The era of the Mountain West Conference is officially over for Utah State. July 1 marks the day on which all of the old MW logos are unceremoniously dropped in the trash and sandblasted off the fields, to be replaced by the newly redesigned Pac-12 shield.
Still, the 13 years the Aggies spent as a member of the Mountain West were productive. Utah State went from a school questionably capable of competing in the league to winning nine conference championships in the 2025-26 academic year alone.
That success made the baker’s dozen seasons largely enjoyable for the Utah State faithful. In honor of the 13 years the Aggies were in the Mountain West, here are the top 13 of those moments, ranked by a vague combination of significance to the prestige of Utah State and their perceived popularity among fans. Naturally, this is going to end up with bias toward football and men’s basketball, but there’s plenty of room for the great accomplishments of USU’s other often-successful programs.
As a note, the definition of “moment” for our purposes is a bit broad. These can be something that happened within mere seconds or span multiple seasons. Some moments are also bundled together, while some that could maybe have been combined were given some breathing room as separate “moments.”
13. Gymnastics’ Rise, Brief Decline, and Rise Again
We kind of have to, by rule, put anything Gymnastics has done in the last decade-and-a-half toward the bottom. Mainly because it wasn’t a Mountain West sport until 2024. The conference didn’t sponsor gymnastics until that season, so Utah State competed in the Mountain Rim Gymnastics Conference for 10 years before officially joining the Mountain West three years ago. But the program’s accomplishments during this time span should be highlighted nonetheless.
At the conclusion of the 2022 season, Aggie Gymnastics was in a great place. Head coach Amy Smith had just completed her fifth season in Logan, which featured an MRGC Championship and a second consecutive appearance at the NCAA Regionals. In fact, Utah State had qualified for six NCAA Regionals since leaving the WAC, a stark contrast to the six-year drought the program suffered through from 2008-13.
But then Smith left, opting to take the head coaching job at the newly created Clemson gymnastics program. The incoming head coach, Kristin White, had almost nothing to build with. Smith had taken with her anything within the program that wasn’t nailed down.
With only barren cupboards from which to draw, White built USU gymnastics back into the program it had long been. One that consistently contends for conference titles and qualifies for regionals. This past season, White accomplished a program-first, that of back-to-back conference championships.
12. Deven Thompkins’ 1,700-yard season in 2021
There’s more on the way from the 2021 Utah State football season, but a highlight within a highlight was Deven Thompkins shattering the Aggies’ single-season receiving yards record. He finished second nationally with 1,704 yards and broke Kevin Curtis’ 2001 record of 1,531 yards less than a year before said record was old enough to drink alcohol. Thompkins’ 102 catches ranked third in the nation and also broke a record set by Curtis that same 2001 season.
Thompkins managed all this despite standing merely 5-foot-7. He not only made up for his lack of height with incredible speed, but also with an incredible leaping ability that made him a surprisingly good jump ball target.
11. Chari Hawkins, the Olympian
Chari Hawkins is one of the most well-known Aggie athletes, reaching her peak as a participant in the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. She also has a large social media following, with 1.2 million followers on Instagram. And while her post-USU career has plenty of prestige, it was built on the foundation of a fantastic career in Logan.
In an article written by Utah State’s athletics staff, current associate head coach and throwers coach, Matt Ingebritsen, recalled the potential Utah State saw in Hawkins from the very beginning.
“From the very beginning, they all said this girl was going to be very good,” Ingebritsen said. “I think the biggest thing that they saw in her was just a good attitude and a willingness to listen and work and kind of accept whatever came to her.”
Turns out, they were very right.
Hawkins’ time at USU actually spanned the university’s membership in both the WAC and Mountain West, though most of her biggest collegiate accomplishments occurred while competing in the Mountain West. So we’re able to count it here.
In two years competing in the Mountain West, Hawkings earned 11 different First Team All-MW honors for various events. She was a two-time Mountain West Indoor Athlete of the Year and won the 2014 Mountain West Hal Rothman Sportsmanship Award. Hawkins was also Second Team All-American for Indoor Pentathlon in 2014 and then Second Team All-American in Outdoor Heptathlon in 2014 and 2015 (also in 2013, but that was while USU was in the WAC).
When you include her time competing for USU in the WAC, Hawkins earned 24 total All-Conference honors, won championships in both the WAC and Mountain West, and was a five-time All-American between the indoor pentathlon and outdoor heptathlon.
