Since 2012, when Gary Andersen engineered an 11-2 season for Utah State football in its final season in the Western Athletic Conference (WAC), the Aggies haven’t had much stability at head coach.
Outside of Matt Wells’ six-year tenure leading the program, USU hasn’t had a head coach last for more than three seasons.
After that WAC title run, Andersen left for Wisconsin.
Wells stuck around for awhile, but eventually moved on to Texas Tech.
In his return to Logan, Andersen lasted a season-and-a-half before being deemed the wrong option for the Aggies, a dismal showing in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season proving his undoing.
Blake Anderson, who led USU to a Mountain West Conference title in his first season in Logan after replacing Andersen, lasted three years before being fired for alleged mishandling of a domestic violence incident involving a former USU football player.
Throw in interim head coaches Frank Maile and Nate Dreiling — Maile was the interim after Wells left and after Andersen was fired, while Dreiling was the interim coach this past season after Anderson was fired — and Utah State has averaged a new head coach every 2 ½ years over the last decade plus.
Despite all the turnover, USU did have real success during that span.
The Aggies have had three 10-plus win seasons in the last decade, won the aforementioned MW title and went to a bowl game in nine of the last 12 seasons.
And yet, with the rise of NIL and the NCAA transfer portal, things have gotten more and more difficult for Utah State, culminating in a 4-8 campaign this year, a third straight losing season.
Which is not what university leadership wants.
Ahead of the recently concluded 2024 season, USU athletic director Diana Sabau told media that she wants to win. More specifically, that 6-6 seasons or thereabouts won’t cut it for Utah State football.
“Our expectations are we want to be better than .500,” she said.
USU wants more than just that, though.
With the university under notice from the Department of Justice for “substantial non-compliance” issues related to Title IX violations going back to 2023, USU wants and really needs a remade football program. Down to the studs, as it were. Throw in the school’s upcoming move to the Pac-12 Conference in 2026 and it needs a new-look — and successful — football program in a hurry.
Enter Bronco Mendenhall.
The former BYU and Virginia coach has agreed to a six-year deal to lead Utah State, leaving behind New Mexico one season after coming out of retirement to coach the Lobos.
Mendenhall is a proven winner at the FBS level of college football with 145 wins in his head coaching career and a winning percentage over .600.
In 18 seasons, he has won 10-plus games in a season five times and won eight-plus game 11 times. Utah State has won eight plus games six times in the last 50 years.
“Bronco hire at USU is a tremendous move for him and Aggies,” Deseret News columnist Dick Harmon wrote on X. “I did not believe the buyout would happen, and I couldn’t have been more wrong. Great to have Bronco back in Utah. He will succeed big time.”
Time will tell on that last point — succeeding big time — but for now there is reason to be optimistic.
After agreeing to a six-year deal with Bronco Mendenhall, there may finally be some stability in Logan.
And perhaps more importantly, he seems ideally suited to correct some of the Aggies’ biggest weaknesses
Can Bronco Mendenhall repair USU’s defense?
The biggest issue for Utah State, this season and the last few years, has been dismal defensive play.
Things were alright early in the Blake Anderson era when Ephraim Banda was the defensive coordinator. The Aggies weren’t especially stout defensively, but they did create a lot of havoc (tackles for loss, sacks, turnovers). Enough that USU was able to ride a strong offense to a Mountain West title.
Since then, though, things have gone from bad to worse, under one coordinator to the next.
This year, the Aggies ranked a woeful No. 129 in total defense. That was fourth worst in the country. The only teams that were worse than USU defensively were New Mexico, Tulsa, Oklahoma State and Kent State.
Mendenhall made his name in college football on defense, learning from UNM great Rocky Long.
His defensive chops obviously didn’t show up this year — New Mexico was worse defensively than USU was — but over the course of his career, Mendenhall has proven more than capable of fielding competent to great defenses.
In his last four years at BYU, Mendenhall’s defenses ranked No. 23 (2015), No. 56 (2014), No. 47 (2013), No. 3 (2012).
At Virginia, the Cavaliers finished No. 93 (2016), No. 40 (2017), No. 20 (2018), No. 48 (2019), No. 96 (2020), No. 121 (2021) in total defense.
Have Mendenhall’s defenses always been stout? No. More often than not during his time at Virginia, Mendenhall won with electric offense, rather than defensive prowess.
But he showed at both BYU and Virginia the ability to build strong defenses, something Utah State hasn’t had in a long time. And with how electric the Aggies’ offenses have been the last few years, all USU really needed was adequate defense to win and win a lot.
