Leave no doubt: Matt Wells sets sights on Mountain West crown
Matt Wells knows his history.
The man holding the reins to all things Utah State football is no stranger to the mess that existed before the program’s 2012 resurrection. Wells played quarterback on John L. Smith’s 6-5 Big West co-championship team in 1996, in what would be the Aggies’ last winning season until coach Gary Andersen and quarterback Chuckie Keeton paired up to nurse the Aggie program back to health — fifteen straight losing seasons later.
Quizzing Wells on decades of Utah State’s highs and lows is wholly unnecessary. Wells knows it all. He’s even lived some of it. Since one of the most successful stretches in school history collided with a 6-7 season and is widely considered to be disappointing, it falls on Wells’s shoulders to ensure the next chapter of Aggie lore doesn’t include another horrific losing streak.
“Don’t get me wrong, six wins around Utah State? That would’ve been a really really good year in a lot of decades,” Wells said. “All of a sudden now it’s getting compared to 11, 10 and nine, and two of those three being two of the best years in Utah State history.”
Andersen and Keeton are often credited for the team’s turnaround, but it’s Wells who aims to sustain that winning culture. In his four-year tenure as head coach he’s proven capable of producing wins despite losing both his offensive and defensive coordinators two years in a row. The Aggie defense has not just survived, but thrived. The offense returns the majority of its starting linemen, inviting both quarterback Kent Myers and running back Devante Mays into the all-conference discussion by year’s end.
But despite Wells’ success, 2016 poses a unique challenge. It is in many ways a put up or shut up year for the former quarterback, or as Wells words it, “The difference between having a good season, and having something that people write about and have reunions about and those kind of things.”
If ever there were a year to prove he is the source of pro-grade recruits, over-achieving win totals and a defense on par with the best teams in the nation, this is it.
Gone to the NFL are linebacking studs Kyler Fackrell and Nick Vigil who anchored the team’s strongest position group for most of Utah State’s hot streak. Gone are the genius defensive minds of Dave Aranda (LSU) and Todd Orlando (Houston). Gone is longtime starting quarterback Chuckie Keeton, who despite suffering from an injury-riddled career still managed two separate five-touchdown games and the second most all-time touchdown passes by any Aggie ever (58).
This is Wells’ prove-it year.
“Expectations are a lot higher, just the way we want ‘em,” Wells said at Utah State’s annual media day press conference.
Wells expects his team to teach by example. Upon reviewing the massive reconstruction project that is the Aggie front seven, Wells expects his defense to reflect the standards he holds himself accountable to.
“The first thing they better be doing to teach is to produce,” Wells said. “ You can’t lead if you don’t produce — end of story. If you want to lead and open your mouth, you better produce.”
For Wells, there’s no offseason. In fact, he’s made it clear that hosting Weber State on Sept. 1 is the beginning of what he terms the year’s ‘fourth quarter’. Hiring six new coaches, keeping a recruiting class together through spring and dealing with the aftermath of a depth chart missing all but three of its defensive starters is just a taste of his regular balancing act.
“I try to focus on staying in my lane and understanding what my role is,” Wells said, “and that’s to win games, to graduate these seniors at the same rate we’ve been doing it for a long time and to take these young men from young men to grown men.”
Where the program finishes in order to maintain a measure of success depends on who you talk to. For Wells and the 2016 Aggies the goal is the same as it’s been since joining the Mountain West in 2013 — bring home the conference title.
“It’s a tough league,” Wells said. “The guys that can play well week in and week out, overcome adversity, overcome an injury or two, overcome one side of the ball not playing real well but still find a way to win and get some mojo and some confidence, that’ll be the team that wins it down the stretch.”
Wells has tasted a conference championship. He’s hoisted the big trophy at the end of the year. Now, exactly 20 years after that ‘96 Big West title share, he’ll look to navigate a team that should be in a rebuilding year back into title contention.
“I think they’ve got something to prove,” Wells said. “We’re good, I just don’t know if we’re great yet.”