AZTECS STILL SEEKING A QUARTERBACK
Brookshire, Baker produce very little in absence of Johnson
San Diego State returns to conference play in the Mountain West this week against Colorado State. Maybe.
SDSU then closes out the regular season Dec. 12 at BYU.
Possibly.
Things have reached the point for college football in general — and SDSU in particular — that nothing should come as a surprise.
Like matchups that pop up at a moment’s notice.
Here are three things we learned Saturday afternoon from SDSU’s 20-10 loss to Colorado at Folsom Field:
1. Sending out an SOS
It’s famously been said that if a team has two quarterbacks, it has none.
So what if it has three QBs?
Lucas Johnson, Carson Baker and Jordon Brookshire all have played quarterback for SDSU this season.
Johnson’s two quarters against Nevada two weeks ago stands has the high-water mark at the position.
The other 22 quarters this season? Umm, not good.
Johnson has a hamstring injury that prevented him from playing against Colorado and likely will be problematic the remainder of the year.
It was, after all, an issue before the season as well.
Hamstrings are like that. A player can feel completely recovered and the thing starts barking again during pregame warmups, during a three-step drop or after a touchdown run.
SDSU head coach Brady Hoke said after Saturday’s game that he expects Johnson to be back for Saturday’s game against Colorado State
“I think that there’s a good chance (Johnson) will be ready,” Hoke said. “I’m not the trainer. I don’t make those decisions, but I think there’s a good chance he could be.”
Then again, Hoke thought a day or two of rest last week would be enough to get Johnson back in the mix. By Thursday, it was ap
parent he wouldn’t be ready.
That’s when the decision was made to go with both Baker and Brookshire.
So what happens if Johnson remains on the mend?
SDSU’s options are not good.
Baker’s confidence has disappeared. Getting it back in the regular season’s last two games is a big ask. What happened to that player who showed so much promise last season against BYU?
Brookshire likely was given an opportunity because he has shown the ability in practice to make plays with his feet.
The problem is that the accuracy of his throws had been highly questionable — which was evident in his performance against Colorado — during his two seasons at SDSU.
That’s why Brookshire has been listed fourth on the depth chart behind Johnson, Baker and Mark Salazar (what does it say about Salazar that he was passed over?).
Simply said, the quarterback situation is a mess. And the prospects for improvement are not good.
2. Care not about conference
It was great for the Aztecs to get a Power 5 school on the schedule, especially at a moment’s notice.
But it remains puzzling why there was virtually no discussion of matching the Aztecs with Air Force, which had its game against Colorado State canceled.
That announcement came at midday Wednesday, which means there had to be concerns hours — if not a day(s) — earlier that the game wouldn’t be played.
The Pac-12 has a rule that conference teams must be matched against each other if their games are canceled by Thursday.
That’s how Washington (Washington State canceled) got matched up against Utah (Arizona State canceled) last week when the schools were left without games.
The Mountain West does not have such a requirement, leaving teams open to go find a nonconference opponent in such situations.
John David Wicker, SDSU’s director of athletics, said he had an agreement with Colorado on Tuesday.
Being a man of his word, Wicker lived up to that agree
ment.
But shouldn’t that word have included a condition — same as in the Pac-12 — that a conference opponent takes priority over a nonconference opponent if a Mountain West team is available?
Did SDSU not want to play an Air Force team whose triple-option offense is difficult to prepare for in a week, let alone two days?
Air Force was reportedly trying to reschedule its game against Army, which was postponed earlier this season, for last week (the teams will meet Dec. 19).
Apparently, Air Force was just fine having the week off if it couldn’t play Army.
It’s a bad look for the Mountain West not to do more to make conference members to play each other, playing right into the perception of a second-tier conference.
3. Guess who’s coming?
This time last week, Wicker was furiously working the phones looking for somebody, anybody, for the Aztecs to play.
“I would definitely prefer not to go through next week what we did this week,” Wicker said on Friday evening. Don’t look now ... Colorado State (1-2) is scheduled to play SDSU on Saturday at 4 p.m. at Carson’s Dignity Health Sports Park.
Hoke was encouraged Saturday by a report that the Rams had practiced that day.
“We’re going to get ready for Colorado State,” Hoke said.
The Rams have had more games canceled than any other Mountain West team this season, watching their season opener against New Mexico and a game against UNLV erased because of COVID-19 issues in those programs and last week’s Air Force game because of issues within their own program.
The game against the Falcons was canceled by Colorado State school President Joyce McConnell, not the Mountain West.
It remains to be seen whether the number of those testing positive for the coronavirus and identified through contact tracing comes down enough to make school officials comfortable to move forward.
“We’ll see what happens,” Wicker said. “You never know.”
Expect Wicker to be working the phones again this week. He will want to have Plans B, C and D ready, just in case.