Utah State’s defense put up one of its marquee performances of the season, holding the nation’s top offense to just 250 yards and 13 points. However, the Aggies fell by a final score of 20-17 at Texas State on Saturday.
There isn’t a typo in that lead. The Aggies’ defensive unit, strictly speaking, only gave up three scoring drives — two field goals and one touchdown. The missing points between the Bobcats’ offense and the final score came from a kick return touchdown in the first quarter. And that wasn’t the only special teams snafu from Utah State, going alongside a partially blocked punt and, most crucially, a missed field goal as time expired that would have sent the game into overtime.
“There is the difference. Three to five plays determine outcome,” Utah State head coach Bronco Mendenhall said. “I didn’t expect it for sure. Our kickoff coverage has been exceptional, and was after that kick. Never imagined we’d get a punt blocked or partially blocked, as that’s been a strong unit, one of the strongest on our team. And yeah, having an opportunity to kick the field goal to put us in overtime — team battled to do that — but ultimately, we didn’t make that play.”
The Aggies opened the game with three decent drives in four tries. They netted 140 yards on those possessions, but couldn’t find the end zone. The silver lining was kicker Kian Afrookhteh went 3-for-3 on field goal attempts, sending the ball through the uprights from 43, 48 and 27 yards out.
For the lead! @kianafrookhteh gives us the lead with a 27-yard field goal! pic.twitter.com/8T9GyIeYqh
— USU Football (@USUFootball) October 25, 2026
As the offense went about that adequate start, the defense dominated. Texas State, which entered the day leading the nation in averaging 562.3 yards per game, went three-and-out thrice on its first four possessions on offense. Utah State yielded eight net yards in four defensive possessions.
“Our main goal the whole week that we’ve been preaching throughout practice is just starting fast,” USU safety David Kabongo said. “They have a really good offense. Their ability to put up a lot of points early on. So we wanted to come in, we want to have that mentality to come in and just get on the get on their tail early.”
The Aggie defense ultimately pitched a first-half shutout against the Texas State offense, with the team’s only points coming on the aforementioned return touchdown. But the Bobcats were able to flash a bit of their previously-displayed potential late in the first half. After four drives of less than a dozen net yards, Texas State went on a 54-yard drive in a two-minute drill right before halftime. Utah State’s defense barely managed to get away unscathed after a sack by Tyree Morris put the kicking unit on the edge of field goal range. Texas State kicker Jacobs Bonilla ultimately missed wide left from 49 yards which preserved USU’s 9-7 lead going into halftime.
That drive didn’t yield points, but primed the pump for Texas State which went on its first scoring drive of the game to start the third quarter. The Bobcats drove 78 yards to take a 14-9 lead early in the third quarter. It would be the first of three scoring drives in four offensive possessions for Texas State in the second half.
The Bobcats went from punting on each of their first four drives to only punting once in their last five drives of the game. That included a spike in net yards per drive, going from just two yards on average up to 50.4. But the defense did enough to keep the team in the game, and Mendenhall felt the unit never lost its grasp on the gameplan or allowed Texas State’s offense to catch up, so to speak, with its usual output.
“I don’t think they caught up,” Mendenhall said. “There was a couple third downs they converted. But I’m not gonna find any fault with how the defensive kids played.”
With just over 13 minutes to go, Bonilla hit a field goal from 51 yards out to give Texas State a 17-9 lead. At that stage, the Aggies had gone nearly two quarters without points and the offense had only been slowing down, with back-to-back three-and-outs leading up to Texas State’s lead-extending field goal.
But Utah State didn’t let what had been dictate what it was capable of doing. Quarterback Grady Brosterhous led the Aggie offense on a 75-yard touchdown drive, completing all six of his pass attempts for 46 yards (plus a five-yard rush on 3rd & 3). Though, to cap off the drive, Utah State leaned on its first outside-the-box use of Anthony Garcia all year. The QB-turned-WR took a jet sweep and pulled up to throw, finding freshman wide receiver Kaina Watson for a six-yard touchdown.
There’s that man AG!@AnthonygarciaQB ✈️ @4_kaina
2-point conversion is GOOD and we are all tied up! pic.twitter.com/qHClerk4Ah
— USU Football (@USUFootball) October 25, 2026
Brosterhous put the final stamp on the clutch drive by converting the necessary game-tying two-point play, finding running back Javen Jacobs in the flat on a short pass.
With the ballgame tied 17-all, the Aggies needed just one more stop to give their offense a shot at a game-winning drive.
Instead, Texas State made the plays necessary in the end, with a little bit of controversial help (at least from the USU perspective) from the referees.
Texas State had two scoring drives that included pass interference calls on third downs that Mendenhall was visibly upset about, voicing his disagreement with officials on the sideline. The latter of those came on the Bobcats’ final drive of the game, on a critical 3rd & 13 play. Texas State quarterback Brad Jackson air-mailed his intended target, Chris Dawn Jr., but Aggie corner D’Angelo Mayes was flagged for what officials deemed excessive contact right as Dawn tried to make his break down the field. That play put Texas State on the USU 20-yard line, and three plays later they lined up from the 19 for what eventually became the game-winning 37-yard field goal.
When asked if he was frustrated about those calls, Mendenhall said that description was “an understatement.”
“I would be okay if I thought they were pass interference. I didn’t think either one was,” Mendenhall said.
Still, even as Bonilla’s second field goal of the game gave Texas State its three-point lead, the clock still had one minute and 56 seconds on it. And while the Aggies had just one timeout (one spent to give its defense a breather earlier in the half and another to avoid a delay of game penalty), there are far more difficult two-minute situations an offense could be in.
Case in point, Utah State managed its way into Texas State territory, with Garcia snagging multiple catches for chunk gains. None were bigger than an 18-yard catch-and-run on 4th & 6, which he nearly broke for even more yards.
Utah State keeping their hopes alive, they convert on 4th down late in Q4 👀
📺 CBSSN pic.twitter.com/WwoGIuOHvw
— Pac-12 Conference (@pac12) October 25, 2026
However, crucial mistakes cost Utah State at the end. Brosterhous delivered a quick pass to Kache Kaio too low, and the tight end had to scoop the ball off the turf and couldn’t get out of bounds to stop the clock. That forced Mendenhall to burn his final timeout with 17 seconds left. And it was a timeout he certainly would have liked to have two plays later when Utah State was called for a delay of game penalty. It turned a the ensuing third down from needing eight yards to 13.
“We substituted, and then they substituted, and dragged it out,” Mendenhall said of that sequence. “Obviously, within the rules, or the officials would have thrown a penalty. But they maximized the substitution match.”
Perhaps more crucially, the penalty turned the upcoming field goal from around 43 yards, back to 48, right at the comfortable range of Afrookhteh. The junior kicker made that 48-yard kick on an attempt blown dead as Texas State head coach G.J. Kinne iced Afrookhteh. His second attempt missed wide left.
Utah State drops to 2-5 on the season, and 1-2 in Pac-12 games. The team certainly feels they are close to a breakthrough, as Kabongo detailed after the game.
“I feel like we’re right there. We’re just scratching the surface. We’re right there,” Kabongo said. “It’s just a couple pieces. We all got to click at the same time. We can’t have one facet or one unit just slip up. We need all three units whether it’s defense, offense, and special teams. We need them all clicking at the same time so we can be a complete team.”
But time may have run too long for the team to still only be on the edge of figuring out how to finish games. Only five games remain and the Aggies can ill afford more slip-ups in winnable contests if any of their preseason goals are going to be achieved come late November.