All of these accomplishments, in representing Utah State and later Team USA, have led to Hawkins being elected for induction into the Utah State Athletics Hall of Fame.
10. USU Football Destroys Boise State 52-26 in Stunning Upset
Amidst an otherwise mediocre and lackluster football season in 2015, Utah State pulled off a gem of a game. An Aggie squad that ended the year going 6-7, with a loss to Akron in the Potato Bowl, laid an absolute beat-down on a ranked Boise State squad at Merlin Olsen Field.
On Oct. 16, 2015, the No. 21 Boise State Broncos rolled into Logan expecting to log their 13th consecutive victory over Utah State, which would have extended a winning streak dating back to the 20th century.
Then, chaos ensued.
Utah State stunned the Broncos with a first-half masterclass, building a halftime lead of 45-10. The second half became a mere formality as the Aggies cruised to the eventual 52-26 final score. Boise State’s primary downfall was turnovers, as it coughed up five fumbles and threw three interceptions.
In the postgame press conference, head coach Matt Wells called the win “maybe the greatest win in this program’s history.” The win not only ended the 12-game losing streak to the Broncos, but it also marked the first home win over a ranked opponent in nearly a quarter-century.
9. 2013 MW Football Title Game Appearance and Poinsettia Bowl Win
Utah State’s first fall as a member of the Mountain West was a banger. Fresh off a historic 2012 campaign that ended with a WAC championship, the Aggies were fully geared up to take this new conference by the horns. And they kind of did. Fan enthusiasm revolved around Chuckie Keeton. The electric quarterback had dominated in 2012 and, through the first five games of the 2013 season, was on track for some real Heisman hype. He had completed 71% of his passes, thrown for 17 touchdowns (plus two rushing TDs and only one interception) while accounting for 317.2 yards of total offense (272.4 passing and 44.8 rushing).
That hype ended when Keeton’s season was ended with an injury against BYU. But the season rolled on, carried by the efforts of a historically great Aggie defense and the surprising competence of the true freshman backup QB, Darell Garretson.
Utah State’s defense deployed a terrifying front that included Jake Doughty, Zach and Nick Vigil, plus Kyler Fackrell. Add in safety Maurice Alexander, and you had five players who tallied a combined 56 tackles for loss (for context, all of USU’s defense combined for 68 TFL last year). The unit as a whole averaged just 17.1 points allowed per game, good for seventh-best in the nation.
With the defense leading the way, the Aggies soldiered on without their best offensive weapon and made it to the Mountain West title game. There, they met 24th-ranked Fresno State, and in particular a Derek Carr-led offense. Carr threw for 5,083 yards and 50 touchdowns in 2013, spearheading an offense that averaged 43.4 points per game. Carr even received six first-place votes for the Heisman and was eighth in voting overall.
Strong as that offense was, it struggled mightily against Utah State’s defense. Prior to facing the Aggies in the title game, Fresno State had scored at least 35 points in every game and eclipsed 40 in all but two. Utah State held that offense to just 24 points. However, Utah State’s own offense struggled even more, managing just 17 and allowing the Bulldogs to escape with a win despite an underwhelming offensive showing.
Following that championship game loss, Utah State faced the new No. 24 team in the country (after Fresno State jumped up to 21st), Northern Illinois. The Huskies had a Heisman-caliber quarterback of their own, Jordan Lynch, though he featured a much different style than Carr.
Lynch, who finished third in Heisman voting, only threw for 2,892 yards and 24 touchdowns, much further behind in that regard than his fellow Heisman candidate QBs. But Lynch has also run for 1,881 yards and 22 touchdowns, leading up to NIU’s meeting with Utah State. One of the major storylines surrounding Lynch was the possibility of him becoming the first-ever player in NCAA history to eclipse both 2,000 rushing yards and 2,000 passing yards within a single season. All he had to do was run for at least 119 yards in the Poinsettia Bowl against the Aggies, and he would accomplish that feat. Given he’d averaged nearly 145 rushing yards per game thus far, that felt like a guarantee.
However, much like Carr, Lynch found that the Utah State defense didn’t let you do what you wanted. He ran for a season-low 39 yards, and Northern Illinois as a team was held to a season-low 14 points. That was a low enough mark that the Aggie offense, led by 151 scrimmage yards and two touchdowns from running back Joey Demartino, was able to easily get the job done and clinch a 21-14 victory.
