AZTECS NOTEBOOK : Despite Victory, Team Grades Low

On Saturday, San Diego State routed New Mexico, 49-21 and moved to 2-0 in the Western Athletic Conference.

On Monday, Aztecs Coach Al Luginbill didn’t give high marks to his team. The defense, which improved from 106th to 96th in the country by holding the Lobos to 259 total yards, still was not up to Luginbill’s standard.

He gave his offense, which rolled up 597 total yards, only a passing grade, despite quarterback David Lowery’s season-best performance: 39 attempts, 28 completions, 291 yards, three touchdowns, one interception.

“I thought we were average,” Luginbill said. “We made some decisions at quarterback that weren’t good. We did spread the ball around . . .”

Lowery, who averages 172.8 passing yards with a 53% completion rate, missed some reads that might have produced some big gains.

“We seem to start like a snail, offensively, in every game,” Luginbill said. “We have not played even close to our best football game.”

Luginbill said occasional mental lapses that result in missed tackles and scores for the opposition still plague the Aztec defense.

The defensive front settled down against New Mexico. The down linemen missed only one of 16 tackle opportunities. Combined with the outside linebackers, the line made 34 of 35 potential stops. SDSU as a team was successful on 62 of 74 occasions (83.7%) where an initial pursuer could have made a tackle.

Said Luginbill, “You need to be in the 90 percentile.”