LOGAN — In a “notice of noncompliance” sent by the U.S. Department of Justice last month to Utah State University, the government agency outlined what it deemed “an ongoing hostile environment within its football program” and criticized the university for a failure to “take prompt, equitable, and effective steps” to address those issues. Utah State sent a response Tuesday outlining the steps it would take to conform to the demands of the agreement with the DOJ. The DOJ has been “compliance monitoring” Utah State since a Feb. 2020 settlement in which the university signed a resolution that it would address systemic issues with handling cases of sexual misconduct that were exposed due to multiple incidents in the previous decade, including the case of Torrey Green, a former Utah State football player who was sentenced to 29 years in prison over convictions in seven cases of rape. Those crimes occurred while Green was at USU but did not come to light until he had left the university and signed a professional contract in the NFL. This latest communication from the DOJ, dated Aug. 21, informed USU of its noncompliance with the 2020 resolution, implicating not only the athletics department, but also

LOGAN — Former Utah State deputy athletics director Jerry Bovee released a statement in the wake of the publication of a letter sent by the U.S. Department of Justice to Utah State University. The communication from the DOJ contained a report regarding alleged failures to report the arrest of an Aggie football player in 2023 over an incident of domestic violence. The report condemned Bovee — who was fired by USU in July, along with former football head coach Blake Anderson, senior woman administrator Amy Crosbie and director of player development Austin Albrecht — saying he failed to properly report the 2023 incident and adhere to USU policy in disciplining the player who was arrested. Cache Valley Daily received a copy of this statement from Bovee Wednesday evening, which reads: “I continue to remain steadfast in defending not only my name and reputation, but most importantly, in revealing the truth. Therefore, I wish to respond to the Utah Department of Justice (DOJ) notice to Utah State University (USU) of noncompliance that was posted yesterday on Utah State’s website. “First, it is my assessment that the DOJ did not put forth any effort to conduct its own independent investigation regarding the allegations

The Mountain West recently boasted its total of 53 former football players from member schools that are part of NFL opening week rosters for 2024. That’s rather conveniently the exact number of players for an NFL roster. And it brings up the inevitable question of what would an NFL team comprised of only the active former Mountain West players look like? Well, technically, the answer to that is it would kind of suck. Mainly because of a lack of balance, unless you think having four punters and two long-snappers but only two defensive tackles and one center is good. But we’re going to have fun with this anyway. The magic of the perfect 53 is ruined slightly by the fact that at least one of the players sort of/maybe doesn’t count for what is considered a former Mountain West player, and it also brings up a bit of a key point in how things are getting counted. NFL roster pages and most websites that track players by college go by the last one attended. So when the Mountain West list of players includes Daiyan Henley, it’s a little awkward since he spent his final year of college at Washington State. Since