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One of the most interesting thoughts from over the weekend has been this question: Can Utah State be a contender in the Mountain West this season? It might seem like a crazy idea home to only the minds of Aggie fans. But it’s one that will likely have to be reckoned with by a lot of fans from other MW teams that wrote off USU as being in a full-on rebuild year. The thing that puts nuance into this question is that the Aggies starting 3-1 isn’t all that surprising. My own preseason preview series predicted Utah State would be 3-1 by this point in the season, saying they’d have close wins over UTEP and Air Force, a blowout loss to Texas A&M and a blowout win over McNeese. I wasn’t exactly off by all that much in those assertions, save for nitpicking the fact the Aggies winning by 19 against Air Force probably doesn’t fall within definitions of “close.” And yet, my own preseason predictions as a whole put the Aggies at around 6-6, maybe 7-5 or 5-7 depending on whether they were lucky or unlucky in some 50/50 games. So what’s changed? The Aggies are meeting the most
LOGAN – During his weekly press conference earlier today, Utah State football head coach Bronco Mendenhall was asked about his new boss, the recently announced next athletics director for the Aggies, Cameron Walker. Mendenhall had already met with Walker prior to the announcement as the coach was consulted throughout the process of hiring the new AD. “The process was really extensive, obviously, right? President Smith had a chance to visit with each candidate. There was a search firm. There also was a search committee, as well as there were a number of coaches that were on a separate panel,” Mendenhall said. “And then independent of all of that, I had a chance to visit with the finalists in person.” Mendenhall spoke glowingly of the experience and background Walker will bring to the position. Walker completed a Juris Doctorate at Arkansas following his time as an athlete in baseball at both Ricks College and Southern Virginia. He’s since held numerous roles across time at Utah Valley University, UCF and most recently at Tennessee where Walker was the senior deputy athletics director and chief strategy officer. His many duties across those jobs included NCAA compliance, legal affairs, facilities, NIL fundraising and working
