{"id":520938,"date":"2026-11-06T20:36:14","date_gmt":"2026-11-06T20:36:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/520938\/"},"modified":"2026-11-06T20:36:14","modified_gmt":"2026-11-06T20:36:14","slug":"preview-utah-state-vs-fresno-state-football-deseret-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/520938\/","title":{"rendered":"Preview: Utah State vs. Fresno State football \u2013 Deseret News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Utah State (3-5, 2-2) vs. Fresno State (5-3, 3-1) Kickoff:\u00a0Saturday, 7:30 p.m. MSTVenue:\u00a0Maverik StadiumTV:\u00a0USA SportsRadio:\u00a0Aggie Sports Network (KZNS 1280 The Zone)Series: Utah State and Fresno State have played 34 times since their first meeting in 1952. Fresno State leads all-time 19-14. Utah State has lost two of its last three games to the Bulldogs but won last year\u2019s matchup, 28-17.The trends <\/p>\n

For Utah State: The Aggies are riding high after their performance against Colorado State last week. Utah State\u2019s struggling offense has been the headliner all year, and it had a breakthrough with a season-high 31 points in a convincing 31-14 win.<\/p>\n

Quarterback McCae Hillstead made his first start since the season opener, and he looked great. Hillstead threw for 173 yards while completing 77% of his passes. He also ran for 79 yards on 11 carries and pulled in a 44-yard reception on a trick play from Anthony Garcia. Most importantly, Hillstead didn\u2019t have any turnovers.<\/p>\n

The biggest caveat to all of this is that Colorado State is one of the worst defenses in the country. Still, it was the first time all year the offense was consistent on drives and moving the ball.<\/p>\n

For Fresno State: The Bulldogs are also coming off a confidence-boosting win over Oregon State, especially with how the previous few weeks went.<\/p>\n

Fresno State was rolling until it hosted Boise State in early October. The Bulldogs battled, but Boise State eked out a 38-31 win. Then the following week, Fresno State gave up 10 in the fourth quarter to San Diego State and lost 26-23.<\/p>\n

After a bye week, the Bulldogs were back in action and got a big 38-22 win over Oregon State. The Beavers were previously undefeated in Pac-12 play.<\/p>\n

What to watch for<\/p>\n

Is this a turning point for the offense? Utah State had its best offensive performance last week, and Hillstead looked the part of a starting quarterback. However, it\u2019s difficult to determine if that result was because of natural offensive growth or because the Aggies played the statistically worst defense in the country.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s probably truth somewhere in the middle, and Utah State will face a much tougher test against Fresno State. On average, the Bulldogs hold opponents to 21 points per game. That ranks 40th in the country. Meanwhile, Utah State averages just 17 points per game.<\/p>\n

Saturday will show if the offense has improved, if a healthy Hillstead is what it needed, or if the offense regresses to where it was before the Colorado State win.<\/p>\n

Protect the football and the quarterback: Utah State played some close games early in the season, and turnovers especially burned it against Idaho State and Washington.<\/p>\n

However, Hillstead and Grady Brosterhous have now gone three straight games without an interception. The last interception was one Hillstead threw against Boise State.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, forcing turnovers has been a real strength of Fresno State\u2019s defense. It has picked off opposing quarterbacks seven times this year and recovered seven fumbles, so protecting the football is at the top of the priority list for the offense on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Not only that, but the Bulldogs\u2019 defensive front can really get to the quarterback. Fresno State leads the Pac-12 with 20 sacks this season. Utah State quarterbacks have been sacked 23 times.<\/p>\n

Quotable<\/p>\n

\u201cReally looking forward to our game against Fresno. Great matchup. And Fresno is \u2014 man, they\u2019re tough and they\u2019re physical and they\u2019re well coached and coming off of a really nice win versus Oregon State. I like our team. I like the resilience. I can feel momentum. I see improvement. I think everyone that follows us can sense that. Looking forward to this month and this game.\u201d \u2014 Utah State coach Bronco Mendenhall<\/p>\n

\u201cBig, big challenge this week. Bronco does a great job. Well coached. Defensively, the No. 1 defense in the league. We\u2019re going to have our work cut out for us. They\u2019ve done a really good job keeping points off the board, being physical. They do what they do. They\u2019re really sound. Good tackling football team and very physical football team. Offensively, run first. Some designer run game. A little bit of a quarterback issue. They\u2019ve had a couple different guys during the course of the year. As the week unfolds, we\u2019ll have to kind of look and see what the major differences are. They do have some skilled kids, love to throw isolation plays on the perimeter. … We\u2019re excited about another opportunity. We\u2019re coming off a win now. Now let\u2019s find out how mature we are.\u201d \u2014 Fresno State coach Matt Entz<\/p>\n

Next upUtah State:\u00a0at San Diego State, Saturday, Nov. 14, at 7:30 p.m.Fresno State: at Texas State, Saturday, Nov. 14, at 2 p.m.Utah State schedule\/results\"\"Utah State defensive tackle Carson Tujague (28) sacks Colorado State quarterback Hauss Hejny (8) on Saturday, Oct. 31, 2026, in Logan. | Eli Lucero\/Herald Journal <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Utah State (3-5, 2-2) vs. Fresno State (5-3, 3-1) Kickoff:\u00a0Saturday, 7:30 p.m. MSTVenue:\u00a0Maverik StadiumTV:\u00a0USA SportsRadio:\u00a0Aggie Sports Network (KZNS…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":520939,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,114,113,8378,8038],"class_list":["post-520938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news","tag-news-feed-local","tag-utah-state-football"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=520938"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520938\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/520939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=520938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=520938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=520938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}