It will be a tall task initially. The transfer portal is likely to gut an already undermanned USU defense. As of Friday afternoon, four starting defensive backs had already announced their entry into the portal.
Utah State is also going to lose its two starting linebackers from this past season and time will tell on other departures. Replacing those who leave will take time — years even. USU may be more monied than ever before but the Aggies don’t have the funds to rebuild via the transfer portal in a season or two, à la Colorado.
It may not happen Year 1. It will probably be ugly, in fact. But with time, Mendenhall’s track record suggests that Utah State should get better on defense. Which has been a must for awhile now.
Discipline has been a problem for the Aggies. Not anymore?
Aside from the defensive struggles, which again are hard to look past, perhaps the biggest issue that has troubled USU the last few seasons has been a lack of discipline.
For all the strengths that Anderson had as a coach — it would be disingenuous to say he didn’t have any when his offenses routinely were among the best in the conference and the country — he did not instill much discipline in his team. And it showed up again and again with penalties.
In 2021, Anderson’s first season at Utah State averaged more than six penalties per game. That number shot up to more than 8.5 penalties per game the next year, and the year after that, things weren’t much better at 7.5 penalties per contest.
Under Dreiling there was hope that maybe that would be corrected, but that didn’t really happen either. USU averaged nearly eight penalties a game this season and they usually came at the worst possible moment, undermining offensive drives that were in full swing, or negating defenses stops that would’ve gotten the USU defense off the field.
Both Anderson and Dreiling noted that they didn’t want to curtail their teams aggressiveness. Dreiling called it playing on the edge of chaos and noted said that when you do that sometimes you cross over.
But untimely personal fouls especially have been a regular thing for Utah State.
Discipline and Mendenhall, though, they go hand in hand. Like peanut butter and jelly.
Virginia never averaged more than six penalties per game under Mendenhall and twice finish in the top 15 in the country in fewest penalties in a season.
Mendenhall’s reputation is one of disciplinarian.
As current BYU color commentator Hans Olsen told his son, Tommy Olsen, on X (Olsen is a 2025 Utah State signee): “Get ready to be coached HARD. Hard hard. Get ready for things to be hard. Prepare your mind to deal with pain son. Embrace that pain. There’s no time for wallowing & self pity. Only enough time to get your body ready for the next day. You’re either gonna grow, or be left behind.”
If Mendenhall has his way, USU’s discipline problems should be a thing of the past. And soon.
Wins against legitimate opponents/rivals
When Utah State defeated Wyoming on the road this season, it was the Aggies’ first win against a rival — a trophy rival — since the Aggies beat Wyoming at home in 2019.
You read that right.
Utah State didn’t beat a rival in during the 2020, 2021, 2022 or 2023 seasons.
Utah State hasn’t beaten BYU since 2018.
The Aggies haven’t beaten the Utah Utes since 2012.
Boise State isn’t a trophy rival, but they are an aspirational rival for the Aggies and USU hasn’t beaten them since 2015.
Wins that mean the most for USU fans have been lacking. For awhile now.
So too have wins over Power conference competition. When USU beat Washington State on the road to open the 2021 season, it was the program’s first win against a P5 opponent since 2014, when USU defeated Wake Forest.
This year, Utah State played USC, Utah and Washington State and lost those games by a combined score of 135-49.
Perhaps the most galling one of all, Utah State hasn’t defeated an opponent that finished the season with a winning record since its win over Air Force in 2022.
With a move to the Pac-12 incoming, the Aggies need to get more competitive with better opponents and quickly. The majority of the competition in the Pac-12 will be comprised of teams that have a history of winning. And beating Utah State.
Mendenhall’s track record against rivals isn’t stellar. At Virginia he beat Virginia Tech only once, though the Cavaliers win in 2019 did snap a 15 game losing streak in the series.
Mendenhall struggled to beat Utah, winning just three of 10 matchups and none of the last five.
And against Boise State while at BYU, Mendenhall’s Cougars went 2-2, with both wins over the Broncos coming in Provo.
USU will take a .500 record against Boise State, though. And breakthrough’s now and again against BYU and Utah, whenever those games are scheduled.
More importantly, Mendenhall’s plus-.600 winning percentage in his career shows he can win games against good opponents. He’s beaten teams he shouldn’t have plenty of times, most recently with New Mexico when the Lobos upset a Washington State team that at the time had only one loss and was battling for College Football Playoff positioning.
Do that even a couple times at Utah State and he will have the Aggies going places they don’t usually go.
