Hoping to see exciting, closely contested college football? Then Utah State is a team you should be keeping a close eye on just about every week from mid-October through late November. According to KFord.com projections, six of the Aggies’ remaining seven games are expected to be decided by less than one possession.
Number of remaining Regular Season games with a projected spread of one-possessionArizona, Baylor, Delaware, San Jose State. Southern Miss and UTEP lead the way with 7️⃣ such games remainingWhile Charlotte, Nevada, Notre Dame, Oklahoma State and UCLA each have 0️⃣ pic.twitter.com/JyvZzJQqyQ
— Kelley Ford (@KFordRatings) October 2, 2025
The only game KFord projects as not being a close game is the Aggies’ matchup with currently 1-3 Nevada on Nov. 8. Every other contest is close enough that one bounce of the ball could change the entire outcome.
KFord has Utah State favored in only one of those six games — at home against San Jose State on Oct. 17 (USU’s homecoming game) — with the Aggies’ being slight-to-moderate underdogs in the remaining five. Though other computer-based projections have offered differing opinions on some of these games. While KFord favors Hawaii (giving them a 52% chance of winning), both ESPN’s Matchup Predictor and CFB Graphs give the nod to Utah State (ESPN has USU with a 56.4% chance of winning as of publishing with CFB Graphs predicting a 63.5% chance of winning).
Utah State’s % Chances to Win Remaining Games per Analytical Models
| at Hawaii | vs San Jose State | at New Mexico | vs Nevada | at UNLV | at Fresno State | vs Boise State | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| KFord | 48% | 68% | 49% | 86% | 32% | 31% | 30% |
| ESPN | 56.4% | 72.5% | 47.2% | 87.2% | 33.2% | 40.7% | 34.0% |
| CFB Graphs | 63.5% | 70.6% | 42.6% | 77.7% | 52.6% | 50.7% | 59.2% |
Should these projections of close games play out, it would make for a stark change from the first five weeks of Utah State’s season. None of its games have been decided by fewer than 12 points, with just one (the 28-16 win over UTEP) having a final margin less than three touchdowns.
In the past, Utah State has done fairly well in one-possession games. Since the start of the 2018 season, the Aggies are 17-6 in games decided by eight or fewer points, including a 12-4 record since the start of the 2021 season.
Utah State has already done better than many expected on the gridiron this year. The Aggies have jumped from an average rank in computer metrics of 105.3 in the preseason to 84.3 as of Monday. Hopes for a bowl game have skyrocketed, but they’ll have to claw three more wins out of a host of games where the margin for error will be about as thin as it can get.
