Aggies’ glut of preseason talent shows growth of football program
Utah State football finds itself in a unique position heading into the 2019 season. As a mid-major program and fringe AP Top 25 team at best in recent years, top talent usually isn’t in high supply. But this season the Aggies are top heavy, with several potentially elite players that are poised to hopefully give USU its first-ever Mountain West football title.
Several top USU athletes are already beginning to accumulate preseason honors and national attention. And though just about all of these players are getting that attention after a rise to prominence in 2018 in the Aggies’ record-setting campaign, the retention of honors and hype into the ensuing preseason sets this summer apart from most others in the program’s history.
“It’s great for the program to have recognition preseason. I don’t think there’s any question about that,” USU head coach Gary Andersen told The Utah Statesman.
Quarterback Jordan Love and linebacker David Woodward headline this group of noteworthy players. The two were leaders on and off the field in 2018 and will look to reprise their roles as elite playmakers for the Aggies. Just looking at their credentials heading into the season gives a sense of the lofty expectations for these two young men.
Woodward is arguably the most decoration of the two. Pro Football Focus graded him as not just the top defensive player in the Mountain West last year, but the best player on either side of the ball. PFF also tabbed the then-sophomore as the highest graded linebacker in FBS (min. 200 snaps). He also was named to the 2019 Lott Impact Trophy watch list.
Love enters the season having set several program records for passing production in 2018 (passing yards and touchdowns being among new marks set) and is effectively the consensus top quarterback in the Mountain West. Many media outlets, including 247 Sports, Bleacher Report and CBS Sports, consider Love to be a top-10 QB nationwide.
It’s not just Woodward and Love leading the stampede toward the 2019 season. Plenty of Aggies are getting national recognition. Athlon Sports released its preseason All-Mountain West teams on Monday, nominating seven Aggies as First Team athletes (the most of any MW team) — RB Gerold Bright, DE Tipa Galeai, CB D.J. Williams, KR/WR Savon Scarver and WR/PR Jordan Nathan along with Love and Woodward. Scarver returns as an Associated Press First Team All-American kick returner from 2018. Five other slots on Athlon’s four-deep list were reserved for Aggies.
Andersen said these honors are a “great opportunity” for the players, even if they come long before the first snap of 2019.
“The natural reaction to that is ‘yea, whatever we’ve still got to go play, it doesn’t mean anything,'” he said. “But it does mean something to these young men and it should because they are getting recognized by their peers.”
It’s not as though USU has entirely lacked high quality or even NFL talent in the past. Go down the list of legends like Bobby Wagner, Robert Turbin, Kyler Fackrell and so on. But these players were all too often isolated in their greatness. This year appears to be a deviation from that norm, or perhaps a trend away from it as Utah State attempts to climb the ladder of NCAA prestige.
Preseason hype accolades haven’t just been warm fuzzies for their recipients and the athletics department in general. Andersen said these playmakers factored into the coaching staffs discussions as they analyzed the team and molded its identity through spring ball and even during winter conditioning.
“It’s a big topic that we talk about,” Andersen said. “And we discuss those players that have those expectations of being great players.”
Great play is obviously the most notable and widely anticipated result of premature accolades, but there is another key element Utah State’s best players will have to bring: leadership. Or, just as important, experience.
“There is a major gap between experience and non-experience on our football team as far as game snaps,” Andersen said. “You take the offensive line, yep, check that off, a lot of inexperience, but we love them. The old guys need to make sure they build them, bring them along. Wide receivers, same situation.”
Ron’Quavion Tarver (1), the leading receiver for USU in 2018. The Aggies lost their top 5 receiving targets and their leading rusher. Photo by Tim Carpenter
Utah State lost 65 percent of its offensive production in terms of yards from scrimmage. That will leave Bright, Scarver and Nathan, as the top returning skill players surrounding Love, with the burden of carrying the offensive load while newer players adjust to the rigors of performing at the college level. Woodward and Galeai must bear a similar task on a defense that lost six of its top nine leaders in tackles.
Time will tell if these players live up to the hype. The fall months will also show which, if any, players not getting noticed will surprise the world in 2019, much as the entire Utah State team did in 2018.