This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2014, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Utah State coach Matt Wells was a man of two tales during his press conference Tuesday. At one point he gave a quick assessment of the Aggies' blowout loss to Tennessee by quipping, "it stunk, there is your sound bite." But when he wasn't pointing out where things went wrong, he spent much of the time defending the play of the offensive line. "There is no sense of panic," he said. "When we started we said it was going to be a work in progress." Wells said many observers would blame the offensive line for much of Sunday's 38-7 loss to Tennessee, but in his estimation there were plenty of breakdowns in other areas, he noted. "Those guys always take the brunt with the media and the fans," he said. "We know internally what the truth is. Some of those pressures were given up by the running backs, some by the tight ends, some were given up by not being open down the field good enough at the receiver position and some of them may have even been the quarterback's issue. The reality of it is that it's not just those five." Wells was particularly impressed with center Austin Stephens, a sophomore in a starting role for the first time with the Aggies. "In that environment and the fact that we were in shotgun for an extremely high number of plays, with 102,000 people there, he played well," Wells said.