LOGAN — There’s an air of mystery surrounding Utah State football as it goes through spring practices. A new head coach, a host of new players and closed practices with no public scrimmages make it hard for anyone to figure out what’s happening with the program in terms of on-field progression. But in a pair of exclusive interviews with 106.9 The FAN, the two coordinators for the team — offensive coordinator Kevin McGiven and defensive coordinator Nick Howell — gave some insight as to how the team is doing this spring along with some details about their careers and path to Logan.
You can find the full audio of those interviews on 1069TheFAN.com or follow one of the following links directly to the podcast.
Here’s the written summary of what McGiven and Howell said about the offseason so far.
Path to Utah State
Nick Howell coming to Utah State was pretty much settled the moment Bronco Mendenhall took over as head coach. Since 2013, on any team Mendenhall has coached Howell has been the defensive coordinator, encompassing three seasons at BYU (2013-2015), six at Virginia (2016-2021) and last year at New Mexico (during Mendenhall’s two-year sabbatical from coaching, Howell was the DC at Vanderbilt).
“I feel really fortunate and blessed. I’m thankful,” Howell said of coaching with Mendenhall for so long. “We’ve been doing this for a while and coach has been good to me and coming back here, it’s just a blessing for sure.”
For Kevin McGiven, this is a return to the Aggies. Technically, you could call it a second return to Logan with him having two previous stints as an assistant coach. In 2009, McGiven spent one season as the assistant head coach and QB coach under Gary Andersen, leaving to spend time at both Memphis and Montana State in similar roles before a first return to Utah State. He served as offensive coordinator and QB coach in 2013 and 2014 for Matt Wells who’d taken over for Andersen as head coach.
“This is my third time here, you know, and so to me there’s something about this place where, even after the first time you kind of start to bleed blue a little bit, the second time a little bit more,” McGiven said. “And just coming back here, it just felt like I was coming home.”
Those years McGiven spent at USU were the formitive ones in the program’s modern resurgence. The 2009 season was the first for then-head coach Gary Andersen, who revived the program from its low point in the early 2000s. Then there were the 2013 and 2014 seasons, which marked the first two of the Mountain West era. Though, while he was a witness to some of that growth, McGiven didn’t take any credit for that rise.
“Got to be around a lot of really good players that were on that team. Diondre Borel was the quarterback. Robert Turbin was here. Kerwynn Williams came in. Bobby Wagner was here. A bunch of really good players. It was fun to be around those guys and see that kind of get started,” McGiven said. “I left and by the time I came back, it was pretty well established at that point where, when Matt Wells took over I was fortunate enough to come back and, and be the offensive coordinator. But the culture had taken hold a little bit and they had been able to recruit really good talent. And so I was able to be kind of the recipient of some of the success we were able to have.”
Howell doesn’t have as direct of a connection to the Aggies, but is himself a native of Utah having grown up in Ogden and his parents were originally from Cache Valley. Additionally, his cousin Christopher Howell is on staff as a defensive analyst. Toph previously coached Sky View football for several years.
Views on Bronco Mendenhall’s style
Mendenhall places a lot of emphasis on culture, with an old-school style of running his team and making sure every player earns everything, even down to the numbers on their jerseys (the Aggies’ roster currently doesn’t list any jersey numbers and footage of recent practices on USU’s social media accounts shows the players wearing numberless practice jerseys). Howell is obviously well-acquainted with the system, but it’s new to McGiven and he said that he’s “along for the ride as well” when it comes to learning about the culture being established.
But while this system is new to McGiven, he was certainly no stranger to Mendenhall, having crossed paths at BYU during the 2003 and 2004 seasons when McGiven was a graduate assistant and Mendenhall had taken the defensive coordinator job that preceded him becoming head coach of the Cougars. The two remained in touch over the years. With that connection established, and Mendenhall taking over at USU, the stars aligned for two like-minded coaches to join forces.
“When I heard (Mendenhall) got this job, I was obviously extremely interested in the opportunity to work for him just based on the things that I had heard from guys that I know. And, being around the type of program that he runs, the type of person that he is, I knew my values were aligned,” McGiven said. “So I was fortunate enough to get that call and we hit it off right off the bat and knew that it was something that I was looking for and that he was looking for also.”
How the Aggies are progressing in Spring Ball
Spring practices mark the earliest points in the development of a team. As such, expecting a finished product is a fool’s errand. And Utah State has even further to go with the new coaching staff added to the high amounts of turnover on both sides of the ball. And while plays are being installed in the offense with coverages and run fits being honed on the defense, there are bigger things to key in on during the spring according to McGiven.
“The biggest thing right now is just learning how to play football together and learning how to do it with extremely high effort and intensity,” McGiven said. “Today they were running around, they were playing fast. I don’t look real hard at the execution of the scheme at this point. You’d always like it to be really, really good. And there were some really good moments today, some things that took hold over with the install in the off season that was fun to see in an actual practice setting against a defense. But [the] biggest thing is just getting total effort out of these guys and in them playing 100 percent every single snap that is reflective of a Bronco Mendenhall football team and a Bronco Mendenhall culture.”
Howell echoed the thoughts on energy and it being one of the most noticeable things about the team so far, above any schematic aspects of the team.
“I think the whole team likes to compete and try hard and they’ve brought really good energy every day,” Howell said. “So that’s been the biggest thing that’s jumped out is like a lot of enthusiasm at practice through the entire team, all the coaches, that’s been fun to watch.”
Along with the energy, there’s an element of the players and coaches adapting to each other. The players are trying to learn the systems being put in place while the coaches try to ensure the systems being built will maximize the talents and skills present on the roster. That can be an especially challenging process when a coaching staff takes over for a new roster where they didn’t recruit as many of the players. But Howell feels like the players they have fit well despite it being a new group of players.
“I think that the skill set of the guys here adapts well to what we have done in the past. I feel really comfortable with that,” Howell said. “I’m excited about that because there’s a lot of familiarity and we like what we’re doing. Whereas maybe in other transitions, we didn’t quite have exactly that and we had to adjust and adapt. But I feel like these guys are doing good. They’re learning and they’re growing and we’re seeing strength and weaknesses and adapting a few calls here and there, but I think they’re doing a good job.”
For now, that’s going to be just about all the coaches are willing to say. Part of why Mendenhall decided to close spring ball to the public was to not reveal anything about both his roster and their schemes for 2025. The hope will be that such a closed-off approach will pay off with fewer players leaving during the spring window and that the team will be able to make up for the lost connection to the fan base over the summer and fall portions of the offseason.
One detail that McGiven was willing to touch on regarded the need to fill in some holes on the roster through the upcoming spring portal window. The staff tried its best to build a roster in the short amount of time they had in the winter recruiting cycle. But there is still more to do.
“There’s a few spots left coming out of the last recruiting cycle that we have still got to address,” McGiven said. “We’re just going to have to see what happens with this team and if there’s any attrition as we go throughout the spring or at the end of spring. I think most of the guys I’m seeing are doing a really good job. They’re bought in, but that could possibly change.”
While that window has been a great burden in years past, there’s some hope it’ll end up yielding more positives than negatives and allow the team to fill needs instead of create new ones.
