An older, wiser, more developed McCae Hillstead is excited to lead Utah State | Sports
On an otherwise unremarkable day as spring camp was winding down, Utah State football head coach Bronco Mendenhall passed one of his players, a wide receiver. This athlete was consulting a sheet of paper. Mendenhall’s curiosity got the best of him, so he asked what it was. “It’s McCae’s plan,” came the reply. The upcoming summer break meant the coaching staff had to go hands-off with workouts and training, as required by NCAA rules. So the recently named starting quarterback, McCae Hillstead, took it upon himself to craft a plan for the offense to hone their skills during the quietest months of the football calendar. That brief encounter lasted mere seconds, yet it reinforced Mendenhall’s belief that naming Hillstead the starting QB was the right call. One of his explicitly stated reasons for publicly naming a starter, something coaches will often shy away from to preserve any semblance of an advantage over their early-season opponents, was so the offense would have a well-defined leader. And here was Hillstead already living up to that role in a big way. Months later, as fall camp gets going, Mendenhall is now thoroughly convinced of his quarterback’s skill in planning. “McCae does a really nice job of marshaling resources,” Mendenhall
