Sports

By Nick coppo

STAFF WRITER

The Aztecs went on the road and outlasted the Rainbow Warriors of Hawaii 17-10 in a gritty battle on Saturday night. In a game where offense was at a premium, constant pressure on the quarterback, a little trickeration and timely takeaways ended up being the difference.

After the disappointing loss to Fresno State last weekend that knocked them out of first place in the Mountain West, the Aztecs bounced back to nab a muchneeded victory in Honolulu — historically, a difficult place to secure a win. Since 2018, the Rainbow Warriors are 18-7 on their home turf.

The first points of the game came by way of an eight-play, 47-yard drive capped off with a five yard rushing touchdown by senior running back Greg Bell — his seventh of the year.

As the Hawaii offense struggled to move the ball on their first two drives, the defense was able to give the Rainbow Warriors a spark with a strip-sack of senior quarterback Lucas Johnson at the end of the first quarter deep in SDSU territory. The turnover was Hawaii’s 21st this season — fourth most in the NCAA.

The Rainbow Warriors did not waste any time capitalizing on the turnover as junior quarterback Cheven Cordeiro found senior running back Calvin Turner for a 19-yard touchdown to even the score at seven.

A methodical 15-play, 82-yard drive from the Aztecs stalled at the Hawaii 13yard line, which brought out Matt Araiza for a field goal attempt. At least, that is what everyone thought.

Head coach Brady Hoke reached into his bag of tricks and called a fake field goal to catch the Hawaii special teams off guard. Sophomore kicker/holder Jack Browning took the snap, bolted to the left side and scampered into the endzone for six points.

“We talk about Matt (Araiza) being a good athlete, Jack (Browning) is a really good athlete,” Hoke said.

It was a play that the team has worked on in practice. Hoke saw an opportunity to capitalize after seeing the formation. “Once we could secure the 3-technique off the double, we knew we had something that would be pretty good for us.”

The Aztecs boasted a 14-7 lead at halftime as both offenses underwhelmed.

For the Aztecs, it was inefficiency on the ground and a few costly penalties that held the offense back from a bigger half.

On the Rainbow Warriors’ side of the ball, Cordeiro was under constant duress as the Aztecs won the battle at the line of scrimmage over and over again in the first half. Junior defensive lineman Cameron Thomas in particular was making himself known, recording a sack and five tackles.

The third quarter was highlighted with an interception by senior safety Trenton Thompson, his third of the season. The pass rush also got to Cordeiro for three sacks in the quarter, asserting their dominance on that side of the ball. While the defense did their job, Johnson and the offense remained out of sync, totaling only 36 total yards and four offensive penalties.

The fourth quarter began with the Aztecs still holding on to a 14-7 lead. A crucial drive that ate up eight minutes and 26 seconds led to an Araiza field goal that grew the lead to 17-7.

It took the Rainbow Warriors until seven minutes and 43 seconds into the fourth quarter to finally put a sustained drive together. Cordeiro converted on three separate third downs to keep the drive alive. A field goal brought the score to 1710 with under three minutes to play.

While it was not the most efficient game on the ground for Bell (24 attempts, 77 yards), he secured a much needed first down on the Aztecs’ final drive that forced Hawaii to burn all three timeouts.

The Rainbow Warriors had one last shot to tie the game as they regained possession with one minute and 11 seconds on the clock. The burned timeouts proved to be costly on the final drive as Cordeiro moved the ball all the way down to the SDSU 23yard line but ultimately ran out of time as the game came to an end.

With Fresno State defeating the Aztecs last week, SDSU needed to win and get some help from their friends in Boise in order to regain the top spot in the Mountain West.

Senior defensive lineman Keshawn Banks was asked whether the team was scoreboard-watching prior to their tilt with Hawaii.

“We didn’t look at it before the game actually,” Banks said. “All we were worried about was beating Hawaii. If we don’t beat Hawaii, the Fresno State loss doesn’t matter.,” Banks said.

Luckily for the Aztecs, Boise State dominated Fresno State 40-14 which paved a clear path for SDSU to take back control of the conference.

The Aztecs are now 8-1 on the season and take on Nevada and their NFL prospect quarterback, senior Carson Strong next week for Homecoming in Carson.Homecoming

Courtesy of SDSU Athletics Sophomore linebacker Garret Fountain tangos with a Hawaii offensive lineman. The Aztec defense allowed just one touchdown to the Rainbow Warriors in the 17-10 win in Honolulu.

Matt Araiza is punting his way to NCAA history

By Marco perez SENIOR STAFF WRITER

Since 2013, there have been two punts in the NFL that have traveled more than 80 yards.

In a span of two weeks, San Diego State’s punter Matt Araiza tied that stat. He had a punt of 86 yards against San Jose State and an 81-yard punt against Air Force. His punt against Air Force — from his own end zone — traveled 84 yards in the air from where he was standing.

