Utah State football’s 2024 season is over, and the final game of the year was kind of a microcosm of the Aggies’ season.
Up by three scores entering the fourth quarter Friday — powered by great offensive play, plus the continued resurgence of the defense — Utah State collapsed and lost to Colorado State, 42-37.
What could go wrong went wrong for USU in the final quarter, after nearly everything went right for the Aggies during the first three periods.
In the end, Utah State finishes the season 4-8 overall and 3-4 in Mountain West Conference play, with a wildly uncertain future awaiting the program.
Here are three takeaways from the Aggies’ final loss of the year:
The good and bad of Bryson Barnes
There were times Friday when Bryson Barnes was the best player on the field, and it wasn’t particularly close.
The junior quarterback was responsible — in one way or another — for four of the five touchdowns Utah State scored against Colorado State, the lone outlier coming on pick-six by defensive back Jaiden Francois.
Barnes finished the game with three touchdown passes and 189 passing yards and also rushed for touchdown and 185 yards on the ground.
Time and again, especially in the first three quarters, Barnes had his way with the Rams’ defense, utilizing the RPO (run-pass-option) to near perfection.
If Barnes was that player all the time, he would probably still be at the University of Utah, or at another power conference school if he had still elected to transfer.
Inconsistency, in the passing game especially, has been Barnes’ biggest weakness as a college quarterback, and that inconsistency reared its head against CSU.
While he threw three touchdown passes, Barnes was also intercepted twice. The second and final of those interceptions came in a desperation moment — excusable, sort of, even if not a great throw to the sideline (he was targeting wide receiver Kyrese White and didn’t put enough on the throw).
The first interception thrown was objectively bad, though, as Barnes locked onto receiver Otto Tia and threw directly to a CSU defensive back who undercut the route.
That interception led to touchdown for Colorado State with just over two minutes in the game. It effectively ended the game, even though both teams would go on to score another touchdown each.
Take away the interceptions and Barnes was still a little bit too ineffective in the passing game. He completed 17 of 29 passes, a completion percentage of 59%, and was often short on throws and sometimes just wildly inaccurate.
The biggest miss was actually a completion, and Barnes did his part mostly. He completed a 9-yard pass to Tia, but it was on a 4th and 10 and Barnes’ throw made Tia come back and get it, resulting in a turnover on downs.
Barnes will never be questioned about his work ethic or desire. He basically willed the Aggies to their final score of the game all by himself, breaking multiple tackles on a 23-yard run that set USU up for its final touchdown.
After the game, he sported visible wounds from the burden he carried throughout the afternoon.
Barnes was USU’s best player Saturday and is the first Aggie quarterback to ever rush for 100-plus yards in back-to-back games. He just wasn’t consistent enough against Colorado State, at least not consistent enough for Utah State to pull out the win.
So often a strength, but not this time
For the majority of the season, the unit that was far and away the best for Utah State was the offensive line.
Even when the Aggies were getting defeated by USC, Utah, Boise State, UNLV and Washington State — often in blowout fashion — the O-line was a bright spot.
Against USC, they didn’t give up a single sack.
Against Utah, which boasts one of the best defenses in a power conference, they only gave up three sacks.
Boise State struggled to even get close to Spencer Petras, sacking him on the first play of the game and that’s it.
And well, you get the point. See the the prolific success of USU’s run game at times, and most of the Aggies’ success can be traced back to the O-line.
Against Colorado State, though, the O-line had maybe its worst performance of the season.
Barnes was sacked twice and hurried six times and the Rams finished with five tackles for loss and limited multiple Aggie runners to under 4.5 yards per carry.
Throw in some penalties and it just wasn’t a great game for the Aggies up front on offense.
Going into next season, USU’s O-line should again be the strength of the team. There is a lot of young talent up front for the Aggies. Their overall performance against Colorado State was not one to remember though.
Undisciplined play makes a significant reappearance
One of the biggest issues of the Blake Anderson era at Utah State was a lack of discipline, evidenced most clearly by penalties.
At times this season under Nate Dreiling, the penalties were lessened somewhat as discipline was maybe starting to become a regular thing.
Against Colorado State, however, undisciplined play came back in a big way for the Aggies.
USU finished the game with 12 penalties for 139 yards. Flags were quick to be thrown all game — CSU had 13 penalties — but many of them were justified.
Dreiling said afterward that he wanted his team to play “on the edge of chaos,” and he wasn’t particularly upset about most of the penalties.
“They wanted it bad,” he said. “Maybe too much. We had to be right on the edge of chaos and sometimes that happens and you put your toe on the other side, but if not, we just lost so many starters throughout the season.
“I’m OK with that. We knew we had to be crazy. We knew needed controlled chaos. We let go a couple of times, but when you are playing your butt off for one another you are occasionally going to get a foul.”
But in a game that came down to the final moments, every second and every yard counted and USU gave away too many of those.
It was a revisit to the past that USU surely would like to have back.