Utah State’s Defense Showing Progress, Urgency In Fall Camp

LOGAN, Utah – Utah State is progressing well on the defensive side of the ball while showing urgency as they begin to wrap up fall camp under Blake Anderson.

They held their first scrimmage of fall camp over the weekend and Utah State’s defense was able to force five turnovers and keep the offense out of the end zone.

Defensive coordinator and safeties coach Ephraim Banda is pleased with what he is seeing out of his defense.

“It was our lowest missed tackled scrimmage that we’ve had since we’ve been here,” Banda said. “The other thing I asked the kids to do is focus on an urgency, urgency to run to the ball, urgency to get your eyes back to me, urgency to get set, I thought they were phenomenal and that they got to the ball. Then takeaways I want to see us really show that we can get the ball I think we had, it was a lot and wasn’t too sure but it was a good amount of turnovers. Some of them were iffy if it counted or not. But either way the kids contested the ball. They did a great job on that. One last thing I asked them to be extremely physically tough.”

Urgency is 🔑@CoachBanda x Shaq Bond#AggiesAllTheWay pic.twitter.com/ZYLgZdF7SO

— USU Football (@USUFootball) August 16, 2021

After the scrimmage on Saturday, head coach Blake Anderson was pleased with the defense and critical of the offense.

“I thought we played hard and physical today,” said Anderson. “The biggest concern, obviously, is turnovers and you can’t have five turnovers in a game and expect to win very often. I’m fired up about the defense for creating them and I’m frustrated with the offense for having them. I guess that is the way it goes when you go against yourself.”

Utah State will open the 2021 season on Saturday, September 4 at Washington State. Kickoff is at 9 p.m. MT and will be televised on the Pac-12 Network.