Utah State Football

Utah State defeated Oregon State 24-13 in the Jimmy Kimmel LA Bowl Presented by Stifel on Saturday night. The Aggies, who also won their first Mountain West conference title this season, finished with an 11-3 record.

Calvin Tyler Jr., who spent the first three years of his collegiate career at Oregon State, ran the ball 26 times for 120 yards and a score. It was a revenge performance for him, as he had just 30 total carries in his three seasons as a Beaver.

Calvin Tyler Jr. gives @USUFootball the lead over his former team!

After four years in Corvallis, Tyler came to Logan to lead USU in rushing during a MWC title run

USU 14 | 10 OSU
Q2 | 3:36 | @LABowlGame pic.twitter.com/2J6orkY5qc

— Porter Larsen (@Larsen_ESPN) December 19, 2021

After starting quarterback Logan Bonner exited the game with an apparent knee injury, sophomore signal-caller Cooper Legas stepped in and powered Utah State to victory. Legas, the team's third-string quarterback who had never thrown a pass college prior to Saturday, went 11-of-20 for 171 yards, two touchdowns and an interception.

With the Aggies trailing 7-0, Legas made an immediate impact with a 62-yard touchdown to Deven Thompkins on his first-career pass attempt.

.@USUFootball's Cooper Legas' first career pass attempt was a 62-yard TD.

What a moment 🔥 pic.twitter.com/SepF1JOxjL

— ESPN College Football (@ESPNCFB) December 19, 2021

On the next possession, Legas helped engineer an 11-play, 85-yard drive that was capped by a 15-yard rushing touchdown by Tyler to give Utah State the lead for good at 14-10.

Legas came up big again near the end of the third quarter with a five-yard touchdown pass to Brandon Bowling.

When your last name is 𝗕𝗢𝗪𝗟ing, you gotta score in the bowl game.@bowling_brandon puts @USUFootball up 24-10 in the @LABowlGame on ABC‼️#AtThePeak | #AggiesAllTheWay | #JimmyKimmelLABowl pic.twitter.com/9F9vk8GEEZ

— Mountain West (@MountainWest) December 19, 2021

With a backup QB who hadn't thrown a college pass before tonight, Utah State is now up 14 on Oregon State late third quarter. Beavers having a performance only the vomiting camel bowl mascot could love.

— Pat Forde (@ByPatForde) December 19, 2021

The Aggies looked to be on the verge of tacking on another score late in the fourth quarter, but Tyler fumbled near the goal line, and the Beavers recovered the ball in the end zone. It didn't make much of a difference, however, as Hunter Reynolds came up with an interception to seal the win.

Former Michigan walk-on Hunter Reynolds just secured a game-sealing interception for Utah State over Oregon State in the LA Bowl. Reynolds entered the game with 81 tackles and 4 TFL for the Aggies.

— Zach Shaw (@_ZachShaw) December 19, 2021

Thompkins finished with six receptions for 115 yards and a touchdown, while Bowling had four catches for 51 yards and a score. It was Utah State's first win in a bowl game since 2018.

Oregon State finishes the season 7-6. Chance Nolan completed 21-of-30 passes for 263 yards and an interception. Jesiah Irish had 26 rushing yards and scored the team's lone touchdown.

Blake Anderson, the head football coach at Utah State, has apologized after making demeaning comments about sexual assault victims to his players during camp earlier this year. 

“In the course of that conversation, I used a phrase regarding victims of wrongdoing to magnify that message to our team, but after reading my comments in the transcript that was released, I realize my choice of words was hurtful,” Anderson said in a statement, per the Associated Press. “I regret the words I used, and I apologize to anyone who has bravely come forward with allegations of wrongdoing.”

Anderson could be heard saying it “has never been more glamorized to be the victim” of sexual assault in a recording obtained by Courtney Tanner and Jessica Miller of The Salt Lake Tribune before Utah State's game against Oregon State on Saturday in the Jimmy Kimmel LA Bowl. 

The recording was mentioned in a lawsuit filed earlier this week by a female student who alleges Utah State "mishandled her sexual assault report involving a football player," per the AP.

In a separate recording obtained by theTribune, Utah State University police chief Earl Morris could be heard warning football players about having sex "with women who are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints because they might later feel regret and report it as nonconsensual."

Players "laughed and hollered in response to Morris’ comments," per Tanner and Miller. 

Anderson is in his first season as head coach of the Aggies, who enter Saturday's game against Oregon State with a 10-3 record. He previously coached Arkansas State from 2014-20. 

