College Football 25 simulation: Can Utah State bounce back against Temple?

Note: With EA Sports’ College Football 25 bringing college football back to the video game world, the Deseret News is simulating every Utah State game against an FBS opponent this season.
The Utah State Aggies face an almost “must-win” situation in their final nonconference game of the season when they travel to face Temple on Saturday.
The Aggies come into the game with a 1-2 record after falling to USC and Utah, though they showed some life last week against the Utes.
The Owls appear like the perfect opponent — Temple is 0-3 on the year and has struggled to score points.
How will the game play out?
The Deseret News ran a simulation of Saturday’s game on the EA Sports College Football 25 video game, and it turned out in the Aggies’ favor.
There were a couple of ground rules in place: The simulation used 10-minute quarters and I let the computer simulate the game with no user interference.
CPU ratings have also been adjusted a bit from the standard to make pass defense more realistic — in my opinion, passers were completing an unrealistic amount of attempts in previous simulations, so I adjusted the passing accuracy from 50 to 35, then adjusted pass defense ratings from 50 to 75. That helped to create more realistic numbers.
Injuries and depth chart changes were also implemented. On Friday, a report came out that Spencer Petras would return at quarterback for the Aggies after Bryson Barnes has filled in for him since the season opener.
I had already run a simulation with Barnes at QB — and USU lost by five — so I redid the simulation with Petras playing.
Temple also has its own uncertainty at quarterback. Forrest Brock started the first two games this season for the Owls before getting dinged up with a write injury, so Evan Simon replaced him last game.
I kept Simon at quarterback for the simulation, though it could easily be Brock, too.
I also matched up the uniform combos we’ll see in the game, to the best of my knowledge — Utah State is wearing its road white jerseys with blue pants, while Temple is donning its home red jerseys with white pants.
The actual score: Utah 38, Utah State 21
College Football 25 simulation final score: Utah 40, Utah State 17
My analysis: The margin of victory was similar between actual game and the simulation, though they came in different ways. In the actual game, Utah fell behind 14-3 before rallying with 25 straight points at one point, while the Utes stormed out to a 21-3 lead in an eventual win in the simulation.
In both versions, Barnes was a bit too turnover-heavy, and that helped keep Utah State from seriously challenging for the upset. Also, Utah State’s defense couldn’t do nearly enough to slow Utah true freshman quarterback Isaac Wilson, who was filling in for an injured Cam Rising.
Final score: Utah State 29, Temple 10
Key sequence: The Aggies went into the third quarter trailing 10-6, but they took control of the game with the first possession of the second half.
Petras hit Jack Hestera for a 26-yard gain to get the Aggies into Temple territory, and on the next play, Petras threw into the end zone, where Colby Bowman high-pointed the ball and got both feet in at the back of the end zone for a 41-yard touchdown.
From there, the Aggies never trailed again and kept Temple in check.
How the simulation transpired: Utah State got on the board first with a 24-yard field goal from Elliott Nimrod on its first possession, but Temple responded with a 27-yard field goal of its own on the ensuing drive.
After Utah State went three and out on its next possession, the Owls quickly moved into scoring position on a 54-yard pass from Simon to Xavier Irvin on the final play of the first quarter.
On the next play, Antwain Littleton scored on a 1-yard run to give Temple the 10-3 lead.
Following a couple of empty possessions for Utah State, the Aggies trimmed their deficit to 10-6 on a 33-yard Nimrod field goal with nine seconds until halftime.
That score was set up by a quick 47-second drive that started at the USU 12 and included passes of 24, 23 and 25 yards to get Utah State into the Temple red zone.
The Aggies dominated the third quarter, outscoring Temple 14-0, and went ahead for good on the Bowman touchdown catch, then added to their lead in the final two minutes of the quarter.
Utah State’s defense set up a touchdown drive after recording tackles for loss on two straight plays after Temple entered USU territory, and on the ensuing drive, the Aggies quickly got things going with a 22-yard catch by Jalen Royals.
The Aggies effectively mixed up the run and pass on the drive — including another 12-yard pass to Royals and a 13-yard Rahsul Faison run — before Faison scored on a 2-yard touchdown carry to make it 20-10 with 1:45 left in the third quarter.
Nimrod added three field goals in the fourth quarter to account for the scoring. The last two field goals were set up by short fields after Temple failed to convert fourth downs on their end of the field.
Star players: Defensive end Blaine Spires was dominant for the Aggies, finishing with six tackles, five tackles for loss and 2.5 sacks, while Cian Slone added 1.5 sacks.
Petras completed 53% of his passes for 294 yards, one touchdown and an interception. Faison added 98 rushing yards, while Royals led all Aggie receivers with five catches for 77 yards.
Irvin had 80 yards receiving for the Owls, though Utah State held Simon to 149 yards passing — he completed just 12 of 27 passes.
Key stats: The Aggies put up 409 yards of total offense, including 115 on the ground.
Utah State also won the turnover battle, two to one, as Ike Larsen and JD Drew both had interceptions.
The Aggies also had five sacks, while holding the Owls to 157 total yards. Temple was just 2 of 13 on third downs.
My analysis: This could be very well how things play out on Saturday.
Temple struggles to score in real life — the Owls are averaging 11.3 points per game this season — and the Utah State defense kept them from seriously threatening after some early success.
It took a while, but the Aggies’ offense finally got going in the second half and delivered a blowout win.