Even amidst some of Utah State’s struggles to step beyond the boundaries of going 6-6 every regular season, one thing the Aggies haven’t been lacking in is producing points on offense. The team has ranked inside the top 40 in points per game four times in the last five seasons, including three straight.
They’ve done this despite going through four different offensive coordinators and three head coaches in that same span.
Robert Anae is next in line to lead the Utah State offense. He owns 18 years of experience as an offensive coordinator, including 15 as the OC for Bronco Mendenhall at both BYU and Virginia. Anae spoke with the hosts of the Full Court Press on 106.9 The FAN on Monday and discussed the Aggies’ offense and the players who will contribute to the unit for the 2026 season.
Utah State stands somewhat unique in its quarterback battle in that it’s the only Pac-12 school to have a named starter that wasn’t the team’s starter last season. Boise State, Texas State and San Diego State each returned their respective QB1’s, and those players are anticipated to reprise their roles. But none of the teams that lost their starters to the offseason — Fresno State, Colorado State and Washington State — have publicly said who will be under center for Week 1. Even Oregon State, which returns its 2025 starter, has held off on naming him the starter for next season, insisting there remains an ongoing battle for the job.
Hillstead defied that trend by setting himself apart from his competition. Utah State saw no reason to delay the inevitable and plenty of reason to make sure everyone within the program knew what the plan is for this fall.
“I learned this from my boy Mike Leach. You want to find out who is the best quarterback on your team as soon as you can,” Anae said. “Once you’ve accomplished that, now you start to focus on what works around him. So we spent all spring ball working on finding out who is that guy and, at the end of spring, it was clear who was our best and giving us the best chance to really advance as an offense.”
Mendenhall shared a similar sentiment back in April after the Aggies’ spring showcase.
“When a team can have a starting quarterback with the autonomy of the summer and what the NCAA structure requires, I think those teams progress the most and best,” Mendenhall said.
With Hillstead set as the starter, the work to be done now is, in Anae’s words, “solidifying the pieces around him to bring out the greatness in his skill set.” Who those pieces are is somewhat clear. Exactly what they will be capable of is less known.
Easily the biggest concern for the Aggies is the offensive line. The O-line’s effectiveness in 2025 left a lot to be desired. The unit ranked 100th in pass blocking and 108th in run blocking, according to Pro Football Focus grading, among other dubious ranks in O-line-related stats.
From that group, the Aggies return three starters — guards Tavo Motu’apuaka and George Maile, along with center Jimmy Liston — with two transfers poised to start at the two tackle spots, Seth Wilfred and John Randle Jr.
In the Aggies’ spring showcase, the first chance to see potential improvements from the returners and see how the newcomers bolster the blocking unit, the display fell flat. Mendenhall acknowledged as much when asked about the O-line after the showcase.
“Lots of work still to do. We knew that from a year ago,” Mendenhall said. “Most teams go as the offensive front goes. And the offensive front affects the quarterback play and vice versa. So that therein still lies something we have work to do on.”
Part of why the O-line struggled was due to a lack of health. Maile missed the entire spring practice period with an unspecified injury. And things have only gotten worse in the injury department as Anae stated on Monday that another player on the O-line (he didn’t specify who) got injured at the beginning of June.
These injuries have derailed the coaching staff’s plans to improve the O-line.
“As much continuity as we were hoping to carry over up front, with injuries, it hasn’t been just plug and play,” Anae said. “I love the pieces that we have to work with. But right now, task number one is to solidify and develop that group up front.”
Another position group with a lot of question marks around it is the wide receivers. The Aggies return essentially one player from both the wide receiver and tight end rooms: Anthony Garcia. He caught 20 passes for 348 yards and two touchdowns, ending the year as the fifth-most targeted player and the third-most targeted wide receiver or tight end. It’s worth noting that running back Javen Jacobs returns, having caught 43 passes for 379 yards and three touchdowns, but this is about WRs and TEs, not RBs.
Even with Garcia as effectively the lone returner, there are players coming back who have experience with the team. Tight End Kache Kaio played all 13 games last year, logging 130 total snaps, even if only two catches for 10 yards. Demick Starling is also a notable returner. The transfer from Virginia was with Utah State last year, but he missed the season due to injury. Had he been healthy, the senior would have been one of the Aggies’ top receivers last year.
Joining these two are transfers like Eli Wood (also from Virginia) and Arizona transfer Rex Haynes, who will be in the mix for a solid receiving corps.
“We have the makings of a really good group. They can run. And a big guy like Eli is physical off the break. Rex is tall and fast. And Demick, we go way back with Demick Starling to the Virginia days. He can flat-out go. And there’s a lot of really good, competent young players in that room as well. So we look forward to having a lot of fun and in our new offensive scheme with those receivers.”
The other half of Utah State’s offense, its run game, is also looking at a bit of a revamp. Jacobs returns, having rushed for 429 yards on 6.6 yards per carry last year, as does Noah White, who is coming off a true freshman season where he saw limited but consistent snaps each week. They will be joined by Sesi Vailahi, an Oklahoma State transfer, to form a three-man rushing unit that will likely account for more than the lion’s share of carries this season.
A key part of what is changing with the rushing attack isn’t just the names of the guys carrying the ball. It’s also the style. Mendenhall and Anae signalled a much more attacking rushing style, with whom they brought in, particularly fullback/tight end Collin Remenowski. The 6-foot-1, 245-pound transfer played fullback across his three years at Ashland University, and while he’ll be listed as a tight end with the Aggies, the coaching staff’s terminology for his role, “rhino,” is much more telling as to how he’ll impact the game.
“A lot of offenses nowadays are going to the four-wide, and there’s some legitimacy to that. But you’ve got to stand alone up front to just run that brand of offense,” Anae said. “Defenses, all they do is attack offensive fronts. Well, with a rhino, a bigger guy, we now stand in that world, and we’d like to attack the defensive front as well. Even out who’s attacking who on the line of scrimmage. And with a rhino-type player, that’s the idea with having that physical brand of person now injected into the front.”
