In the calm before the storm, with the grass field as pristine as it could look, with the sun setting and splashing the sky with a mix of light red, orange and yellow, a trophy sat on a table.
Air Force head coach Troy Calhoun and San Diego State coach Rocky Long walked up to the table, shook hands and posed for pictures with the Mountain West football championship trophy in front of them.
“No UFC hand grab?” one of the reporters filming the photo op jokingly asked the coaches.
Silence.
There is obviously no love lost between these MW foes. Calhoun is hoping to solve the SDSU puzzle that the Aztecs’ last eight opponents have failed to do. He’s also trying to figure out how to beat SDSU for the first time since 2009.
Long, by comparison, is seeking to bring a conference championship home after a 1-3 start in which fans began calling for his head and calling for former coach Brady Hoke to take the reigns again.
How far we’ve come.
SDSU has won eight games on the bounce. Including this season, Air Force has won eight or more games six times under Calhoun.
One advantage SDSU has isn’t even on the field. It’s in the coaches box. Blane Morgan, the quarterbacks coach, spent 12 years at Air Force as an offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach.
Morgan knows exactly how AFA’s triple-option offense works, even if it’s been tweaked a little this season since his departure. That benefits SDSU in that the defense is even more prepared for the offense from a conceptual standpoint.
It’s still a difficult offense to stop. The Falcons average 6.4 yards per play, which is 20th in the country. They also average over 300 yards on the ground per game. So how does a team stop that kind of offense?
“Great concentration, discipline and playing tough,” senior defensive back J.J. Whittaker said. “Assignment football, just doing your job, you know?”
SDSU senior running back Chase Price looks at Air Force’s defense, which has held opponents under 10 points three times this season but also yields 139.5 yards on the game, as a unique challenge. But not because of its defensive schemes.
“They all have high motors, you rarely see that, all 11 guys going to the football, so I definitely think that’s their best attribute,” he said.
Conversely, AFA must try to run past SDSU’s vaunted defense, along with stopping the Aztecs’ three-headed rushing game.
“Really throughout the entire season, nobody really has (stopped the running game) quite frankly,” Calhoun said. “It won’t be easy, it will be quite a challenge.”
Ticket sales for football and basketball
There are swaths of tickets still available, and the reasons why are aplenty.
With so much going on in the San Diego sports scene this weekend, many people are making the choice of going to the MW title game, the men’s basketball game at Petco Park on Sunday or the Chargers game on Sunday at Qualcomm Stadium.
On Friday, a school spokesman said ticket sales so far were somewhat strong. The biggest factor is the time turnaround, with tickets having gone on sale earlier this week. At last year’s MW title game in Boise, Idaho, the attendance was 26,101, significantly lower than Boise State’s home average of 33,570 in the first six games.
While the location of the MW title game hung in the balance over the past couple weeks, ticket sales for the men’s basketball game slowed down significantly as people didn’t know if the game was going to be on Saturday (as it was originally scheduled) or Sunday.
Weston Steelhammer
Air Force junior defensive back Weston Steelhammer is one of the Falcons’ best players on defense. He also has one of the best names of anyone in sports that Price can think of.
“It’s definitely up there,” he said.
