Northwestern head coach David Braun throws up his hands after Illinois offensive lineman Dom D’Antonio recovered a fumble to score a touchdown during the first half of an NCAA college football game, Saturday, Nov. 25, 2023, in Champaign, Ill. | Erin Hooley
There are plenty of reasons — valid ones — to believe that Utah State is in for a difficult 2024 college season.
The Aggies are coming off back-to-back 6-7 seasons and lost multiple starters from last year’s team, including record-setting linebacker MJ Tafisi, standout wide receiver Terrell Vaughn, the team’s most productive running back in Davon Booth, plus a burgeoning star at safety in Devin Dye.
Oh, and don’t forget the entire quarterback room, including Cooper Legas (now at Tulsa), McCae Hillstead (now at BYU) and Levi Williams (retired from football).
That’s only the beginning of the list, too. All told, USU has 50-plus new faces littered across its roster. Many of those are depth pieces, sure — most of the departures being the same — but still, the Aggies are a new team.
Have doubts about the players brought in to fill the holes? That’s fair, too.
Spencer Petras is QB1 and he didn’t exactly have a stellar career at Iowa. Not production-wise, at least. Over three seasons played with the Hawkeyes (when Petras actually saw serious time), he threw 24 touchdown passes and 19 interceptions. He also never threw for 2,000 yards in a single year, topping out at 1,880.
Multiple former New Mexico State players are expected to start and while NMSU was competitive in Conference USA the last two seasons, the Mountain West is a different beast.
There is also the fact that the Aggies didn’t show all that much promise in 2023, and really haven’t since their unexpected run to the MW championship in 2021.
All six of Utah State’s wins came against opponents that ended the year with losing records. That’s right, USU didn’t beat a bowl eligible team in 2023.
If player movement or past performances aren’t a concern, there’s also the upcoming schedule.
USU plays two or three Power conference teams (depending on how you view the remnants of the Pac-12) in 2024. The Aggies go to Los Angeles to play USC, host rival Utah and then travel to Pullman, Washington, to take on Washington State. And that is only the beginning. Utah State also travels to Boise State, has to travel across the country to play Temple, travels to rival Wyoming, and in the dead of winter travels to Fort Collins, Colorado, to play Colorado State.
The home games aren’t guaranteed wins, either, what with UNLV — fresh off a 9-5 season — and San Diego State coming to town. Wins will be hard to come by. At least on paper.
Arguably, the most significant reason to be pessimistic about the Aggies’ chances this fall, though, was the departure — less than two months before the start of the season — of now former head coach Blake Anderson.
Notified that he was being fired on July 2 and officially fired on July 18, Anderson’s termination could be viewed as a death knell for the Aggies’ chances at being competitive this year.
Anderson was a proven winner — the 2021 conference title won by USU speaks to that — who had navigated the rise of NIL and ever-increasing use of the NCAA transfer portal well enough.
At best, Anderson was an offensive savant, capable of finding and developing elite talent overlooked elsewhere. At worst, he was the only coach in Utah State history to get the Aggies to a bowl game every year on the job.
Either way, he’ll be missed. Right?
There isn’t much precedent to look at when it comes to a school firing its head football coach just before the season.
That is, outside of Northwestern. And if what happened with the Wildcats is any indication, things might not go that bad in Logan this fall.
What happened at Northwestern?
On July 10, 2023, Northwestern fired its longtime head coach Pat Fitzgerald as allegations of widespread hazing swirled around the football program.
At the time of the decision, university president Michael Schill wrote an open letter to the school community that read, “The head coach is ultimately responsible for the culture of his team. The hazing we investigated was widespread and clearly not a secret within the program, providing Coach Fitzgerald with the opportunity to learn what was happening. Either way, the culture in Northwestern Football, while incredible in some ways, was broken in others.”
Fitzgerald has since gone on to sue Northwestern for his dismissal, wanting $130 million for wrongful termination, The Associated Press reported last October, and that lawsuit is going to trial in April 2025, according to CBS.
Fitzgerald had been a highly successful coach at Northwestern, leading the Wildcats to highs that included multiple 10-win seasons.
The Wildcats were down in a bad way, though, when Fitzgerald was terminated. The year prior, Northwestern went 1-11, and the year before that 3-9. Northwestern wasn’t a surging football program by any means when Fitzgerald was let go, but expectations following his firing were pretty much nonexistent. Especially after some of the more notable players in the program entered the transfer portal.
Nearly every preseason prediction for the Wildcats, who entered the 2023 season led by interim head coach David Braun — Braun had been hired in January 2023 to work as Northwestern’s new defensive coordinator — had the team finishing last in the Big Ten.
For example, eight experts for CBS Sports picked the Wildcats to finish a distant last in the conference.
There was simply no hope for Northwestern.
Then an interesting thing happened. Northwestern went out under Braun and exceeded all expectations. The Wildcats beat UTEP — Braun’s first win as a head coach — Minnesota, Howard, Maryland, Wisconsin, Purdue and Illinois before capping things off with a win over Utah in the Las Vegas Bowl.
It was a turnaround that few expected, a storybook season in a sport known for them.
Whether or not Utah State can do something similar remains to be seen.
There are plenty of reasons to not believe USU can be successful this season. The Aggies profess to believe, though.
Interim head coach Nate Dreiling has talked often since taking over the program about contending for a conference championship this season. He hasn’t shied away from embracing the most lofty of goals and expectations, including but not limited to the resurrection of the Aggies’ defense.
Players have said similar things, like “why not us,” or “anything can happen.”
Many Aggies have expressed a belief that this year’s team is closer than ever, bonded by the firing of Anderson, among many other things.
“I feel like we are very close,” center Falepule Alo said. “After practice we always say we love each other, because that is how close we are.”
“We are tight. We are a brotherhood,” safety Ike Larsen added. “That is what you need to have a great team in general. I’m excited to see what we can do.”
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Publish date : 2024-08-28 08:30:00
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