8. 2026 Basketball “Redemption Tour” Postseason
In our most recent moment on this list (so far), the Utah State men’s basketball team overcame a near-collapse late in the regular season to eventually sweep the Mountain West regular season and tournament championship. The Aggies lost three times in a four-game span in late February — once to each of Nevada, San Diego State and UNLV. Those losses nearly sank Utah State’s chances at winning the regular season title, but wins over Grand Canyon and New Mexico (plus some helpful losses by the Wolf Pack and Aztecs) helped USU not only win a share of the title but win it outright.
But then came the Mountain West Tournament. In the first round, the Aggies had to face UNLV, the only conference foe that had swept USU, doing so by a combined 37 points in a pair of blowouts. Utah State overcame that hurdle to win 80-60, only to come up against Nevada, who’d won the most recent matchup. The Aggies leapt over that hurdle with a 13-point win. Then, in the championship bout, came San Diego State, another team with a recent blowout win over the regular season champs. But, yet again, Utah State proved up to the task and notched a title-winning 11-point win in Las Vegas.
Former head coach Jerrod Calhoun dubbed the three-game run his team’s “Redemption Tour.”
“UNLV beat us twice, Nevada beat us at Nevada, and obviously got embarrassed a couple of weeks ago by the Aztecs,” Calhoun said. “We were coming in here to be the bully, we were coming in here for a redemption tour, and it certainly was accomplished.”
On top of sweeping the Mountain West regular season and tournament titles, the Calhoun-led Aggies won in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, downing a talented Villanova team. It became the second time in program history that USU had won games in multiple NCAA Tournaments within a three-year span. And even when faced with one of the top teams in the country, Arizona, in the second round, Utah State put up a respectable fight even in defeat.
7. The Entire 2025-26 Academic Year
This is about as all-encompassing as it gets for a single “moment,” but it’s hard to ignore what may be the single most successful academic year in the history of Utah State’s athletics department.
Utah State collected nine conference championship trophies, leading the Mountain West by a wide margin in doing so, with four sports qualifying for their respective NCAA Tournaments (five counting NCAA Regionals with gymnastics). The flagship sports that did the majority of that work were men’s basketball, volleyball, gymnastics, men’s tennis and soccer.
On top of that, Logan Hammer concluded his decorated career by finishing as the national runner-up in pole vault, which also made him the sixth Aggie man or woman in program history to become a five-time All-American. Landon Bott (800 meters) and Walker Deede (javelin) added second-team All-American honors in this spring’s outdoor track & field championships.
In short, one of Cam Walker’s jobs this summer is to expand the trophy case to make room for all the extra hardware the Aggies brought home this year.
6. “This will never be done again:” The Magical Danny Sprinkle Run
In late April 2023, the Utah State basketball program was, as some put it, “in shambles.” Danny Sprinkle had just been hired at Utah State, but he had taken over a team without any players. The previous season’s stars, including a First Team All-Mountain West selection, the Sixth Man of the Year and an Honorable Mention All-MW player, had all either graduated or transferred. And not only were the stars gone, but the other starters, the backups, and even the backups’ backups had left the program. A whole 0.14 percent of USU’s points, rebounds, assists, steals and blocks production from last year stayed with the program, and only three players from the 15-man roster.
That storyline got repeated over and over again throughout the entire 2023-24 offseason, season and postseason. At the start, it was used to justify why the Aggies were picked to finish ninth in the Mountain West preseason poll. Then it was mentioned with surprise in everyone’s voice as Sprinkle led USU to a 16-1 start to the season. And, finally, with outright astonishment as the Aggies lifted the regular season Mountain West title trophy and won a first-round game in the NCAA Tournament, ending a more than two-decade drought of wins in the Big Dance for the Aggies.
“I don’t have too many words. Like this team, I don’t know how to describe them,” Sprinkle said. “This will never be done in Division I basketball again.”
As an additional note, easily the most memorable single moment within this year-long dream was Darius Brown’s iconic title-winning 3-pointer in the closing seconds of a Utah State victory over Boise State.
With the game tied at 84-all, the Aggies inbounded the ball from the sideline with 29 seconds to play. Ian Martinez dribbled out most of that remaining time before passing it to Brown. Brown then entered the ball to the post for Great Osobor, but the ball came sailing back to Brown when Osobor spotted an incoming double-team.
When Brown caught the ball, there were only two seconds on the shot clock. In Brown’s own words, “there (was) nothing to do but shoot it.” So he did. And he made it.
Brown’s 3-pointer sailed almost untouched through the net with just 4.2 seconds left, not quite enough time for New Mexico to answer. The only thing Utah State had to do after that was cut down the nets.