Utah State football team players have opted out of their regular-season finale Saturday against Colorado State, citing alleged comments from university president Noelle Cockett regarding interim head coach Frank Maile's religious and cultural background.

The team issued a statement to Brett McMurphy of Stadium that began as follows:

"The Utah State football players have decided to opt out of our game against Colorado State due to ongoing inequality and prejudicial issues between the players, coaches, and the USU administration.

"On Tuesday, December 8th, the Utah State University Football Leadership Council held a zoom meeting with Noelle Cockett, President of USU, and John Hartwell, the Athletic Director. The purpose of the meeting was to have a say in the search for our new head coach. During the meeting, we voiced our support for Interim Head Coach Frank Maile.

"In response to our comments, their primary concern was his religious and cultural background. Players, stating their diverse faiths and backgrounds, then jumped to Coach Frank Maile’s defense in treating everyone with love, equality, and fairness."

USU interim head coach Frank Maile took over for Gary Anderson, who was fired after an 0-3 start. Maile has won one of his three games.

The 38-year-old Maile, who is Polynesian, is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He was a defensive lineman at Utah State from 2004-2007 and worked as the team's co-defensive coordinator and defensive line coach in 2020 before his promotion.

Maile will not be the team's new head coach, as Utah State has reportedly reached an agreement with Arkansas State's Blake Anderson, per Ralph D. Russo of the Associated Press.

The team's statement to McMurphy also included allegations of "repeated discrimination" within the USU program:

"It is not the first time issues of repeated discrimination have happened. In December 2019, our head equipment manager used a racial slur against one of our African-American teammates. After disregarding the incident, pressure resurfaced to investigate in the summer of 2020. After the investigation, the administration concluded he would continue to be employed."

Per Jason Walker of the Utah Statesman, Maizee Thompson, whose partner is ex-Utah State defensive lineman Devon Anderson, levied the following allegation against Michael Bair, the athletic director for equipment operations, in July:

https://twitter.com/MaizeeThompson/status/1279967637506625539

The statement closed with support for the new head coach and a desire for a better and more inclusive community at USU and Logan, Utah, where the school is located:

"We want our message to be clear that this has nothing to do with the hiring of Coach Blake Anderson, the recently-named head coach of the program. We are sure he is an excellent coach; we look forward to meeting him and his staff. We are highlighting the ongoing problems of inequality and want to create a better future for the community of Logan and Utah State University."

McMurphy also outlined the team's thought process and decision-making leading to its call to sit out Saturday's scheduled game:

"The team’s leadership council raised issues about Cockett’s comments regarding Maile, who is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The players were so 'dumbfounded' by Cockett’s comments that a player conducted an anonymous players-only survey asking the players if they were on the zoom call and whether they were concerned about anything they heard in the meeting."

McMurphy reported that "about three-fourths of the team" that issued a response by Thursday expressed concerns regarding the alleged bias against Maile. The players notably responded on an individual basis.

USU players "unanimously voted" to sit the season's closing game following a players-only meeting. The coaching staff was made aware afterward.

Utah State football head coach Gary Andersen told reporters on a conference call last week that opting out of the 2020 season because of the COVID-19 pandemic is not an option for Aggies players.

"At least in our program, we don't have an opt-out. And it's not an option," Andersen said, per Julie Jag of the Salt Lake Tribune.

"If you opt out, you're not with us."

Per Jag, representatives from Utah State's athletics department told her that "Andersen did not feel comfortable responding to a request to clarify his comments." 

No Aggies players have opted out, but NCAA rules stipulate that they can do so, per Jag. The same goes for all NCAA athletes, who can sit out the entire season without losing their eligibility. They would also keep their scholarships, including textbooks, room and board.

On Friday, Andersen walked those previous comments back during an interview with 1280 The Zone in Salt Lake City (h/t Ben Kercheval of CBS Sports):

"I used the word 'policy'—we don't have a policy. That was the wrong word. We have an opt-out form. We have discussed this with the team many, many times. The word 'policy' in my mind...I was basically saying we have no one in that situation in our football team right now that has opted out. So our policy...doesn't exist right now, we're not using it. I should have, obviously, clarified that much cleaner and said that we have nobody who has opted out, or is opting out, in our football program."

He also added, per Kercheval: "Our kids, if they did decide to opt out, we are in support of that." 

Utah State, a member of the Mountain West Conference, will play an eight-game intraleague schedule starting Saturday, Oct. 24, at Boise State. The Mountain West Championship Game is scheduled for Saturday, Dec. 19.

