Air Force Falcons @ San Diego State Aztecs Football Preview

The simple truth is sometimes the only truth which needs to be told. For the San Diego State Aztecs, football needs to be reduced to its most basic element as the Air Force Falcons travel to Southern California for an evening encounter this weekend.

You don't have to be a rocket scientist to acknowledge the following: You can't score if you don't have the ball. Yes, fumble recoveries and pick-sixes dot the landscape of football games every now and then, but on an overwhelming percentage of football possessions, defenses don't score. They can merely expect to get the ball back through a turnover or a punt. Defenses will occasionally score points directly, but their most reasonable goal is to hand the ball over to the offense.

This is the not-very-complicated need which stares San Diego State directly in the face as week seven comes across the calendar.

Last week, one of the more remarkable games of the 2010 season unfolded in Provo, Utah. A struggling Brigham Young team that had lost four straight games because of the lack of a powerful and physical running game managed to whack San Diego State in the teeth. The Aztecs, who possess a chronic inability to finish off evenly-matched opponents on the road, were favored to topple BYU, but the Cougars raised their level of determination against an Aztec defense that didn't gird its loins for battle... at least not with the intensity the occasion demanded.

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How fully did San Diego State's defense falter against BYU? The Aztecs surrendered 271 rushing yards to the Cougars. More importantly, BYU rushed the ball 62 times in a transparent and purposeful attempt to re-establish a winner's mentality. That tactic worked for the Cougars and coach Bronco Mendenhall, whose insistence on the ground game enabled BYU to control the ball for 45 minutes. Yes, that's right - BYU controlled the ball for 45 minutes despite committing two turnovers. San Diego State gave up the ball only one time yet had possession of the rock for only 15 minutes.

The fact that BYU won by a scant 24-21 margin shows that if SDSU had been able to get BYU's offense off the field with just a little more regularity, the Aztecs would have been in good position to win. Scoring 21 points with only 15 minutes of possession is an exceptional rate of efficiency for any offense; from that standpoint, SDSU coach Brady Hoke should have been thrilled with last Saturday's developments. Yet, the no-backbone showing by Hoke's defense ruined his afternoon and robbed the Aztecs of a chance to get the breakthrough road win that's been so elusive for the program over the past decade.

Now, with Air Force and its vaunted ground game rolling into San Diego to take on the Aztecs, the SDSU crew has a moment of reckoning on its hands. Will the Aztecs' defensive front not allow itself to get pushed around in the trenches? Will the Aztecs, on the friendly turf of Qualcomm Stadium, rise up in defense of their home stadium and take a crucial step toward bowl eligibility? Can SDSU notch a signature win and make a statement to the rest of the Mountain West?

The Aztecs will need to possess the ball in order to fulfill that objective. Football can be deceptively simple sometimes.

By: Matt Zemek
DFN Sports Senior Staff Writer