5. “In Rob We Trust:” Volleyball and Club Estes Dominance
This certainly feels like a sore subject for Aggie fans now, given that its architect, former Volleyball Head Coach Rob Neilson, only recently defected to his alma mater, BYU. But in his six-year tenure, Neilson provided quite a run for Aggie Volleyball and built “Club Estes” into the marvel that it is today.
When Neilson arrived in Logan, the USU volleyball program had won only seven games in the previous two seasons combined. The 1978 national championship banner hung over an almost lifeless Estes Center court. But within two years, Neilson turned that court into Club Estes, the place to go to watch high-level college volleyball.
Neilson’s debut season with the Aggies in 2020 was hampered by the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic. Once that was out of the way, he immediately produced results. In 2021, the Aggies won a share of the regular-season Mountain West title. And thus began a five-year run of bringing home championship hardware.
Under Neilson’s guidance, from 2021 to 2025, Utah State won three regular-season championships, two conference tournament trophies, and appeared in the NCAA Tournament three times. In the 2025 season, Neilson put the ultimate capstone on his tenure. Utah State not only swept both the Mountain West regular season and conference tournament titles, but they also went undefeated in conference play and in the conference tournament. Utah State capped what was ultimately a 22-game winning streak with a first-round upset victory in the NCAA Tournament against Tennessee.
4. Manny Martins Builds a Cache Valley Soccer Dynasty
Cache Valley’s most underrated gem is the soccer program built by Manny Martins. Utah State already had a solid history of dominance in women’s soccer, which included back-to-back WAC championships in 2011 and 2012. But by the end of Heather Cairns’ tenure with the Aggies, the dominance from earlier in her career as head coach had given way to mediocrity. In 2021, Martins took over a program that had flipped between being just over or just below a .500 record ever since joining the Mountain West.
Immediate success followed. Martins took the team to a 13-6-3 record in the first year. Two years later, in 2023, Utah State won its first-ever Mountain West title, defeating Colorado State 1-0 in the conference tournament championship game.
It was also during the 2023 season that one of the highlights of Martins’ tenure (so far) occurred. On Sept. 16, 2023, Utah State hosted No. 1 BYU at Chuck & Gloria Bell Field. A program-record 2,013 people were in attendance as the Cougars, who boasted the third-best scoring offense in the nation, with an average of 3.9 goals per game, were defeated 1-0 by the Aggies.
“It’s an honor to be able to measure up to them and to be able to come out with such a positive score,” Martins said after the game. “It’s exciting, and I’m proud, but I’m also humbled by it. We want to win championships, we want to get to the highest level and we want to be able to compete with teams like this on a regular basis, and today we did.”
Utah State followed up that impressive season with its greatest ever. The Aggies posted an overall record of 18-1-5, the most wins in a single season in program history, and won a second consecutive conference tournament championship. That led to Utah State hosting its first-ever NCAA Tournament game, although it ended with a loss to Washington in penalty kicks.
In 2025, the success continued with a third straight Mountain West Tournament championship, with the team nearly breaking through the first round of the NCAA Tournament, but falling short once again in a penalty kick shootout.
Under Martins, Utah State has accumulated an overall record of 63-26-24, with three conference title trophies to its name. And unlike with Rob Neilson, the train is still moving forward with Martins leading the way.
3. Jordan Love and the One-Minute Offense of 2018
Utah State’s 2018 football season might be one of the most significant non-championship seasons in the history of its athletics department. The Aggies came up short of the Mountain West title, not even appearing in the championship game.
But oh, what a ride that season was.
The star of the show was undoubtedly quarterback Jordan Love. In his freshman season in 2017, he usurped Kent Myers for the starting job and closed out the season in a somewhat up-and-down fashion. But by the time his sophomore season got underway, he was ready to be a star.
Just on its face, the offense that season was simply special. Love threw for 3,567 yards, 32 touchdowns and only six interceptions, rewriting the Utah State passing record books. That work contributed heavily to the 47.5 points per game average of the offense, which ranked second nationally and set a program and Mountain West record for single-season points scored.
But one of the wondrous details of this season was how easy Utah State made things look. The Aggies scored 29 touchdowns on drives that lasted under a minute. In other words, 42% of their touchdowns came from one-minute possessions.
With this explosive offense, Utah State often made quick work of teams in the first half and then cruised through the second. Love sat out roughly five quarters throughout the season simply because in so many games, the Aggies were up by 40 in the second half.