The MWC initially postponed all fall sports indefinitely amid the COVID-19 pandemic on Aug. 10. Other conferences, like the Big Ten and Pac-12, opted to do the same.

However, as other leagues reversed course, so did the Mountain West Conference, which announced a plan for a shortened season in late September.

Editor's note: This article was first published on October 4, 2019.

       

Eighty miles north of the nearest major American city, in a college town at the foot of the Bear River Mountains, the most intriguing quarterback prospect in this year's draft class leans back in his chair and props his feet up on a table. A bag of candy hearts with the word "Heisman" printed on each sits nearby, part of a low-key media campaign from the school's sports information office.

Jordan Love pays it little attention.

He is nothing if not a chill guy, but this is likely to be one of the last quiet weeks he'll experience for quite some time. An early-season bye awaits Love and his Utah State teammates on this particular Saturday, and the hallways of the football offices are largely quiet, save for the pair of NFL scouts in team-logo windbreakers ambling toward the front doors.

In a way, Love admits all of this scrutiny is still a little strange, especially here in Logan, a town of about 50,000 residents that seems to enjoy its isolation from the outside world. Four years here, preceded by a childhood in Bakersfield, California, have gotten him accustomed to living in a bubble. He can't imagine what life is like for Tua Tagovailoa at Alabama or Trevor Lawrence at Clemson or Justin Herbert at Oregon, all of whom have been dealing with NFL expectations since they were freshmen. If Love had landed at a major program and began his career under that kind of microscope, he imagines he'd be miserable by now.

"Not too much going on in Logan," Love says. "It's a little hideout."

He landed here only partially by choice: His only FBS scholarship offer came from Utah State. But that twist of fate allowed Love time to learn and grow at his own pace over the past four years, both physically and emotionally. And he desperately needed that time to find himself, particularly after the sudden death of his father threatened to devastate his psyche.

That time out of the spotlight is now nearing its end. These days, the NFL finds you wherever you are, and after a stellar redshirt sophomore season, scouts found Jordan Love in a big way. And what they've seen is a player who appears to possess a tantalizing combination of some of the college game's most celebrated talents in recent years.

At 6'4" and 225 pounds, he is long, lean and athletic, with enough power to break tackles and enough elusiveness and arm strength to make creative and accurate throws on the run. With a hint of Patrick Mahomes' improvisational ability, he'll sidearm a pass to a running back while under pressure, or make a seemingly ill-advised throw across his body that lands softly in his receiver's hands 40 yards downfield. He also has a trace of Daniel Jones' versatility and carries himself with a touch of Marcus Mariota's laid-back nature. His emergence out of the oft-overlooked Mountain West Conference echoes the rise of Josh Allen at Wyoming, and Love's childhood reverence for Michael Vick is apparent whenever he scrambles out of trouble and hurls a deep pass to a streaking receiver.

With every game Love plays, pro scouts are falling harder and harder for him, because he's made playing the most difficult position in football appear comparatively easy.

"He's a really natural thrower—it almost looks effortless for him," one college scout says. "He can make every kind of throw. He doesn't seem to strain to do anything."

On Saturday, Love will play the most consequential football game of his career when Utah State faces No. 5 LSU. If he performs well, he could not only establish Utah State as the team to beat in a loaded Mountain West, but he also might further a long-shot Heisman campaign and cement his status as one of the three best draft-eligible quarterbacks of the 2020 class. A number of NFL and talent evaluators, including Bleacher Report's Matt Miller, believe Love could wind up as the second quarterback chosen next April, perhaps even a top-10 pick behind only Tagovailoa.

"Tua's almost a little bit more like a robot," Miller says. "With Justin Herbert [at Oregon], there are some concerns about the mental aspects. I don't think that's an issue with Jordan Love."

---

Love is a near-certainty to become the first Utah State quarterback drafted since 1989. He could still choose to return for his senior season next fall, but if he keeps putting up the numbers he has thus far, he might soon become the most high-profile Aggie in the NFL since Hall of Fame defensive tackle Merlin Olsen.

Nearly every day now, NFL scouts show up at the school's practice facility and pepper Aggies veteran offensive coordinator Mike Sanford with questions. Sanford worked with Andrew Luck at Stanford and helped to bring Ian Book to Notre Dame after originally recruiting him while at Boise State. And he doesn't hesitate to say now that Love has everything you need to play in the NFL, including a league-friendly attitude.

