SAN DIEGO STATE GOES AGAINST GRAIN
Old-time approach gives team shot at New Year’s Six
SAN DIEGO The trophy recognizing last season’s Mountain West Conference championship sits on a picnic table tucked inside the main doorway to San Diego State’s football offices, across the hall from the Aztecs’ modest meeting room and one floor above a weight room the football team shares with the university’s other athletic programs.
Elsewhere, perhaps, such signs of success are wall-mounted, hidden behind glass, bathed in bright lights and showcased for the world to see, as evidence of games and championships won. It is that for San Diego State — draped in school colors, positioned below a sign preaching one of the Aztecs’ main tenets (“Hard Work Hones Our Edge,” it reads) and topped with mementos — only different: It’s just a picnic table.
“We’re not one of those schools that amaze them with what I call ‘bling,’ ” head coach Rocky Long tells USA TODAY Sports.
The Aztecs locker room, in Long ’s words, “looks like a high school locker room.” The weight room is “very average.” There’s no cafeteria reserved for studentathletes. There are no waterfalls, no bells, no whistles, no “music and all that stuff.”
“We don’t have the problem of getting the kid that comes there because it’s the prettiest and it’s the best and it’s the most wonderful,” he said. “We don’t have that problem, because the kids know what we’ve got. And if they don’t, they see it when they get here.”
At first glance, the Aztecs surroundings quietly highlight, almost at a whisper, the program’s recent success. They are on a streak of six consecutive bowl appearances and enter this season on a 10-game winning streak — the second-longest active streak in the Football Bowl Subdivision, trailing only that of Alabama, the defending national champion.
There’s more to this picture, and there’s more to this program. Here in this hub of laid-back and easygoing Southern California, the Aztecs’ nuts-and-bolts physical appearance is mirrored by an identity and mentality: San Diego State has, if nothing else, willingly elected to turn its perceived negatives — no great history of success, a roster of players largely ignored by power-conference recruiters, throwback offensive and defensive philosophies and an utter lack of frills — into the engine behind its success.
“We’re about the brick and mortar, the foundation here,” associate head coach Bobby Hauck says. “It’s maybe even a dying art in our game to approach it that way, but the formula hasn’t changed. You go back 100 years in this game. The formula works. And until they make blocking and tackling illegal, it’s still going to work. It’s still going to be a formula that works in this game.
“You’ve got to come and go to work here to play on this team and to work here. You have to have a bit of a blue-collar mentality. That’s a hard blend here, and it’s difficult to get. But when you do, it’s something special.”
Fourteen starters return, including six first-team all-Mountain West selections. Among teams in the FBS, only Oklahoma, with nine, had more players earn first-team all-league honors. Counted among those returning starters are the reigning conference offensive, defensive and special-teams players of the year.
When coupled with its returning talent, San Diego State’s torrid close paints the Aztecs as perhaps the strongest contender for the berth in a New Year’s Six bowl afforded to the best team on the Group of Five level.
“Our expectations are always high, so we don’t remind them of anything,” Long says. “We go about our business and do things the way we always do.”
Alone, that the Aztecs are in this position is noteworthy: SDSU had long been viewed as one of college football’s greatest underachievers, defined by an inability to take advantage of a deep and talented recruiting base in its backyard. That perception of the program has changed under Long, who has captured two conference titles since being promoted from defensive coordinator after the 2010 season.
In an era when spread offenses are found in every league and title contenders are marked by wealth as much as wins, San Diego State swims successfully against the current with a commitment to a bygone era of the game.
“We’re the dinosaur. I feel that’s our niche,” offensive coordinator Jeff Horton says. “That’s who we are. Teams always say when they get ready to play someone good, ‘We’re looking forward to playing real football, old-fashioned football.’ But they haven’t had a guard pulling on them or tackles blocking down or a fullback leading the way.”
Horton’s system dictates time of possession with its run-first approach while avoiding crucial missteps. The Aztecs threw just three interceptions last fall, the second fewest in the FBS.
“We just feel like in the course of a game we’ll just keep wearing on you,” Horton says. “We’re going to outhit you and out-tough you, and we’re going to slow the game down.”
The defense, an alignment of three linemen and three linebackers in front of five defensive backs, attacks spread and prostyle opponents alike with a mix of blitzing and stunting; last season’s defense led the Mountain West in sacks, tackles for losses and interceptions and in yards and points allowed per game.
“Our coach doesn’t preach the flashiness,” senior running back Donnel Pumphrey says. “He just preaches the hard work and the toughness on and off the field. Because when you play football, you can’t be soft out here. And there are a lot of spread teams that are soft. I mean, they win games, but they’re still soft.”
But don’t equate a lack of flash with a lack of skill. San Diego State has talent and experience, two assets that paint the Aztecs as a team prepared to leap into the center of the College Football Playoff conversation.
“We’re not all flashy,” senior linebacker Calvin Munson says. “We’re not out there with different-colored helmets every single game, different jerseys. We run our program old-fashioned. We’re a tough team.”