LOGAN — Former BYU coach Bronco Mendenhall’s return to his home state won’t face lofty expectations in his first season with Utah State, or at least not from the outside.
The Aggies were picked to finish ninth out of 12 teams in the school’s final season in the Mountain West before joining the rebuilt Pac-12 in 2026, as announced Wednesday on the first day of the Mountain West media days in Las Vegas.
Boise State, which is also one of five schools that will leave the conference to join Washington State, Oregon State, Gonzaga and Texas State next summer, was picked to win the league.
The two-time defending champion Broncos garnered 35 of 39 first-place votes for 464 total points, leading the preseason poll of conference media for the 15th consecutive season.
Former American Fork quarterback Maddux Madsen was named the conference’s preseason offensive player of the year after throwing for 3,018 passing yards and 23 touchdowns as a junior en route to a top-10 ranking and College Football Playoff appearance.
Only one Utah State player — safety Ike Larsen — was selected to the preseason all-conference team. The rising senior from Smithfield received preseason honors for the third consecutive season after finishing second on the team last year with 80 tackles, 55 solo stops, 1.5 tackles for loss and a team-high nine pass breakups and one interception.
Competing for the conference title will probably have to wait for the Aggies, who limped to a 4-8 season a year ago under interim head coach Nate Dreiling after Blake Anderson was fired shortly before training camp. It’s the fourth time in five years Utah State finished below .500.
Enter Mendenhall, who helped New Mexico win five games for the first time in eight years with electric quarterback Devon Dampier (now at Utah) in his lone season with the Lobos prior to signing a six-year contract with Utah State.
Ask any of his players — including at Utah State, New Mexico, Virginia or BYU — and they’ll tell you a similar story: it’s all about the team culture for Mendenhall.
“Our program is earned, not given,” said defensive tackle Gabriel Iniguez Jr., a 12-game starter and All-Mountain West honorable mention last year in his first season after transferring from New Mexico State.
“The culture we’ve been building is exactly what we need for Utah State,” he told the Mountain West Network. “There have been troubles in the past, and whatever. But coach Bronco is about more work, less drama; we’re going to work hard and give our best at the end of the day.”
Dreiling was the third head coach since Matt Wells left Logan for the Texas Tech job in 2018, and only one of those seasons reached the double-digit win plateau — an 11-3 campaign in Anderson’s first year in 2021.
In the same spell, the Aggies have undergone multiple shifts in athletic and university leadership, and will soon be under interim leadership at president and athletic director when Diana Sabau formally begins her new job July 21 at Maryland.
A series of Title IX investigations, as well as Anderson’s departure after the university said he went on a “fact-finding mission” to investigate the circumstances of a player’s domestic violence arrest, have also followed the program in recent years.
Still, there’s talent.
Larsen is a rare returning starter for the Aggies, who bring back just four from a year ago — with only one on offense. He also totaled 103 tackles to lead all Mountain West defensive backs in 2023.
Georgia State wide receiver Cadarrius Thompson, top, is tackled after a reception by Utah State safety Ike Larsen in the first half of the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl NCAA college football game, Saturday, Dec. 23, 2023, in Boise, Idaho. (Photo: Steve Conner, Associated Press)
Among the returners is quarterback Bryson Barnes, the Utah transfer from Milford who threw for 328 yards with six touchdowns and two interceptions in three games a year ago, and also ran for 384 yards and two scores.
The 6-foot-2 signal caller who played in the Rose Bowl for the Utes began last season as the starting quarterback, lost the job, and then won it back in time to set a program record for rushing yards by a quarterback with 193 in a 41-20 win over San Diego State.
BYU transfer Jacob Conover is likely to back him up, and he’ll be buoyed by a backfield that also features BYU tailback transfer Miles Davis and New Mexico’s Javen Jacobs, who had 407 all-purpose yards for the Lobos a year ago after beginning his career at Arizona State.
But for Barnes, it also comes down to culture in his senior season.
“Regardless of everything that’s given in the modern day of college football, you’ve got to earn it to get to that point,” said Barnes, who grew up on a farm in Beaver County. “You’re not going to show up and be given anything. You’ve got to come to work every day, you’ve got to earn your jersey number; there are so many things you’ve got to earn in this program.
“You’re earning it, and your teammates can recognize that — and you get put in a position to be given things, because you put that work in.”
Utah State opens the season Aug. 30 against UTEP.
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