Persisting as one of the most interesting football teams in the country, San Diego State just finished both 10-3 and vaguely bummed. Its head coach wrapped up a palpitating 42-35 bowl loss to Army by observing, “I never thought I’d be disappointed with 10 wins.” A sparkling 32-9 record across three seasons has spiked the expectation meter and coaxed others to pluck Aztecs coaches, with two major assistants just lured elsewhere.
San Diego State has a further distinction, though: It’s a window onto the long arc of college football. As it relishes its 20th-century I-formation and its two straight 2,000-yard rushers (Donnel Pumphrey in 2016, Rashaad Penny this season), it’s both brutish and “old-school in a young-school game, so to speak,” as offensive coordinator Jeff Horton put it in October.