Are there six or more wins available for Utah State football in 2025?
Is the Aggies' schedule this fall manageable or is it one of the more difficult ones in recent memory?
Who are USU football's toughest opponents? Who are the easiest?
With Utah State's 2025 football season set to begin on Saturday at home against UTEP, now is as good a time as any to present the Deseret News' annual rating of the Aggies' schedule, starting with the most difficult games and ending with the easiest.
This isn't a ranking of who are the best teams on Utah State's schedule. It is more an analysis of which games will be the hardest for the Aggies to win, with factors such as venues, travel complications, history and rivalry factored in.
With that in mind, here's our ranking of Utah State's games in 2025:
Utah State travels to College Station to take on the other Aggies Week 2. In some ways, that's a good thing. The Aggies will still be something of a mystery -- difficult to scout and prepare for -- and the overall health of the team is likely to be as good as it will be all season.
There is a world where USU outperforms expectations and gives Texas A&M a scare. Or at the very least, is competitive for a decent portion of the game.
That being said, Texas A&M is by far the most talented team Utah State will play during the 2025 season. Ranked No. 19 to start the year, the other Aggies are loaded with blue-chip prospects. Per CBS Sports, Texas A&M's roster is 82% blue-chip prospects -- four- and five-star recruits -- making it the fourth-most talented roster in all of college football (in theory).
The Aggies, while not a favorite to win the SEC this year, have been tabbed as a threat to make it to the College Football Playoff by ESPN, which ranks Texas A&M as the fifth-best team in the SEC entering the 2025 season.
Texas A&M's offense is expected to be overpowering, a punishing ground game promising to be a significant test for a rebuilt Utah State defensive line.
And if Texas A&M's defense has improved from last season -- defense is head coach Mike Elko's area of emphasis -- the other Aggies could quickly prove unbeatable for Utah State.
That is before you even discuss the trip to College Station itself and playing in front of 102,000-plus fans at Kyle Field.
Utah State has played at some difficult venues in recent years -- LSU in 2019, Alabama in 2022 and USC last season -- and the game at Texas A&M could end up being as difficult as any of those games.
For many years, the Commodores would have warranted placement lower on this list, even as an SEC program. Boise State, for instance, has been a more proven winning program and the Broncos have had the Aggies' number.
This isn't the old Vanderbilt, though. Last season, the Commodores won seven games, upset Alabama (among others) and had a legitimate shot to upset both LSU and Texas as well.
Quarterback Diego Pavia transferred in from New Mexico State and completely changed the culture of Vanderbilt football (as did consultant Jerry Kill, former head coach at Minnesota and NMSU). Until further notice, it really feels like Vanderbilt is nothing like its former basement-dwelling self. ESPN gives Vanderbilt overwhelming odds against Utah State, with the Commodores given an 88% chance to beat the Aggies.
Now, Vanderbilt isn't Texas A&M. The Commodores slotted in at No. 14 in ESPN's preseason power rankings of the SEC, ahead of only Kentucky and Mississippi State. Vanderbilt's home field advantage has never been much, as FirstBank Stadium only holds a little over 40,000 fans.
The game against Utah State will be played in the early afternoon -- kickoff is at 10:45 a.m. MDT -- but it will be late September, so heat and humidity will be less of a problem for USU. Still a problem, but not as big of one.
Pavia is a winner, though, and Vanderbilt's biggest weakness is a lack of depth, which isn't something USU is built to take advantage of. The first-teamers in Nashville proved last year they can compete with the best in the SEC, which means USU will have its hands full when it makes the trip to Nashville.
The only reason this game isn't the second-most difficult of the year for Utah State is location.
Boise State's dominance in the series with Utah State is well documented, but let's rehash it anyway. The Broncos have won nine straight against the Aggies and 21 of the last 22 meetings. All-time, USU trails BSU 24-5, and the Aggies have one win over the Broncos in the last 28 years (the teams didn't play every year during that span).
Boise State football and Utah State football have operated on a completely different level -- head-to-head.
