For the first time since 2019, the Battle for the Valley Trophy is back in San José and the vibes were immaculate.
In a postgame interview televised on CBS, the Spartans embraced head coach Brent Brennan, screaming “We love you Brent,” as they jogged into the locker room in celebration.
Saturday’s win over Fresno State catapulted SJSU into a tie for second place in the Mountain West Conference. The Spartans need things to break their way, but there is an outside shot that SJSU makes its way back to the Mountain West title game for the first time since 2020.
Not too shabby for a team that started out 1-5 and looked dead in the water just over a month ago after fumbling a 20-point lead against Boise State.
The next two weeks will be crucial.
SJSU has games against San Diego State (3-7, 1-3 MWC) on Saturday and at UNLV (8-2, 5-1 MWC) a week later.
There are many paths for SJSU to get to the title game, but the easiest would be for the Spartans to win out and hope Air Force — a team SJSU lost to by 25 points earlier this season — win out.
It won’t be an easy task for the Falcons either. They dropped Saturday’s game against Hawai‘i and have to play UNLV and Boise State to finish the year.
Despite the exciting turn of events for SJSU, Brennan refuses to think about anything other than the next game.
“All we will care about is San Diego State,” Brennan said. “If we start thinking about other stuff and looking down the road, we’re not good at that. That doesn’t work for us.”
The surging Spartans look like they’ll have an easy game on Saturday, but San Diego State could be a trap game.
The Aztecs announced head coach Brady Hoke will be stepping down after the season which could give San Diego State some extra juice come Saturday.
Regardless, SJSU has set themselves up to have partial control of their destiny as it now has a shot of returning to the conference championship.