"He's such a humble kid, man," Sanford says. "Seeing a press clipping or being on some kind of top-10 list doesn't do anything for him. He doesn't get too excitable about things that aren't real."

To Love, all of this attention is still a bit surreal, in large part because his rise has been so meteoric. As a high school freshman, he was a scrawny wide receiver who got beat out for the starting job on the junior varsity team at Liberty High in Bakersfield. By the time Love was playing quarterback as a senior, he put up strong numbers but was rated a 2-star recruit by Rivals.com. He was courted mostly by FCS schools like Eastern Washington.

Six years later, he's on the verge of living out his father's dream of having his son play in the NFL.

As much as it frustrates Love that his father Orbin isn't here to witness his gradual rise, he keeps what he learned from his dad with him—not to get caught up in his own hype.

"It is kind of sinking in, yet at the same time, you can't really let it sink in," Love says. "But growing up and wanting to be in the NFL your whole life, the time is here where it's like, 'It can happen.'"

---

Love's inherent humility is a trait both of his parents shared. Orbin Love spent decades as a Bakersfield police officer, and his mother, Anna—who declined to be interviewed for this story, telling her son she "isn't good at that stuff"—is a California Highway Patrol officer based in Bakersfield who travels to every one of her son's games, no matter the distance.

Orbin, a junior college running back and quarterback, nudged his son toward football, and particularly toward quarterback, a position that would allow Jordan to initiate the action on offense. Still, in his preteen years, after dabbling in pretty much every sport you can imagine (including gymnastics, which he hated), Jordan progressed more quickly as a basketball player.

But in July 2013—the summer before Jordan's sophomore year of high school—Orbin, after a prolonged struggle with his mental health, killed himself while Jordan was away at a youth basketball game.

After his father's death, Jordan retreated into a shell and considered quitting sports altogether. But he soon found that the football field became both a sanctuary and a way of honoring his father's memory.

As a senior, he threw for more than 2,000 yards. Still, he viewed himself largely as an outsider in the sport. He never much enjoyed attending quarterback camps, where the attention was often given to more high-profile prospects.

"I was a little bit smaller, skinny," Love says. "My arm strength wasn't there yet. I just didn't know who I was yet, really."

Even after his family hired well-known Southern California quarterback guru Steve Clarkson to coach him, he was mostly viewed as too raw—at 6'3" and 180 pounds—to make it at the FBS level. Sanford, his current offensive coordinator, considered offering Love a scholarship while he was an assistant at Boise State, but he instead went after Ian Book.

"Jordan was kind of a project with, obviously, what's proven to be insane amounts of upside," Sanford says. "I will say this: For every 10 tall, lanky, skinny, not strong, not developed quarterbacks with long motions, one of them turns into a Jordan Love."

Utah State head coach Matt Wells had the time to see the process through.

Love redshirted as a true freshman in 2016 while the Aggies struggled through a 3-9 season, then took over the starting job in the second half of the 2017 season. In 2018, Love threw for more than 3,500 yards, 32 touchdowns and only six interceptions, guiding Utah State to an 11-2 record.

That success propelled Wells to the Texas Tech job, but when new head coach Gary Andersen and Sanford arrived this past offseason, they decided to keep the basic structure of the offense Love had thrived in last year. That meant Love could focus on the little things—processing information faster, reading defenses and connecting with a corps of competent receivers.

In a way, Sanford says, Love is almost a throwback in an NFL now obsessed with shorter quarterbacks who can release the ball more quickly. But Sanford adds that Love's release is incredibly quick for someone of his size. And his accuracy, his teammates say, is remarkable.

"Pretty sure it was my freshman year, and my first fall camp scrimmage," Utah State receiver Savon Scarver says. "He made this back-shoulder throw down the sideline. The defender was literally on the receiver's body, and the receiver's running full speed, and he put it right in the perfect spot. That's when I was, like, 'Man, this dude is something special.' He could always do that stuff. It's just that now, he's way more polished."

In an effort to take on a leadership role this season, Love says he's consulted with Utah State's mental performance coach, Richard "Doc" Gordin, who's suggested Love "find everybody's why" when trying to motivate his teammates. But ask Love himself what his why is, and he doesn't hesitate.

It hasn't been an easy journey, but he knows who he is now, and he knows exactly why he's doing this.

"For my family, and definitely my dad," he says. "The pride he would have had, I can feel it."

   

Michael Weinreb (@MichaelWeinreb) is the author of four books, including Season of Saturdays: A History of College Football in 14 Games.