Think about that; his punt traveled 84 yards in the air.

The ball sailed well over the head of the Air Force punt returner and landed on the Air Force 18-yard line before coming to rest and downed at the Air Force 12-yard line.

Araiza’s performance against Air Force earned him the Gorilla Glue Toughest Player on Planet Earth for the week courtesy of the well renowned Rich Eisen Show.

“That one was 75 in the air from the line of scrimmage, and I believe 84 from where I was standing,” Araiza said, during his appearance on the Rich Eisen Show.

Junior Matt Araiza is on pace to have the best season ever by a collegiate punter and doing so in his first season as the team’s full-time punter and while handling kickoff and place-kicking duties. He is one of only four players in FBS to do all three for their teams.

He leads all FBS schools with a 51.95yard average punt in 56 punt attempts (the record for a season is 51.0 set by Braden Mann in 2018). Through nine games this season he has 15 punts of over 60 yards, an NCAA record, and 30 punts of over 50 yards, two off the NCAA record.

Araiza is the first player ever to have a punt of over 80 yards and a field goal of over 50-yards in the same game, and he did that in back-to-back weeks.

“The kicking game and some of the things that Matt (does), let’s call it like it is, is pretty astonishing when you kick a ball 80 plus yards in the air. You don’t see that kind of change of field position very often,” head coach Brady Hoke said of Araiza. “He’s the MVP as far as I’m concerned right now with how he’s played and what he’s done.”

Kickers and punters are often not given the same recognition and respect given to the skill players on the team. On this team however, Araiza has proven to be just as important as any other player on the team and hopes to help special team players across the country gain more recognition.

“There’s definitely a lot of position bias,” Araiza said. “In terms of the amount of scholarships specialists get, it’s less than every other position on the field. We’re usually last picked for a lot of things. Being a part of maybe pushing that narrative that kickers and punters can be as important as anyone else on the field, that’s huge to me.”

The play of Araiza this year has led to him receiving national recognition. He was recently named to ESPN’s midseason AllAmerica team.

Former NFL players have taken notice, most notably former Indianapolis Colts punter and radio show host Pat McAfee. He tweeted out Araiza’s punt against Air Force with a caption that read: “An absolute PISS MISSILE from Araiza.. this dude is a STALLION #ForTheBrand”.

“That was pretty cool,” Araiza said on being mentioned by McAfee. “All that stuff makes me laugh. A lot of people are really creative on Twitter, especially some of the adjectives he used.”

Araiza credits his success to his offseason program and the work he has put in with his coaches, and said he didn’t attend many kicking camps in high school or while being at SDSU.

The Aztec football team has at least four games left this season, as they have already passed the threshold to become bowl game eligible. They hope to have a fifth game and be able to play for the Mountain West Conference Championship.

That gives Araiza plenty of games to punt his way into the NCAA record books as the best punter in collegiate history.

Photos by Andrew Finley Junior punter Matt Araiza has been the undisputed MVP for the Aztecs in 2021, and has garnered attention across the country for being the best punter in NCAA history.

One year later, women’s rowing still looks for answers after sudden cut

By JasoN FreuNd

SPORTS EDITOR

It has been one year since San Diego State announced that after the 2020-2021 season, the women’s rowing team would be cut as an official sport.

A team that, in their final season, saw 34 out of 44 rowers named to the American Athletic Conference all-academic team — the second-most in team history — is no more.

Initially, there were no plans to drop any sport. Athletics Director John David Wicker, speaking to the San Diego UnionTribune, said there were no intentions of dropping any SDSU sports teams.

“Right now, we’re not looking to drop a sport,” Wicker said in a UnionTribune article published April 15. “We’re comfortable where we’re at and where it is from an equity standpoint. We feel we’re, like, in a pretty good spot.”

Months later, citing the financial constraints brought upon by the COVID-19 pandemic and the need to fit within gender equity compliance under Title IX requirements, Wicker and the athletics department made the decision to cut women’s rowing.

An open letter addressed to the SDSU community from the athletics department supported their decision.

“Ultimately, a number of factors, including financial sustainability and gender equity prompted this decision. The need to realign the student-athlete population to more closely resemble the overall institution gender composition was a leading factor,” the letter stated. “The current financial impacts created by the COVID-19 pandemic prompted an evaluation of our sports portfolio with an eye towards the long-term success for our various sports and how to financially sustain that success.”

However, the dropping of women’s rowing, one of many Division 1 sports programs to be cut around the country, is not as black and white as it may seem.

The initial message from the athletics department to all teams followed the early thought process that SDSU was not contemplating cutting sports teams. This message was repeated throughout a series of meetings with staff, coaches and teams.

Then came November 2020 and, out of the blue according to some athletes and coaches, an early morning text was sent to a team captain regarding a mandatory team meeting with athletics on the same day involving all members of the team.

