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Utah State Football Supplemental Notes at UNLV Saturday
Aug. 29, 2008
LOGAN, Utah - Complete Utah State at UNLV Supplemental Notes in PDF Format
HERE TO HELP ON GAME DAY -- USU Asst. Athletic Director/Media Relations Doug Hoffman and USU media relations assistant director Zach Fisher will be on hand to assist you in your coverage of Utah State at today's game. Please do not hesitate to call on them for any assistance you may need. POSTGAME -- The Utah State locker room is closed to the media. After a brief cooling off period, head coach Brent Guy and selected players will be available at a designated area. All player requests should be made to Fisher prior to the five minute mark of the fourth quarter. GAME CAPTAINS -- Utah State football selects different captains each week. Those selected for the UNLV game are senior wide receiver, #14 Otis Nelson for the offense, senior linebacker, #47 Daryl Fields for the defense and sophomore cornerback, #22 Geno Odong for the special teams. WATCHLESS -- Saturday's game will not be televised nor on a web cast on the Internet. OLD SCHOOL -- While Saturday's game will not be on TV nor on the Internet, fans can follow the game on the radio, via KVNU 610 AM and KLZX 95.9 FM in Logan; 1320 AM in Salt Lake City; on KLZX 105.3 FM in Montpelier, Idaho, and at www.UtahStateAggies.com with Al Lewis calling the play-by-play and Craig Hislop providing analysis. FIRST FLIGHT -- Friday is the Aggies' first flight out of Logan-Cache Airport... The team has had to bus from Logan to Salt Lake City to get on a charter flight... The difference in departure and arrival airport is expected to cut down at least two hours on either side of the trip... The team will have only a 10 minute bus ride from campus to the Logan airport compared to the previous trips of an hour and a half to two hours from campus to the SLC airport. TRAVEL PLANS -- Utah State will fly from Logan to Las Vegas, Nev., on Friday afternoon, and return on Saturday night after the game. Doug Hoffman (C: 435-881-8011) and Zach Fisher (C: 435-213-0318) of the athletic media relations staff will travel to the game. 110 / 116 -- USU is taking the field for the 110th season of football in 116 years. The Aggies beat Utah, 12-0, in 1892, but then did not field a team until 1896, when they again only played one game but then played every year since with the exceptions of 1918 due to World War I and influenza cancelled the season and 1943 due to World War II.
A USU Win Would... A USU Loss Would...
EARLY STARTS -- Utah State is opening the 2008 season on Aug. 30, the same date that the Aggies began the 2007 season, marking the first time since the 1958-59 seasons that USU has kicked off back-to-back seasons on the same date... By playing UNLV in consecutive season-openers, the Aggies are facing the same opponent in two-straight lid-lifters since 2002-03 when USU tangled with in-state rival Utah in back-to-back openers. WIN STREAK STATS -- Utah State enters the 2008 season with a two-game win streak after being victorious in the last two games of the 2007 season. The Aggies currently have the second-longest streak among Western Athletic Conference teams both overall and in conference games, trailing the 15-game WAC winning streak by Hawai'i and Fresno State's three-game overall win streak. Overall, the Aggies are tied for the sixth-longest winning streak in NCAA Division I. OVERALL IN WAC Fresno State - W3 UTAH STATE - W2OH BROTHER WHEREART THOUGH -- Utah State's senior twin brother tandem of cornerback Joshua and safety Caleb Taylor. The brotherly duo are one of just eight pairs brother teammates in Division I. The Taylors are one of three tandems who are twins. Below is the most recent listing of current brothers starting for the same college team. School Brothers (Positions) California Eddie (Jr., LB) and Sean Young (Sr., WR) Ole Miss John (Jr., OL) and Peria Jerry (Sr., DT) Rutgers Twin brothers Devin (Jr., CB) and Jason McCourty (Sr., CB)* San Jose St. Carl (Jr., DE) and Duke Ihenacho (So., LB) Temple Twin brothers Elijah (So., OLB) and Elisha Joseph (So., DT) Utah State Twin brothers Caleb (Sr., FS) and Joshua Taylor (Sr., CB) Virginia Tech Cam (Jr., OLB) and Orion Martin (Sr., DE) Wyoming Marcell (So., CB) and Tashaun Gipson (Fr., CB) *Devin McCourty redshirted his freshman season at Rutgers while his twin brother Jason did not redshirt, thus their different years in school. The Taylors have 35 combined starts and played 64 combined games, believed to be the most combined starts and games played among the brother tandems. THINGS TO LOOK FOR IN SATURDAY'S GAME -- FROM TITLE TEAMMATES TO FOES -- USU senior C Ryan Tonnemacher and UNLV sophomore QB/DB Travis Dixon were high school teammates in Chandler, Ariz. at Hamilton HS, where they led the Huskies to the Arizona State 5A championship in 2004. WATCH THE WATCH LISTERS -- USU has three preseason Watch List members: senior linebacker Jake Hutton and junior linebacker Paul Igboeli on the Butkus Award Watch List for the best linebacker, while senior center Ryan Tonnemacher is on the Rimington Trophy Watch List for the best center... UNLV totes Frank Summers on the Doak Walker Watch List, honoring the best running back. FIRST TIME SEASON STARTERS AT QB -- Both USU and UNLV will have a quarterback who will be starting the season behind center for the first time... Aggie senior signal caller Sean Setzer has played in just one game, while Rebel sophomore QB Omar Clayton played in seven contests last year, starting three... Setzer replaces two-year starter Leon Jackson III while Clayton is the fifth different UNLV QB to start a season. USU RECORD WATCH -- TOUGH TACKLER -- Senior linebacker Jake Hutton enters his final season in Aggie blue and white with 218 career tackles... He needs 95 more to reach USU's top 10 list, as Blake Eagal currently holds the No. 10 spot with 313 career stops from 1997-2000. OSKIE RETURNS -- USU junior safety James Brindley tied for the team lead with three interceptions last season but lead the Aggies with 96 return yards, a mark that ranked fourth in the WAC and was good for ninth on USU's single-season list. He needs just 26 more return yards to crack into the Aggies' career interception return yardage list, as the No. 10 spot of 122 yards is co-held by Craig Miller (1995-96) and Charles Myrick (1967-68)... Brindley's 96 return yards all came last season, putting him at No. 9 on USU's single-season INT return list. JUST KICKIN' IT -- Placekicker Peter Caldwell was 13-of-21 on field goals last season, just missing the top 10 for USU's single-season field goals made list, but he is tied for seventh on USU's single-season field goals attempted list... Caldwell was 25-of-25 on PAT's, joining four former Aggie kickers with a perfect PAT percentage.
