On Saturday, Utah State will play a competitive football game for the first time since Nov. 29 last year.
Win or lose against the UTEP Miners, the Aggies will kick off the Bronco Mendenhall era of USU football in five days’ time.
After a 4-8 season in 2024 that resulted in a coaching change — out went interim head coach Nate Dreiling and what remained of Blake Anderson’s staff and in came Bronco Mendenhall with nearly his entire New Mexico staff — which in turn led to considerable retooling of the roster, there are a lot of unknowns regarding this Utah State football team.
Aggies fans, understandably, are cautiously optimistic ahead of the season. Mendenhall has a proven track record as a head coach, starting QB Bryson Barnes has plenty of experience at both the Power Four level and at the Group of Five level, and it’s hard for USU to be worse than it was last year, especially on defense.
How do national pundits feel about the Aggies, though? Is there a sentiment that Utah State can and will surprise or are the Aggies thought to be at the beginning of a long rebuild that will take years and involve a lot of losing?
Ahead of the season opener, reviews are somewhat mixed about Utah State. Some believe the Aggies will definitively be better than last season. Others, well, they believe it will take time for Mendenhall to make a noticeable difference.
ESPN might be the highest on the Aggies right now.
In David Hale’s sorting of all 136 FBS programs into tiers, Utah State slotted in as a solid team. Among the top 100 at the FBS level. Not a Mountain West Conference title contender, per se, but Hale believes the 2025 Aggies will be better than the 2024 edition and will likely make it to a bowl game.
“Bronco Mendenhall had New Mexico on the verge of a bowl last season, so it wouldn’t be a shock if he rights the ship quickly at Utah State,” Hale writes.
ESPN’s Football Power Index (FPI) is also a lot higher on the Aggies now than it was earlier this summer. The latest iteration of FPI (updated after the Week 0 games that were played this past weekend) now has Utah State among the top half of MWC teams, at No. 6. USU is slotted ahead of Hawaii, Wyoming, San Diego State, Air Force, New Mexico and Nevada.
USU is projected to win between five and six games, where previously the Aggies were expected to be a four-win team once again. Ranked No. 104 in the country, the Aggies are also now given better than a 43% chance to win six games and go bowling.
It isn’t just ESPN that is higher on the Aggies than it used to be. While not quite as optimistic as ESPN, CBS Sports ranks Utah State at No. 108 in the country, ahead of Hawaii, Wyoming, Nevada and New Mexico. And the Aggies are only slightly behind San Diego State and Air Force, less than 10 spots behind either team.
There are those who still have concerns about Utah State, though.
In his ranking of all 136 FBS teams, The Athletic’s Chris Vannini — one of the most Group of 5 aware national writers — slots Utah State in at No. 120, just ahead of Nevada and New Mexico, with the three quite clearly positioned as the three worst teams in the MWC.
Vannini believes the Aggies will end up being better under Mendenhall, but with 70 new players on the roster he clearly doesn’t believe that improvement will happen this season.
“The Aggies have a lot of new players, but new coach Bronco Mendenhall has a history with quick improvements,” he wrote.
Team Rankings.com, which has its own predictive power ratings, projects Utah State as the No. 118 team in the country. The Aggies, per Team Rankings, should win only four games again this season, which would be the eighth fewest in the country.
All of this is to say, expectations for Utah State are pretty light. Bowl eligibility is viewed as a possibility, but not a probability. The Mendenhall rebuild at USU is largely expected to take years, not a single offseason.
Will the Aggies exceed these expectations? Time will tell, but for now Utah State is positioned to fly under the radar. Little is expected of the Aggies outside of Cache Valley in 2025.
