How 13 football “super seniors” established their legacy at USU
Following Utah State Football’s final practice of the season in Logan on Monday evening, the senior class got the royal treatment.
Blake Anderson declared that each senior who was playing in their final game in the LA Bowl on Saturday be carried off the practice field inside the Stan Laub Indoor Training Center.
One player, 6’3, 320-pound offensive lineman Demytrick Ali’ifua, required a small army of teammates to lift him off.
Others required less assistance. 5’9, 185-pound wide receiver Jordan Nathan was carried off by junior receiver Justin McGriff, who comically picked him up and cradled him in his arms.
The contrasting amounts of manpower required to carry Ali’ifua and Nathan made both of them memorable coming off the field. It’s fitting because both players will be memorable when looking back at their impacts on Aggie football.
But it won’t be because of their physical stature.
In fact, Ali’ifua and Nathan will ultimately be remembered for the same thing — along with the following 11 seniors: Receiver Savon Scarver, receiver Derek Wright, running back Devonta’e Henry-Cole, tight end Carson Terrell, defensive end Nick Heninger, safety Shaq Bond, linebacker Cash Gilliam, linebacker Kevin Meitzenheimer, defensive end Jaylin Bannerman, defensive end Nick Heninger, and defensive tackle Marcus Moore.
They’re the ones who stayed.
Those 13 individuals were all seniors on the Aggie 2020 football roster, and leading up to the 2020 season, and as long as the season wasn’t canceled due to COVID-19, they assumed they’d run out of eligibility when the year ended.
Obviously, things didn’t go as planned. Disrupted by COVID-19, losing football games, head coach Gary Andersen getting fired, as well as other off-field challenges, what they thought would be their final year was a bit of a nightmare.
But there was one unforeseen benefit to the 2020 season as well: Due to COVID-19, the NCAA announced in August they were giving fall sport athletes an extra year of eligibility.
Coming off a 1-5 season and bracing for a third head coach in their Utah State career, those 13 players could use that extra year of eligibility to transfer to a program where winning was more guaranteed. Or, now graduated, they could have moved on from the brutal and demanding sport of football and pursued other life adventures.
Instead, they stayed. And helped lead Utah State to a Mountain West championship.
“I’m an Aggie through and through,” Ali’fua said on Monday. “(Last year) I don’t think I left everything on the field like I wanted to. This year, I was able to do that. And I still got one more game, but I feel a lot more satisfied with what I’m leaving behind as far as my legacy because they can’t take away this championship. This will forever be mine and my teammates.”
In a season where first-year head coach Blake Anderson and transfer players such as quarterback Logan Bonner and linebacker Justin Rice have received much of the credit for the success— and deservedly so — the “super seniors” that were Aggies last year have also had an immense impact.
Eight of them are consistent starters, and the majority of the others have played a substantial number of snaps throughout the season. Scarver received All-MW Second Team Honors for special teams; Nathan, Heninger, Ali’ifua, Bond and Wright all were All-MW Honorable Mentions.
Four defensive players — Bond, Heninger, Gilliam and Moore — were top seven on the team in tackles. Offensively, Wright led the team in touchdown receptions (11), and Ali’fua was regarded by many as the Aggies’ top offensive lineman.
Several of the 13 were vocal leaders in the locker room as well.
“I don’t believe that the guys that were there already in the locker room — that chose to stay and trust and buy into what we were asking them to do — I don’t think they get enough credit,” head coach Blake Anderson said on Friday.
“I think that’s the group that honestly is the glue that held this thing together. Brought in new staff, new schemes brought in some transfers to fill key positions but the bulk of the leadership and the sacrifice and really the buy-in came from that group of guys and they’re the reason that we’re sitting here 10-3 and have a title and are playing this game against Oregon State.”
The decision to return wasn’t an automatic one for everyone last winter, but once it was made, they were all in.
For Heninger, it took a while to decide whether or not he’d stick it out with the new coaching staff. After several weeks of building a level of trust with Anderson and the defensive coaches, the South Jordan native who felt like he and his teammates were “better than a one-win team” committed to returning.
But it came with a stipulation:
“I told the coaches, I said, if I come back, I’m coming back for a championship. And I don’t want to play for anything less,” Heninger said. “And I don’t know if that was wishful thinking at the time, they kind of laughed, but I believed in the guys we have here.”
Heninger wasn’t the only one that had what some may have considered unfounded belief.
One of the other super seniors mentioned the week leading up to the Washington State game that he thought the Aggies were a better team than people believed and were going to go to Pullman and win.
Deven Thompkins, who wasn’t a senior last year, but is another returning player who has played a pivotal role, said during football media day he thought the team’s ceiling this year was going “undefeated.”
The confidence exhibited from the returning players seemed to catch fire as if it was a lightning bolt striking a juniper tree on a dry August day in Northern Utah.
Clearly, it paid off. Minus the unblemished record, seemingly every outrageous-sounding claim made in the offseason came to fruition.
Now, the 13 returners aren’t the only ones that were carried off the field at practice Monday. Other Aggie players played their final college football game Saturday as well.
Arkansas State transfers Rice and Brandon Bowling, along with Kansas transfer Kyle Mayberry have soaked up their years of eligibility as well. Other players with remaining eligibility will graduate this year, and may pursue the NFL or other interests.
But the 13 guys who stayed are deserving of remembrance, for sticking through such a rough first senior season and wrapping it up with a legendary second one.
“Honestly, it’s amazing,” Ali’fua said. “To go from where we were last year to where we are now. It’s like night and day. It’s the best feeling to come back to champion.”
And they have one last chance against the Beavers, where they’ll look to do what they’ve done best this season: proving people wrong.
“I think we all have a big chip on our shoulder, still. We’re looked at as the underdog — again — which I’m glad it gives us more juice in the tank, right?” Heninger said. “This has been kind of the identity that everybody wants to place on us is that we aren’t the top dogs. And we’re here to say that we are.”