UTAH STATE IN THE WAC TIDBITS -- SATURDAY GAMEDAY -- USU is one of seven WAC teams opening the season on Saturday, Aug. 30, as Fresno State kicks off the season on Monday, Sept. 1 at Rutgers and New Mexico State drew an opening weekend bye before playing Thursday, Sept. 4. STARTING QB'S -- With Sean Setzer being a new starting quarterback to open the season, Utah State will have one of five new starting signal-callers in the WAC, joining Boise State, Hawai'i, Louisiana Tech and San Jose State. LEADING TACKLER RETURNING -- The Aggies' Jake Hutton led the team in tackles last season with 102 stops and returns for his senior campaign... USU is only one of four teams in the WAC to have its leading tackler back from a year ago, joined by Boise State, Hawai'i and Louisiana Tech. WAC VS. MWC -- Utah State will play three teams from the Mountain West Conference in UNLV (Aug. 30), Utah (Sept. 13) and BYU (Oct. 6)... Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico State and San Jose State are the other teams in the WAC to play any Mountain West teams, and each only plays one with three of the four facing in-state rivals an in-state rivals as Nevada takes on UNLV, New Mexico State tangles with New Mexico and San Jose State squares off with San Diego State, who also plays Idaho. TOP 25 OPPONENTS IN SCHEDULE -- Utah State and Nevada are the only two WAC teams to play more than one Top 25 team in the AP poll, the "official" poll of college football, which was released Saturday... The Aggies tangle with No. 16 BYU (Oct. 3) and 21st-ranked Oregon (Sept. 6), while the Wolf Pack of Nevada plays sixth-ranked Missouri and No. 12 Texas Tech... Four other conference teams play one AP Top 25 team: Boise State (No. 21 Oregon), Fresno State (No. 13 Wisconsin), Hawai'i (No. 5 Florida) and Louisiana Tech (No. 14 Kansas). BOWLING BATTLES -- USU is one of four WAC teams to play three non-conference games against a team that was in bowl game last year, joining Boise State, Fresno State and Hawai'i. AGGIE BITS -- TIME ZONE REPRESENTATION -- While Utah State only plays in three different time zones this season (Mountain for all home games and at Boise State, Pacific at UNLV, at Oregon, at San Jose State and at Nevada, Central at Louisiana Tech), the Aggies have at least one player from five different time zones, Eastern, Central, Mountain, Pacific and Hawaiian-Aleutian. ROAD TRIP -- Utah State opening the season with two games on the road matches the 2006 season when Utah was also the Aggies' home opener, just like this year on Sept. 13. SWEET HOME ROMNEY -- Utah State will have three-straight home games for the first time since 1997, which coincidentally is the last time that the Aggies went to a bowl game. TOP TACKLERS RETURNING -- The USU defense not only returns its top eight tackle leaders from last year, but a total of 25 of the top 30 tacklers are back. SUPER SCORERS -- USU returns eight of its top 10 scorers from last season, including the team's leading scorer in sophomore kicker Peter Caldwell (64 points). Also returning are sophomore running back Derrvin Speight (20 points), senior tight end Rob Myers (18 points), sophomore running backs Curtis Marsh and Jacob Actkinson (12 points apiece), senior safety De'von Hall, senior wide receiver Otis Nelson and junior wide receiver Xavier Bowman (six points each). TRENCH DWELLERS -- Utah State's three returning starting offensive linemen in seniors Derek Hoke and Ryan Tonnemacher along with sophomore Spencer Johnson started every game last season. The trio in the trenches has a combined 56 games started. SMART AGGIES -- USU has 13 of its 16 academic all-WAC honorees returning this season. The 16 football student-athletes are part of the 130 total USU student-athletes to earn academic all-WAC honors as Utah State led the WAC all three years that USU has been a member of the conference after joining the league in July, 2005. DIAL M FOR AGGIES -- The Aggies have a total of 15 players whose last name starts with the letter "M," the most of any letter. EACH OTHER'S LAST TIME LISTS -- Utah State is on UNLV's "Last Time" list, as the last opponent individual with at least 10 receptions, as USU's Tony Pennyman had 10 catches against UNLV on Sept. 24, 2005... UNLV was on Utah State's "Last Time" list for three weeks, as Kevin Robinson topped the 200 yards all-purpose mark with 275 against the Rebels last year before topping that mark again a few weeks later with 276 against San Jose State. UP NEXT -- Utah State will head to Eugene, Ore., to take on No. 21 Oregon on Saturday, Sept. 6 at 1:30 p.m. (MT).
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