By Kirk Kenney | [email protected] | The San Diego Union-Tribune
Three thoughts after San Diego State’s 34-0 win over Cal on Saturday night at Snapdragon Stadium.
The psychological impact of what SDSU players accomplished against Cal cannot be overstated.
For the rest of the season — and maybe beyond — the Aztecs have a signature win they can point to for proof positive about their process.
“Winning is a skill,” SDSU coach Sean Lewis said. “We talked a lot about that over the last 14 days, where, as a winner, you have to figure out how to win.”
SDSU had a handful games last season that could have gone either way. They didn’t go the Aztecs’ way, and that’s why the season ended with a six-game losing streak.
The players and coaches believe this is a much improved team. But until they proved it, it was only wishful thinking.
They thought they could. Now they KNOW they can.
Lewis mentioned the 2015 Mountain West champion team that was celebrated during the game and tied that into the 2025 Aztecs.
“There’s a winning strand in our DNA that we’re not entitled to,” Lewis said. “This team has to learn how to win.”
It began against the Golden Bears.
Lewis was particularly proud that he heard players “champion and parrot the things that we believe.” He heard things like, “Hey, it’s not done,” “refocus” and “we have to respond to the good and the bad.”
“That’s the maturation process of this team,” Lewis said, “as this team grows uniquely in their own way to reinstate and re-establish that winning trait that this proud football program has. … Success is always a lagging indicator. There’s a whole heckuva lot of work that comes before a night like tonight.”
Lewis told the team to enjoy the victory for 24 hours, then move on.
“We haven’t arrived,” he said. “There’s more work to be done. It’s a great, probably defining moment that we’ll look back on as we move forward … Staying present in the here and now. This was really, really good. But in this day and age, you’re only as good as your next performance.”
The difference with the next one, Saturday afternoon at Northern Illinois, is that now there’s something to draw on from this one.
Dave Barr was out there somewhere Saturday night, and his ears must have been burning.
How many longtime Aztecs fans repeated the words the former Cal quarterback uttered in 1994 after SDSU beat the Bears 22-20?
Cal coach Justin Wilcox may have been muttering those words to himself.
Cal has had some head-scratching losses over the last five seasons under Wilcox, losing to Arizona (which finished 1-11) in 2021, Colorado (which finished 1-11) in 2022 and Florida State (which finished 2-10) in 2024.
The frustration from this one is that Cal (3-1) had been playing so well. The Golden Bears were averaging 32 points a game, but they watched SDSU post its first shutout in 50 years over a power-conference team.
“If you don’t play this game with the utmost focus, effort and detail, it will disrespect you in two seconds,” Wilcox said. “We have to give a lot of credit to San Diego State. They played a fantastic game. Our level of detail, the fundamentals, the execution was very, very poor, obviously.
“We have to learn a lot. You don’t get to just wipe it and forget it. You also can’t wallow in your own self-pity. The most important day of the year is going to be Monday, what it looks like walking through that door.”
Did Cal, a two-touchdown favorite, look past SDSU to its ACC schedule?
“No,” said Wilcox. “We played very poorly. You can’t turn the ball over. We gave them penalties, drops, missed tackles, special teams … yeah, all losses are awful. I don’t know how to rank a loss. They’re all terrible. That’s it. It sucks. So we have to do something about it, starting with me, the coaches and the players on the team. …
“You’ve got to take your medicine, man. You don’t get to just throw the tape away and forget it. You don’t get to do that.”
There was something in the air Saturday night that has been absent far too often in three-plus seasons at Snapdragon: The roar of the crowd.
Obviously, it helped that the Aztecs gave fans something to cheer about agianst Cal.
Equally important is SDSU gave fans an opportunity to come out and support the team, distributing tickets during public outreach efforts as well as flash sales and complimentary offers to season-ticket holders.
Saturday’s number of tickets distributed (31,369) was still far more than scanned tickets (21,819), but imagine what the crowd count would have been if the Aztecs didn’t make the effort the past two weeks to get people into the building.
The tickets weren’t just randomly handed out.
SDSU staffers had a piece of paper with a QR code on it. Someone had to scan it with their phone, sign in and sign up for tickets. In other words, they had to make an effort. In the process, the Aztecs gathered email addresses, which can be used to contact the newcomers about future games.
It will be interesting to see what the fallout is from season-ticket holders who paid top dollar, only to watch $15 tickets offered to those who haven’t shown similar loyalty to the program.
Whatever. There were times during the game where it actually felt like a big-game atmosphere. Real roars.
A few weeks ago in this space, I ended my thoughts with: Do. Something.
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