defensive backs on ice skates.
Something he’s been doing for a while just not always on the gridiron.
I’ll take the wrap if your boss isn’t pleased with your goofing off. All complaints can be sent to my Twitter @Mattweiner20.
We as a staff do not condone Matt shaking your employer’s beehive.
We always talk about what we did to improve in offense but we never address the reason why we lost the past two games – opponents continues to exploit our weak secondary defense. Also I have not seen any corrective action by coach Brennan on getting this resolved.