This season laid the foundation for Love’s NFL Draft prospects, which led to him being taken 26th overall by the Green Bay Packers in 2020. And his career in the NFL has brought many more reasons for Aggie fans to smile.
2. Football wins the 2021 Conference Championship
Although Utah State appeared in the Mountain West title game twice in its first season in the conference, it took until 2021 for the Aggies to finally break through and win the thing. And it came with a storyline that ended up like a spiritual predecessor to the aforementioned Danny Sprinkle-led 2023-24 basketball season.
The season prior, 2020, had been an abject disaster. Not only did the COVID-19 pandemic make for an ugly situation off the field, shortening the season and keeping fans from being in the stands, but the on-field product was also ugly. Utah State went 1-5, its fourth-worst season by winning percentage, and even had its team mutiny against the university and refuse to play the final game of the year.
Blake Anderson was brought in amidst this background of frustration and chaos. But less than a week into the season, he had already elicited incredible excitement from fans. In the first game of the 2021 campaign, Utah State defeated Washington State, making Anderson the first USU coach to win his Aggie debut since 1973 and his team the first to win a road game against a power conference opponent since 1971.
The Aggies had a couple of stumbles throughout the season, but ended the regular season with a 9-3 record and 6-2 mark in Mountain West play. That was good enough to qualify for a meeting with 19th-ranked San Diego State in the conference championship game.
Most expected the Aztecs to claim the win. They were ranked, had an elite defense, and were hosting the game (albeit in a temporary home field in Carson, CA). There was also the fact that the Aggies had only beaten SDSU twice in the 15 times the two sides had met throughout their respective histories.
But not only did Utah State win, they completely crushed San Diego State, 46-13. Logan Bonner, who broke all of Jordan Love’s passing records in the 2021 season, threw for 318 yards and four touchdowns in the victorious effort.
Utah State concluded the campaign with a match against Oregon State in the short-lived LA Bowl. The Aggies won a defensive contest 24-13 despite losing Bonner in the first quarter to a leg injury.
Bonner’s injury ended up allowing for another iconic Aggie moment. The backup QB, redshirt sophomore Cooper Legas, had not thrown a single pass in his career thus far. He entered the game at the 14:51 mark of the second quarter and made his first collegiate pass attempt…a 62-yard touchdown pass to Deven Thompkins.
1. Sam Merrill’s Shot
There really was only one, at best two, choices for number one on this list. Sam Merrill’s iconic shot, which provided a victorious conclusion to the Aggies’ 2020 Mountain West Conference Tournament Championship run, lives on as one of the favorite Aggie moments of all time, let alone just the Mountain West era.
The entire Craig Smith era could be one of these moments unto itself. But this one possession, occurring in the title game of the 2020 Mountain West Tournament, helped cement Smith’s legacy, but even more so that of Merrill.
Utah State entered that championship bout as a heavy underdog to the San Diego State Aztecs, who were ranked 5th in the AP poll, had lost only one game all season, and featured three future NBA players in their rotation (and a fourth on the fringe of that rotation). The Aggies had lost the previous two matchups 77-68 and 80-68.
Despite the odds, Merrill, alongside fellow star Neemias Queta and the rising star Justin Bean, took on this Goliath. The three games in three days format, along with SDSU’s style of play, turned the game into a slog. USU committed 16 turnovers, and San Diego State shot just 34% from the field.
With under a minute to play, the Aggies and Aztecs had each only scored 56 points and were tied.
And that’s where Merrill took over, much as he had done throughout the conference tournament, in which he averaged 27.7 points per game.
San Diego State missed a 3-pointer with 32 seconds to play, and the Aggies claimed the rebound. After crossing half court, point guard Abel Porter handed the ball off to Merrill, who waved everyone away. He would stare down the man guarding him, KJ Feagin, for nearly 15 seconds and take him on, 1v1, for the final shot.
As time nearly came due, Merrill dribbled the ball back and forth between his legs, then made one shuffle to the left, followed by another shuffle. And, finally, he fired off a 3-point shot that would make him a legend.
Even with a shot contest by Feagin that tap-danced on the line between foul and clean defense, Merrill buried the long triple. San Diego State’s last-ditch heave at the buzzer came up empty, and the Aggies secured arguably their greatest win in program history thanks to what is the most iconic shot in USU basketball history. Sadly, the story had to end there. A potential run in the NCAA Tournament was robbed by the cancellation of said tournament because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Merrill’s final shot in wearing the Aggie Blue and Fighting White wound up as his greatest.
