Utah State Gets No Love in Mountain West Preseason Poll
Media days are upon us in the world of college football.
Players, coaches and the media themselves all are taking turns snapping photos, delivering statements and looking forward to this upcoming season.
Media day is supposed to provide the brightest outlook on your conference as possible, “look at the parity, look at the competitiveness, look at how exciting this is.”
But as we all know, behind the smiles and anticipation, the fresh feeling of a new football season, not all things are created equal.
The reality eventually sets in, typically in the form of media preseason poll.
The preseason poll paints a clearer picture of things as they really are, or at least certainly how they are expected to be.
Despite Vanderbilt sharing the stage with Georgia on media day with smiles all around, the poll reminds us that one team may be viewed as a better football team than the other.
This happened recently in today's Mountain West media day in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Released in the AM, the Mountain West media selections reminded us that no anticipation can squash the narrative of the Boise State Broncos sitting atop the conference.
For the 14th year running, according to the tweet itself, the Broncos were penciled in at #1.
If you go to broncossports.com, Boise State’s official website, they say:
“The preseason poll marks the 17th-straight season that the Broncos have been picked to claim either a conference or division crown, including every year since joining the MW in 2011.” (broncossports.com)
The Broncos were last years champion and since joining the Mountain West in 2011, have won 4 titles and 1 co-title.
They have appeared in the Mountain West championship six of the last seven contests.
Ok, so Boise State is #1, what’s new? No biggie. They've been knocked off before, someone can do it again right?
What is a “biggie”, is that the voters basically gave no one else much of a prayer to come close to dethroning the Broncos.
The first place votes look as such:
Out of 46 first place votes, Boise commanded nearly 83 percent of them.
Last year’s runner up, the UNLV Rebels were awarded 4 votes to pull off the upset, and the 4 time (1 being a co-title) Mountain West champions, the Fresno State Bulldogs, clocked in with 4 votes themselves.
If you want to get a good view on how lopsided the conference feels this year, the Big 12 media preseason poll had 20 first place votes go to Utah, 19 to K-State, 14 to OSU. 5 to Kansas and 3 to Arizona.
Clearly, not everyone is convinced Utah is the easy answer for winning the Big 12.
In the Mountain West, it is apparent Boise State is the team to beat.
Air Force, Colorado State and Wyoming took up the next handful of spots before we find the Utah State Aggies.
Agree or disagree, the Aggies clock in at #7 of 12 possible teams, a spot below the Wyoming Cowboys a spot above the San Diego State Aztecs.
The Aggies, conference champions in 2021, have seen the program plateau in recent years with injury riddled, inconsistent results.
Technically the Aggies have played well enough for that 6 win bowl game threshold in both 2022 and 2023 but ended both seasons at 6-7 by losing both bowl games.
Dog piling on a slew of question marks needing to be addressed, the Aggies season took a nasty hit nearly two months before opening night VS Robert Morris.
Head Coach, Blake Anderson, going into his third year in Cache Valley, had it made known to him that he would be put on leave pending a review that Anderson had been unable to properly report on sexual misconduct cases, violating his employment agreement and policy of the university itself.
As one can tell, the USU shakeup went well beyond Coach Anderson and the program itself is in some uncharted waters with interim head coach, Nate Dreiling, taking on more for the program.
The Aggies joined the Mountain West in 2013, and today marks the 6th time in which USU was predicted to finish in the bottom half of the conference according to Jason Walker:
The good news for Aggie nation is that Utah State can typically be counted on to outperform their expectations.
Walker also points out that it may be best to be underrated as the Aggies struggle to live up to the standards set when selected in a top 3 spot.
For as uncertain as this upcoming season is, the Aggies found some hope in seeing two of their players make the Preseason All-Mountain West teams.
Ike Larsen, Safety, took the honors on the defensive side of the football where as Jalen Royals, Wide Receiver, nabbed the selection offensively.
Through all the turbulence, the 7th spot seems fair at first glance, but fans up north are really hoping for a patented case of the Aggies being better than expected once again.