SAN DIEGO — It felt like the defense couldn’t rest for the San Diego State football team in their 21-0 loss to Oregon State on Saturday night at Snapdragon Stadium.
Yet for 45 minutes and seven seconds the Aztecs (1-1) were able to delay judgment and stay within a score of the Beavers (2-0) while being thoroughly out-generated in nearly every offensive statistic. It was the kind of tough and gritty performance that has been a cornerstone of the program.
The night could’ve been much worse as Oregon State out-possessed the Aztecs by a 41:07 to 18:53 margin and generated a 420-179 differential in total yards. Still, SDSU by and large kept the OSU running back duo of Jam Griffin and Anthony Hankerson from making big plays in the rushing game.
Griffin tallied 89 yards on 18 carries with a touchdown, while Hankerson carried 16 times for 73 yards and a score. Both had just two runs each of ten or more yards, and three of those longer runs didn’t happen until after the later stages of the third quarter.
Chris Johnson led the team with nine tackles, with seven being solo stops in addition to breaking up a pass. The linebacking duo of Owen Chambliss and Tano Letuli had seven tackles each. SDSU made full use of their defensive depth with 24 different players recording tackles and 17 making multiple wrap-ups.
The unit stopped Oregon State on 10 of 19 on third downs and forced a pair of field goal tries, with the first missing from 38 yards out near the end of the first half and the second going wide right from 54 yards out just over six minutes into the fourth.
If this week was all about handling the run, next week on the road against 2-0 University of California will see an offense that has averaged 206.0 yards passing and 100.5 yards rushing in wins over UC Davis and at Auburn.