Utah State chose not to have a Spring Game under first year head coach Bronco Mendenhall. The landscape of college football has changed over the years and Utah State is not the only school choosing to not have a Spring Game. One of the universal reasons as to why teams are making this choice is because of the transfer portal and player retention. Even though Utah State did not hold its annual Blue and White Spring Game, it is still important to consider the strengths for the Aggies coming out of Spring Practices and the biggest questions facing the team going into the 2025 football season.
Strengths
One of the strengths for this year Utah State football team could be the passing game, which would be a welcome sight for the Aggies as they have seen inconsistent quarterback play recently. Bryson Barnes should be named as the starter and the Aggies do bring in several receivers, but more on the receivers later. Another strength of this particular Utah State football team seems to be defense and the Aggies placed a big emphasis on this with the 2025 recruiting class, bolstering the defense for the upcoming season. For player development, the Aggies also bring in a new strength and conditioning coach that has extensive experience and will help to focus on player development and player performance.
An emphasis for this team has also been placed on blocking in the run game to improve run game numbers over the past few seasons. There has been a big emphasis on strengthening the defensive line, which could be the anchor of the defense and will be further discussed in this article. While these are areas that the team wants to have strengths in, there are certain questions that need to be addressed to evaluate the strengths of these areas:
Questions heading into off-season
1. Can Utah State build depth in the linebacker room?
Utah State struggled mightily in the linebacker room in 2024, and they will be looking for players to stand out in this group this season. Some off-season additions to keep an eye on are Tymere Burton, Craig McDonald (Minnesota transfer), and Brevin Hamblin (Utah Tech transfer). These players help to add depth as John Miller and Bronson Olevao Jr. look to step up into bigger roles after making contributions last season. Overall in order to emphasize a strong defense, Utah State needs more than one player in the linebacker room to step up if they don’t want to run into the same problem they did last year, when there was not enough experience or depth to support the linebacker room.
2. What happens with the receiver room?
Utah State must account for the loss of Jalen Royals, who was having a standout season last year before he suffered a season-ending injury. Not only did the Aggie just lose Royals, they lost their top five receivers from the 2024 season in Jalen Royals (NFL Draft), Kyrese White (eligibility out), Otto Tia (transferred to Utah), Grant Page (transferred to Southern Miss) and Jack Hestera (reportedly entering the transfer portal). This season Utah State does bring in new receivers in Malakai Alofipo, Brady Boyd, Kaleb Mitchell, Ty Olsen, Braden Pegan, Demick Starling, and Corey Thompson Jr., but many of the receivers are unproven. If a receiver in the room doesn’t step up then Utah State is going to have a hard time spreading the ball out. Out of the recruiting class, Kaleb Mitchell will be a player to keep an eye on as a 86 overall three star recruit (per 247 Sports) Malakai Alofipo as a 85 overall player (per 247 Sports). Utah State also signed Nikko Boncore, the number 21 player in Arizona coming in at an 85 overall. Ty Olsen also comes in from San Diego as a 85 overall player and has decent height at 6-2, which could be very important for Utah State. Two names to keep an eye on for immediate impact are Brady Boyd, who comes in from Texas Tech, and Braden Pagan, coming in from UCLA. Another name to keep an eye on both in the blocking and the receiving game is tight end Reed Olsen, who comes out of Logan, Utah.
3. Can Utah State establish consistent quarterback play?
Utah State suffered depth and injury issues last year at quarterback and in order for the offense to improve this year, this is an area that needs to be addressed. During the 2024 season, Bryson Barnes threw for 856 yards and 12 touchdowns to 6 interceptions, throwing a long pass of 53 yards. Barnes completed 61.1% of his passes and finished the season with a QBR of 75.3 and an RTG of 140.1, by far the most successful season of his career. Utah State also brings quarterback Anthony Garcia, who stands at 6-2 193 pounds and transferred from Arizona. Whoever does end up developing at quarterback for the Aggies during the offseason, and again at this point, it seems like it will be Barnes, will have to show consistency and to this point Barnes with development could be that guy. Utah State did not do a good job of creating explosive plays in 2024 at all and often times found themselves in long third-down situations. It is time to change this narrative
5. How is this team going to perform under a new coaching staff?
As it is well known, Utah State has just not been able to find success over the past few seasons, which is exactly why bringing in an experienced veteran coach such as Bronco Mendenhall could make the difference for the Aggies. Culture is a huge part of player development and investment into a program, and Bronco Mendenhall has been working hard to change the culture for the better over the Spring. How the players respond to the culture change is going to be a big storyline going into this season, especially when considering Kyle Cefalo, who has been at Utah State for the past four years, is going to be in his first year as offensive coordinator. Cefalo has a significant resume of helping to coach Jalen Royals and Terrell Vaughn to success and will be looking to lead this offense into creating explosive plays. Nick Howell is also in his first season as the defensive coordinator at Utah State and will be looking to limit explosive plays defensively. The players will be seeing plenty of new faces in leadership roles and it will again matter how the players respond to the changes being made and how they are able to work with the coaching staff and develop.
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