San José State faces another tough test this season when it hits the road to face the University of Toledo on Saturday afternoon.
The Rockets (1-1) are the reigning Mid-American Conference champions and are coming off a week 2 performance in which they beat Texas Southern University 71-3.
“They are a very good football team,” said SJSU head coach Brent Brennan. “We’re going on the road to their place which is a hard place to play. It’s an incredibly challenging ballgame for our football team … They’ve got great personnel, they’re very well coached and their staff has been there a long time.”
The Spartans (1-2) won their first game of the season last Saturday. They defeated Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo 59-3 at home in what was their biggest win since defeating the University of Mexico 103-0 in an international match.
Senior running back Kairee Robinson returned from injury and rushed for 124 yards and 2 touchdowns. SJSU will have a full running back room on Saturday with Robinson and junior Quali Conley expected to suit up.
Toledo’s defense has performed well in the team’s first two games. The Rockets held Texas Southern to just 3 points and 238 yards of total offense. In Toledo’s week 1 loss to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, the defense forced 2 turnovers.
But the backbone of Toledo’s team is on the offensive side of the ball. The Rockets’ offense runs through their All-Conference quarterback Dequan Finn.
Against Texas Southern, Finn completed 16 of 17 passes for 238 yards and 3 touchdowns.
The Spartans have struggled against mobile quarterbacks this season. Against the 2022 Heisman Trophy winner Caleb Williams, the Spartans gave up 278 yards passing and 4 touchdowns. Many of Williams’ passes came from outside of the pocket and improvisation plays.
“This guy’s amazing,” Brennan said. “He reminds me a lot of [Caleb Williams,] probably not with the same fanfare and accolades but this guy is an awesome player. He can make every throw, he runs around. He’s a fantastic player.”
SJSU will be playing in one of the rowdiest environments that the team will see all season. Glass Bowl Stadium, a venue that usually sells out its 20,000 available seats, is notorious for having a loud atmosphere that makes it tough for opposing teams to function.
Linebackers coach and special teams coordinator Scott White said a big emphasis of SJSU’s preparation this week has been how to deal with the pressure and noise of the Glass Bowl.
“We’ve been building confidence in them by preaching to them and giving them a process that gives them clarity, so they can do things fast while avoiding the external factors,” White said. “At the end of the day, the field is 53 and a third wide and 100 yards long. You could put us in a parking lot, put the ball down and say ‘let’s play.’ We’re excited for the opportunity. We love playing in rowdy environments and going on the road to try and create that silence.”
Saturday’s game is scheduled for 4 p.m. PDT Saturday at the Glass Bowl Stadium in Toledo, Ohio. The game will be broadcast on ESPN+ and on KTRB 860 for radio listeners.