“It was like, a text at 9:30 in the morning,” one women’s rowing athlete said. “Then, they get on and JD Wicker read from a prompt on a Zoom call… he just started reading from a prompt that you can very obviously see that he had written on an app on his second monitor, right from a prompt, and then completely dodged any single question that we had asked.”

This athlete asked to be anonymous to protect their athletic career.

Shortly after the meeting, the San Diego Union-Tribune released an article detailing the dismissal of the team. Initially, coaches were made unavailable to speak with the press, yet head coach Bill Zack voluntarily reached out to the Union-Tribune to add clarification.

“I took it upon myself to email Mark Zeigler and say that I’m available, here is my email address and here’s my phone number,” Zack said. “He did call me and he actually provided me way more background, he knew way more about the process and the decision and rationale than anything that was ever told to me.”

The announcement coincided closely with the fall National Letter of Intent Signings. The NLI’s were not sent out as scheduled, with administration ensuring coaches and recruits that it would be sent out at a later time.

After a while, Zack alongside parents of the recruits objected to the wait time and eventually pressured SDSU to eventually send out the NLI’s to recruits.

However, this wasn’t the end. Players were promised scholarships would remain intact through the next four years of schooling and, despite losing their status as athletes, they would still retain priority access to classes.

This too was a struggle to retain. Shortly after National Girls and Women in Sports Day, players found out via a late-night email that they had lost access to priority registration to classes.

Zack, unaware of the email, said he instead found out the morning after when the active team members, emotional after receiving the email the night before, showed it to him.

“I think that was the most upsetting towards the women,” Zack said. “They already felt, I was going to say undervalued, but not valued having their team cut.”

Viewing the removal as the school showing lesser support, Zack said he contacted former rowing sports liaison, Jenny Bramer, in an attempt to get the decision reversed. Eventually, the school relented and returned priority access and some full or slightly reduced scholarships to athletes.

“The issues of remaining on scholarship for those who were already enrolled at SDSU and on the team is murky,” Zack said in an email. “At one point, the AD (Athletics Director) stated that those on full scholarship would no longer receive the cost of attendance stipdend portion of the scholarhip. After objects by me, they backtracked on that.”

According to the athletes, poor communication was a key factor in the numerous questions the athletes had, leading some to wonder if the university cared about their plight at all.

“At my urging, the athletic director promised to generate an individual letter to each student-athlete letting them know what their ongoing scholarship would be, for how long it would be in effect,” Zack said. “To the best my knowledge. those letters were never produced.”

These thoughts of uncertainty lingered into the final season. The remaining athletes who didn’t opt-out of the season said they came into their final season looking to cap off their sport on a powerful swan song.

Emotions still ran high during and after the season. Even with a three-race schedule — down from a 10-race (13 counting scrimmages) schedule during the 2019-2020 season — the athletes still found it difficult to row knowing that the end was near.

“I think it was very good at the beginning, it was a very ‘let’s go out with a bang, let’s show them attitude,’” one player said. “Trying to keep that mindset, trying to maintain that intrinsic motivation and that drive that team has been stellar at in the past… it’s not ‘for nothing’ but there is no end result. It was very hard.”

The team said they did attempt to revive their team in a variety of ways, but each attempt was met with the same denial and response that the decision made was final.

The women’s rowing team at the University of Connecticut was also dropped during the same period of time. Unlike SDSU, UConn temporarily reinstated their team after athletes and coaches filed a lawsuit claiming the school would be violating Title IX, a federal law that guarantees equal access to women in education, including athletics.

The situation with Uconn differs from SDSU as an ESPN article detailing the reinstatement showed that UConn had been inflating participation numbers to skirt Title IX laws and the school had experienced participation gaps. UConn inflating numbers led to less scholarships being rewarded, according to the ESPN article.

Speaking to the Union-Tribune, Wicker cited SDSU’s rising undergraduate male enrollment — listed around 45 percent — as a reason SDSU needed to make the move.

According to Title IX, universities must meet at least one aspect of a “threeprong test” to meet Title IX requirements. The most common “prong” is to offer participation opportunities that are “substantially proportionate” to the fulltime undergraduate population.

However, the Office of Civil Rights made a clarification of Title IX in 2003 which decried the cutting of sports teams, men’s or women’s, clarifying that “nothing in Title IX requires the cutting or reduction of teams in order to demonstrate compliance with Title IX, and that the elimination of teams is a disfavored practice.” For now, all that is left for the former rowing team are memories of better days and of their past races.

When asked to comment, SDSU Athletics declined to comment. Wicker didn’t respond to email from The Daily Aztec asking for comment.

San Diego State’s rowing team was discontinued at the end of the 2020-21 school year. Nearly 500 alumni since 1998 had participated in the rowing program at SDSU.