The first two games of Utah State’s football season have gone pretty much as expected. A home game against UTEP ended in an anticipated victory with a road game at the house of a ranked Texas A&M ended in a predictable loss. Now comes the first test in which there is no consensus for which side is an overwhelming favorite.
Betting lines favor the Falcons by 3-5 points with KFord projections similarly having the Aggies as a one-possession underdog and a 43% chance at victory. Although ESPN’s Matchup Predictor currently has USU as a favorite to win with 61% odds of victory. And with all other sources accounted, every indication is that this will be a coin-flip game. Few will be certain in their predictions.
Much like the Aggies themselves, Air Force is coming off one its worst season since 2020. The Falcons started the 2024 campaign an abysmal 1-7, a span during which they averaged just 13.8 points per game on offense and a catastrophic 3.6 yards per rush attempt given the nature of Air Force’s run-heavy offense. The only thing that prevented 2024 from being a complete disaster of a season was a four-game winning streak to end the year. Air Force upped its offensive output significantly, averaging 29.3 points per game and 4.6 yards per rush.
Although we’ve had three weekends of college football, Air Force has only participated in one of them. That came two weeks ago in a season-opening game against Bucknell. The Falcons won that game by a dominating 49-13 score with the only caveat being the win came against a non-major opponent. Nevertheless, it was an improvement over their season-opener last year where they won just 21-6 over a different non-major opponent that ended up being a herald to most of the season’s struggles.
A consistent narrative regarding Air Force is that in the 17 years under head coach Troy Calhoun, the team has had a handful of poor seasons, but have typically rebounded quickly from them. After a 2-10 season in 2013 they went 10-3 the next year. Following a 3-3 campaign in the COVID year, they had three straight seasons of nine-plus wins. The only time Air Force hasn’t had an immediate bounce-back season was when it went 5-7 in back-to-back years in 2017 and 2018 (which was then followed by four nine-win seasons in a five-year span).
Calhoun wasn’t super-optimistic his team would immediately turn things around. In an interview with 106.9 The FAN at Mountain West Media Days, he said the 2025 season could start similarly to the 2024 season.
“I could see probably a lot of similarities as far as when we start. Just because you’re gonna have so many new guys. Whether it’s on the back end of where you are defensively, certainly at quarterback,” Calhoun said.
Calhoun cited inexperience at quarterback, where his QB room didn’t even have 30 snaps of on-field experience between all of his players. In Week 1, the Falcons swapped between two options at the position, Josh Johnson and Liam Szarka with a third man, Maguire Martin, getting snaps in garbage time (technically there was a fourth QB in the game, Jackson King, but he played only one snap). Johnson played the most, logging 24 snaps and leading the team in passing by going 4 of 7 for 112 yards and two touchdowns. Szarka wound up with 17 snaps, going 2-for-2 through the air with 47 yards. Neither Martin or King threw a pass.
Air Force is likely to go two deep again at QB against the Aggies. Calhoun gave every indication on Tuesday that he believes a two-QB system to be viable and expects it to be a necessity for the foreseeable future.
“Like you’ve heard me say throughout the course of a season, we’re going to need two highly productive guys for us, I think especially at that position,” Calhoun said. “We’re gonna want both guys involved and it absolutely can be done.”
In addition to a new fluidity at quarterback, Air Force’s offensive strategy against Bucknell featured a fairly subtle shift in which the Falcons altered the way they attack the opposing defense. The triple-option gives the choice for a quick handoff for a run between the tackles on virtually every play, but Air Force almost never took that course against Bucknell. According to Pro Football Focus tracking, the Falcons ran it between the tackles just six times, or 12% of attempts. In the past three seasons, their rate of rush attempts up the middle has hovered around 35%. And yet, against Bucknell, there was an additional emphasis to get the ball into space around the edge of the defense.
Wide receiver Cade Harris played a major role in this sweep-oriented rushing attack as he led the team in rushing and receiving yards in the season opener. He ran the ball eight times (all outside the tackles) for 66 yards and caught the ball three times for 83 more. In all, he had 149 yards from scrimmage and three of the Falcons’ touchdowns (two on the ground, one as a receiver).
“A really good player and multifaceted and fun to watch,” USU head coach Bronco Mendenhall said of Harris. “Air Force does a nice job of maximizing their personnel and he’s a pivotal piece.”
