San Diego State got exactly what it needed in Week 1: a win, points on the board and plenty of film to work with. Now comes the real test. The Aztecs head to Pasadena on Saturday for a 4:15 p.m. kickoff against UCLA at the Rose Bowl. Both teams are 1-0, both scored at least 45 points in their season openers and both showed enough flashes to excite their fan bases. But if SDSU wants to leave Pasadena 2-0, simply repeating its 53-20 performance against Portland State probably w

Photo Credit: Mike Dunning San Diego State’s season opener looked pretty straightforward on paper: an FBS team at home against a Portland State program coming off a 1-11 season. After Saturday, it deserves a little more attention. Portland State opened the Chris Fisk era by taking a 21-0 halftime lead over No. 6 UC Davis before ultimately falling 31-24. The Vikings didn’t steal that lead with a series of turnovers or bizarre breaks, either. For 30 minutes, they legitimately c

Photo Credit: NY Times College athletes deserve to make money. That debate is over, and it should be. For decades, schools, conferences and television networks generated billions of dollars while the athletes responsible for the product faced strict limits on how they could benefit financially. NIL and, more recently, direct revenue sharing have finally begun correcting that imbalance. But fixing one broken system doesn’t mean we should create another one. College sports now

Photo Credit: Don De Mars Photography E.V.T. It almost feels too obvious to say: if you defend and make threes, you win basketball games. But looking back through Brian Dutcher’s tenure at SDSU, that simple idea tells us quite a bit about what separates his best teams from the rest. The defense is the part I rarely worry about. SDSU has finished with a top-21 KenPom defense in seven consecutive seasons. Even when the offense has struggled, Dutcher has consistently given the A

I didn’t expect San Diego State to crack the preseason AP Top 25. That would have been a stretch. The Aztecs are coming off a 9–4 season, but they still have plenty to prove entering 2026. The defense lost significant production, the offense was inconsistent for stretches last year and this program is still working its way back into the national conversation. So this isn’t about SDSU being left out of the Top 25. It’s about being left out completely. The preseason AP Poll ca

San Diego State gave a pretty clear picture of what this team could be during Saturday’s football event, and the biggest takeaway was not necessarily something new. The defense still looks like the backbone of this roster, Jayden Denegal looks firmly in control of the starting quarterback job, and the offense has enough talent to put together some impressive stretches. The question is whether those stretches can become consistent enough to carry over into the biggest games on

For the first time this fall, Aztec fans will get a real look at the 2026 San Diego State football team. SDSU hosts its “First Saturday at Snapdragon Stadium” scrimmage on Saturday, August 15, with the action beginning at 5:30 p.m. The event comes three weeks before the Aztecs open their first season as a member of the Pac-12 against Portland State. After a massive turnaround from 3-9 in 2024 to 9-4 last season, expectations have changed on the Mesa. This isn’t about wonderin

San Diego State basketball has spent much of the offseason putting together one of the most international rosters in program history, and apparently Brian Dutcher still had another surprise. Quietly added to SDSU’s 2026-27 roster is Samson Mashebinu, an 18-year-old forward from Lagos, Nigeria. There was no major commitment announcement, no flashy recruiting rollout and, as of now, his official SDSU bio essentially amounts to his measurements and three words: “Bio to come.” Th

If you’ve opened X over the past week, you’ve probably seen people throwing around the term “Protect College Sports Act.” Some fans think it’s going to save college athletics. Others think it’s going to ruin it. The timing of this bill is important. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz recently said he expects the Protect College Sports Act to reach the U.S. Senate floor this week, although it still must clear the legislative process before becoming law. In other words

Just when it looked like the offseason had finally come to an end, a federal judge may have reopened it. On Friday, a U.S. District Court judge in Colorado issued a class-wide preliminary injunction requiring the NCAA to grant all athletes from the high school Class of 2022 another season of eligibility while an ongoing lawsuit works its way through the courts. The case argues that the NCAA’s transition to its new eligibility model unfairly left one recruiting class in limbo,

San Diego State will receive an early—and extremely difficult—measuring stick when it travels to Tucson for an exhibition against Arizona on October 16. The game will be played at McKale Center, one of the toughest environments in college basketball, and will be Arizona’s second of three preseason exhibitions. The Wildcats are once again expected to enter the season among the nation’s best teams despite losing five of their top seven scorers from last year’s Final Four roster

For years, college basketball recruiting followed a predictable script. Five-star prospects signed with blue bloods. Four-star recruits chased Power Conference offers. Programs like San Diego State built winning teams by identifying overlooked talent, developing it over multiple seasons, and relying on culture rather than recruiting rankings. The transfer portal has changed nearly every part of roster building, but one unintended consequence may actually benefit schools like

San Diego State went shopping overseas. Now Brian Dutcher has to hope the NCAA does not lose the receipt. San Diego State entered the offseason with the same problem facing nearly every successful program outside college basketball’s wealthiest tier: develop good players, win games, watch richer schools arrive with a bag of money and then rebuild the roster before November. Brian Dutcher and his staff responded by attacking a different market. Instead of spending the entire s

Dave Velasquez has spent nearly a quarter-century helping build the Aztecs. Does that make him a potential successor to Brian Dutcher—or simply one compelling candidate whenever the job eventually opens? Before going any further, this needs to be stated clearly: Brian Dutcher is still San Diego State’s head coach nor do I want him to leave any time soon. Dutcher is under contract through the 2027-28 season. He has led the Aztecs to the first national championship game in pro

SDSU is set to take on BYU at Acrisure Arena in Palm Desert Dec. 19

The path toward a stronger Aztec identity does not begin with bringing back the Warrior. It begins with building a real relationship with the people connected to the name. San Diego State still calls its teams the Aztecs. The university still places the name across jerseys, merchandise, buildings and marketing campaigns. Fans still yell “Go Aztecs,” wear the spear logo and view the identity as an essential part of SDSU athletics. Yet the human figure who once represented that

There’s a difference between being the best player on a college basketball team and being the player with the highest ceiling. San Diego State’s 2026-27 roster makes that distinction especially interesting, and then the offseason made it unavoidable. Nick Anderson, the Rice transfer who looked like the cleanest plug-and-play scorer on the roster, suffered a knee injury that will cost him the entire 2026-27 season. The player with the highest floor is off the board. What’s lef

When the National University Bill Walton Classic was first announced, many San Diego State fans envisioned a marquee matchup worthy of the event’s namesake. Walton was more than a basketball legend—he was a San Diego icon whose influence stretched from Helix High School to UCLA, the NBA, and the sport itself. On Wednesday, the mystery was solved. San Diego State will face Colorado on November 7 at Pechanga Arena in the inaugural Bill Walton Classic. Is this a Quad 2 Game Dres

SAN DIEGO — Latrell Davis has been waiting for his moment at San Diego State. On Sunday, at Lincoln High School, he made sure nobody missed it. Davis erupted for 57 points to lead That Goods Life to a 113-88 victory over Crunch Time, delivering one of the more stunning individual performances of the summer in his new hometown. Davis shot 13 of 26 from three-point range and 5 of 11 from two-point range, going 8 of 9 from the free throw line to finish with a 43-efficiency ratin