After Successful Stadium Scrimmage, Can SDSU’s Defense return to last season’s heights?
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Losing your defensive coordinator as you head into a new conference is not a recipe most programs tend to look for in the gridiron cookbook.
But after a successful Saturday practice, it looks like the San Diego State Aztecs could still bring the heat in the defensive kitchen this fall.
In “First Saturday” at Snapdragon Stadium, a free and open practice to the public, the SDSU defense showed out in front of the San Diego faithful.
According to the Aztec media department, the defense came up with a pick-six in the second quarter and finished with nine sacks overall in the intersquad battle.
A pick-six? Nothing new to new defensive coordinator Demetrius Sumler, now in his 10th season with the Aztecs staff, coaching the SDSU cornerbacks for eight years.
His secondary knows a thing or two about showing out, with cornerbacks Chris Johnson and Bryce Phillips both earning all-conference honors in the program’s final year in the Mountain West. Johnson would go on to earn Defensive Player of the Year in the MW.
This is just the tip of the iceberg for Sumler’s success in producing secondary talent, but now in the PAC-12, that successful mentality may be bleeding through to the rest of the defensive unit.
A defensive front that was highlighted by a nine-sack day stole the spotlight on scrimmage Saturday, with Malachi Finau and Djibril Rahman both recording two sacks apiece.
“Anytime that you can create some dents inside, that makes life really, really hard,” SDSU head coach Sean Lewis told the media after the scrimmage.
Dents are what helped the Aztecs only allow 15.4 points in 2025, leading the Mountain West Conference as one of only two teams under 20 points (Fresno State). 32 sacks as a team were good for second in the conference as well, just behind New Mexico.
Seven of those sacks came from Trey White. He is gone. Chris Johnson and Bryce Phillips are also gone, among a laundry list of defensive talent from 2025.
Rob Aurich, of course, is gone as he runs the defense for Nebraska. The Mountain West, which the Aztecs ruled defensively last year, is now gone. It’s a new look, a new coordinator and a new conference.
It feels like the deep end of uncharted waters, but the key to continued defensive success may not be embracing change, but instead embracing the same little things that got Sean Lewis, Demetrius Sumler and Co. here in the first place.
“We want to have that blue-collar nastiness,” Lewis told the PAC-12 in July. “That work ethic that goes into it.”
Lewis, Sumler, and the Aztecs’ blue collars and red helmets will hit the field on Sept. 5, hosting Portland State for their 2026 opener.
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