Along with being a feature in the offense, this is also a homecoming of sorts for Harris as he is a native of Utah. He grew up in South Weber and starred for Roy as a three-sport athlete. Harris didn’t grow up an Aggie fan, instead rooting for Utah amid a family of BYU fans, but has family in Cache Valley and spent time watching USU greats like Chuckie Keeton and Jordan Love and attended some games at Merlin Olsen Field.
“Just [to] be able to play in front of family and friends and people I haven’t seen in a long time and play at the university that I grew up watching them play. It’s a cool moment for sure,” Harris said.
One of the often talked-about aspects of Air Force’s offense is how it is able to control time of possession. Even when it was posting its worst offensive numbers in a decade last year, the Falcons still ranked second in FBS for time of possession. And keeping the ball out of their opponents hands is something gives their defense a significant advantage. It largely shows up by boosting the Falcons’ ranking in stats like points allowed and yards allowed per game. They’ve ranked as high as 1st in yards allowed and third in points allowed (that was their 2022 defense), but in terms of yards per play they usually rank a little lower. Not that Air Force’s early 2020s defenses were frauds as it still ranked top-31 in yards allowed per play each year from 2021-23, but that defensive efficiency metric still tends to lag behind its points and yards allowed, showcasing how the Falcons’ ball-control offense compliments the defense.
Last year saw a much larger than usual gap between Air Force’s yards/points allowed rank and its yards per play, ranking 40th in yards allowed and 48th in points allowed, which are decent, but were 92nd in yards allowed per play and 97th in points allowed per drive. It showed that while the Falcons held teams to lower totals than average, their opponents were still moving the ball consistently. This is what Air Force will seek to change this year with it’s defense. One notable thing that could potentially getting in the way of that goal is inexperience within the defensive unit. The Falcons are starting three sophomores in the defensive backfield, with 11 of the 13 players listed on the DB depth chart being underclassmen.
The first test of this young unit didn’t go all that bad. Bucknell starting quarterback, Ralph Rucker, completed just 10 of 18 passes for 126 yards while throwing one touchdown but also an interception. Bucknell bolstered its completion percentage later, but that was with its backup who completed 6 of 6 passes in garbage time. Air Force also didn’t get beat deep, forcing Bucknell to throw short all game. Rucker didn’t complete a single deep pass attempt (i.e. a throw that travelled 20+ yards down the field) and only completed 2 of 5 passes in the intermediate range (between 10-19 yards downfield).
Utah State will need to test the Falcons’ secondary, but will need the help of the offensive line, which has not hitherto played well. The Aggies rank last in the nation in sacks allowed, having given up 12 so far, six in each game against UTEP and Texas A&M. Things are unlikely to get significantly easier since Air Force recorded six sacks against Bucknell’s quarterbacks.
Mendenhall put it lightly when he said they’ve “seen [quarterback] protection being a challenge so far” and the necessity for keeping Barnes safe will be increased this week as the Aggies cannot let Air Force’s pass rush mask and holes that might be available in the secondary. This happened multiple times in Utah State’s loss to Texas A&M and even on plays during the win over UTEP. Some pass plays utilize route concepts that simply require more time to set up, forcing the offensive line to block longer. Many times so far, the Aggies’ linemen have not held up their end of the bargain. For the offense to reach its full potential, that must change Saturday night.
When I think of what Utah State needs to do in pass protection against Air Force, I keep thinking about this play from the A&M game. The Aggies want to attack downfield and this route concept beat the defense to get Broc Lane open downfield. Barnes just got hit before he could… pic.twitter.com/RWe3yqI0EL
— Jason Walker (@jwalker_sports) September 11, 2025
Sacks are one key that will play a part in a larger emphasis for Utah State in this game, which is to be as efficient as possible with each drive. That sounds super obvious, but it gains more importance when taking on a team with a ball-control style of play.
“Clean play [is] super important against Air Force because they do limit the number of possessions by the style of play offensively,” Mendenhall said. “So clean play, maximizing every chance you get [is] super important.”
The Aggies have already poorly utilized their scoring chances in through two games by having more than half of their drives impacted by their own penalties or allowing a sack. These negative plays are drive-killers, and the impact is only heightened when there are fewer chances. Utah State had 13 possessions against UTEP and 14 at Texas A&M, but for reference, Bucknell had just 10 possessions when it faced Air Force. The Aggies could very well have 3-4 fewer chances to possess the ball, and must therefore maximize each opportunity.
