Utah State’s fall season continues to roll on with football, volleyball and women’s soccer all in action. The NFL is also starting up, with former Utah State football players featured on three different teams across the league. Here are the latest headlines featuring Utah State athletics from the past few days. USU Soccer ranked in the Coaches Poll for first time this season Manny Martins has his soccer team in top form right now. The Aggies secured the most dominant win over a ranked opponent last Thursday, defeating then-No. 13 BYU 4-0 on Bell Field, then capped the weekend with a 3-0 shutout of South Dakota State. Utah State is now 6-2-1 this season, with its only two losses being to ranked opponents (No. 15 Kansas and No. 24 Colorado). Utah State’s recent play and solid season overall are being rewarded in the polls and the first RPI rankings of the season. The latest poll from United Soccer Coaches placed the Aggies 18th in the nation. This is now the second time in three seasons Utah State has been ranked in the top 25 after having never been ranked in program history prior to 2024. Two years ago, in 2024, the

The second week of Utah State football ended the same as the first: with a loss. The Aggies fell 16-14 against a formerly ranked Washington Huskies team on Saturday. However, the feeling after the second loss is certainly different than the first. Utah State’s Week 1 loss to Idaho State brought the fanbase to the point of panicking over a falling sky. The Week 2 loss at Washington provided an oddly encouraging feeling (to at least some aspects of the team). The difference is pretty easy to figure out. Losing to an FCS team is something that shouldn’t happen for any respectable FBS program. It’s a humiliation usually reserved for the worst programs at the top division, and one Utah State had avoided fairly well in the first two decades of the 21st century. In short, losing to Idaho State defied expectations as the Aggies severely underperformed. Losing to Washington by two points when the Aggies were nearly 30-point underdogs subverted expectations in the other direction. These two weeks put Utah State in a puzzling position, vastly different from the spot most people assumed the Aggies would be in at this stage of the season. The consensus prediction for the

Utah State came up short in many ways in a Saturday gridiron matinee against 19th-ranked Washington. The Aggies were outgained 356 to 271 by the Huskies. They lost the turnover battle 3-0. And for most of the afternoon, the only play that made it inside the Washington 40-yard line was a one-off explosive play. Despite all that, in the final seconds of the contest, Utah State was lining up for a potential game-winning play. It would all come to naught. Grady Brosterhous — who made the start at quarterback on Saturday in place of an injured McCae Hillstead — had his Hail Mary heave into the end zone intercepted (and nearly returned for an entirely unnecessary pick-six), and the Huskies escaped with a 16-14 victory over the Aggies. But given the fact that Utah State entered the game as four-touchdown underdogs, being a stone’s throw away from a walk-off touchdown showed how hard the team fought. “I love my football team, love their resiliency, love their heart, love their commitment, their dedication, representing their team, their school, and the principles of our program,” USU head coach Bronco Mendenhall said. “They came here with every intent to win the game, and