Spencer Petras with 4 turnovers as Aggies fall to UNLV 50-34 at home

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LOGAN — Spencer Petras got some harsh treatment from the Utah State crowd Friday night.

In the second quarter, fans started chanting for backup Bryson Barnes to enter the game; they also booed Petras.

It was that type of night for the Aggies (1-5), who suffered a blowout 50-34 loss to the UNLV Rebels (5-1) on Friday at Maverik Stadium.

Petras ended up with a strong passing game, throwing for 461 yards on 41-of-59 passing and three touchdowns; he broke the single-game school record for most completions.

But in that second quarter, he gave the ball up on three consecutive possessions — a fumble and two interceptions. In the fourth, in the middle of a good drive, he threw his third interception of the night.

"Those turnovers absolutely killed us," interim coach Nate Dreiling said.

Utah State actually out-gained UNLV in total offense 584-546, but that was due to the passing yards. The Aggies lost the run game 313-123.

Friday's game looked a lot like last week's against Boise State. The Aggies looked much better in the second half, but the game was already decided by then. Utah State trailed 14-0 midway through the first quarter, and answered not long before the frame ended. But by halftime, the Rebels led 41-7.

The second half was a different story; the Aggies outscored the Rebels 27-9.

Dreiling said his message to the team at halftime was it needed to "either go and execute, be a smart football team and have discipline, or don't go back on the field."

Utah State started the second half with Petras throwing a 24-yard touchdown pass to Jack Hestera, who had a breakout game of 10 catches and 152 yards. Petras later scrambled on a play, then managed to complete a 13-yard touchdown pass to Jalen Royals.

The third touchdown pass Petras delivered happened in the fourth quarter — a 6-yarder to Broc Lane.

"The best part about it is when Spencer's on, he is on and he is very talented," Dreiling said. "I'm proud of how he battled back. Most of the people would've just tanked it right there and just had a terrible game."

Senior defense end Cian Slone sounded confident that even though Utah State's defense has played poor first half games most of the season, the team can turn that around.

"We've definitely put that on film," Slone said. "But if we want to be the team that we want to be, we have to play four quarters of perfect football. I know we can do it. You guys saw it in the second half how dominant we were on defense. If we can just do that in the first, second, third and fourth quarter, I don't see how we can't win out for the rest of the year."

For two straight weeks now, Dreiling has mentioned the schedule as part of why the the Aggies are on a five-game losing streak. In four of the previous five games, Utah State has faced teams that have a chance of making the College Football Playoff, he said.

Starting next week, though, the opposition starts to get more manageable, so to speak — at least on paper.

"From here on out, it's teams that aren't 5-1 or 4-1, or USC or Utah or Boise State with a Heisman player," Dreiling said. "We know we've had some good competition; that's going to be awesome for us. When we get back to teams who maybe aren't of that caliber yet, we need to make sure that everything is clicking and we're flying."

Utah State has a home game next week against New Mexico at 2 p.m. MDT.

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Alex Vejar

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