Old Wagon Wheel back in Logan
USU defensive end Levi Koskan has lived in Cache Valley since he was a kid. At some point in his youth, when he was “10 or 12”, he said he vaguely remembered hearing about something called the Old Wagon Wheel while attending a Utah State football game.
But the Wheel, which serves as the trophy in the USU-BYU football rivalry, might as well have been the Lost Ark of the Covenant for Koskan, who was barely four years old the last time the trophy resided in Logan. Still, the elusive trophy captured Koskan’s imagination, and 17 years after the Wheel left for Provo and never returned, the junior defender finally got a chance to get up close and personal with it.
“Every year since I’ve been up here I’ve kept it in the back of my mind, wondering what it looks like,” Koskan said. “I wanted to get that, and it’s exciting to think about it and now that it’s shown up and we got it.”
Koskan was among the Utah State football players on hand Tuesday when the trophy was officially presented to coach Gary Andersen and his team. For the second-year Utah State head coach, the trophy is not only a reward for his team’s 31-16 upset over Brigham Young – the program’s first win over BYU since 1993 – but a fitting symbol for the progress that USU’s senior players have made during his tenure.
“It’s great to get the Wagon Wheel back home, that’s for sure,” Andersen said. “The kids were obviously very excited about it.”
“It’s an important piece,” Andersen said. “Seventeen years is a long time, and to bring it back you just think about the number of players who’ve gone through this program and not had the opportunity to have that in their possession. So it’s a special time for our kids, and especially the seniors.”
Koskan said the trophy serves as a “tangible” reminder for the game and the team’s apparent turnaround this season.
“A win is great and you can boast about it, but to have that trophy, that tangible thing? It is so great, and you can look at it everyday and have those feelings that you had during the game and what you’ve got to continue to do to get more wins,” Koskan said.
Following the trophy presentation, both Andersen and Koskan spoke about the early season success at Romney Stadium, praising the efforts of Utah State’s students and fans in helping the team defeat the Cougars before a nation television audience. Particularly important, Andersen said, were the efforts of Utah State’s student spirit club, the HURD.
“They were absolutely unbelievable with the amount of support that they give us,” Andersen said. “The organization they have, the pride they have in their school, I cannot say enough about what that means to the kids and the environment of the stadium. The HURD is unbelievable and the students are unbelievable.”
Koskan said that the environment created by the fans was “the best ever” he has played in, and said that the team fed off the energy and enthusiasm created by their peers as the game went on.
“(The students’) energy would transfer over to us and it was amazing,” Koskan said. “You can’t put a price tag on that twelfth-man atmosphere.”
The junior said the fan support has made him want to play less for himself and more for the students and the community.
While the Aggies will have to guard against a letdown in the coming weeks, the team and the community won’t soon be forgetting Friday night’s historic win. Saying that the win was for “all Aggies past and present,” Andersen thanked the Cache Valley community and the university’s students on Tuesday.
“Myself and the team – and everyone associated with this football program – would just like to say that from the bottom of our hearts ‘thank you.’ The fan support all season has been tremendous, and in that last game it was absolutely unbelievable.”
– adamnettina@aggiemail.usu.edu