Fresh off a trip to the College Football Playoff, there is every reason to believe that Boise State will handle the Aggies yet again. Most predictions have BSU as the best Group of Five team in the country, whereas USU is, at best, a middle-rung team.
The only real advantage USU has against Boise, as compared to Vanderbilt, is the game will be played in the friendly confines of Maverik Stadium. The last two times that Utah State beat Boise State happened in Logan.
Boise State's dominance in the series has been based on physicality. BSU has dominated the line of scrimmage for years now. Could that eventually shift under Bronco Mendenhall? It is possible. The Aggies are trying to recruit bigger, stronger players on both the offensive and defensive lines.
None of that helps for this upcoming season, though, which means the Aggies' only real avenue to victory -- right now -- is to take advantage of miscues by the Broncos, like what happened in 2015.
The Rainbow Warriors are not UNLV, which Utah State plays in mid-November in Las Vegas. They aren't San José State, either, whom the Aggies host in mid-October. Nor are they Fresno State or Air Force.
There are plenty of other opponents on the schedule for Utah State who should be better than Hawaii in 2025. Traveling to the islands to play Hawaii is no joke, though.
Just ask Mendenhall, who took his New Mexico team to Honolulu late last season with bowl eligibility on the line and lost.
Utah State travels to Hawaii this year in mid-October The game will follow USU's trip to Nashville to take on Vandy, although the Aggies do have a bye week in between those games.
Should Utah State be a better team than Hawaii? You can make an argument, although most preseason rankings say that the Warriors are the better team.
Even if the Aggies and Warriors are equal in terms of talent and scheme, the edge this year has to go to Hawaii. At home, Hawaii is a completely different team than on the road. That has been proven year after year after year.
Just last season, Hawaii lost seven games. Three of those losses came at home, but the Rainbow Warriors gave UCLA and UNLV all they could handle before falling short. Even Boise State struggled for a good amount of time in Honolulu.
On the road, meanwhile, Hawaii was rarely competitive.
Utah State, interestingly enough, hasn't struggled as much playing at Hawaii as many other MWC teams. But it is a trip few current Aggies have made and will come after the team has already played two SEC opponents, plus Air Force.
Can Utah State beat Hawaii? Absolutely. But it won't be easy.
After the Rebels' season opener this past weekend against Idaho State, it would be fair to have them lower than this. UNLV did not especially impress against the Bengals. Defense in particular was a real struggle.
But UNLV, on a sheer talent basis, is a top four team on Utah State's schedule. New head coach Dan Mullen is a proven winner and his offenses are regularly among the best in college football. And even though the atmosphere inside Allegiant Stadium isn't particularly daunting -- UNLV averaged 32,203 per game last season, while Allegiant Stadium can hold 65,000 -- a road game against a good team is a challenge.
Could Utah State upset UNLV (yes, it would be considered an upset)? Absolutely. USU fans have firsthand experience with how an elite offense, coupled with a porous defense, can make a team quite vulnerable. The last couple of seasons, but last year especially, Utah State could score with almost anyone. But an inability to provide any sort of resistance defensively was too much to overcome.
UNLV, in a lot of ways, looks like a similar team. Although, the Rebels have the personnel that could cause that to change, where Utah State didn't really have that possibility.
Given that Utah State nearly rallied last season against UNLV and it was the worst year in a long while for the Aggies, there is reason to believe that USU won't be that far off from UNLV when the teams meet in mid-November. Mendenhall's team will have had nearly three months of game experience at that point in the season.
Last year at the same time, New Mexico was in the middle of a highly competitive stretch that included all five of the team's wins.
Are the Bulldogs better than the San José State Spartans, who will be found later on this list? Probably not.
Fresno State struggled mightily in its season opener at Kansas. Offense in particular was a real struggle. Senior QB E.J. Warner was more damaging than helpful to his team's cause, with three turnovers and no touchdowns.
One game doesn't make or break a season, though, and a road trip to Fresno in late November, the week after the trip to Las Vegas to play UNLV, could be a challenge for Utah State.
Fresno State is not the same team it was under now-Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer or even Jeff Tedford, but the Bulldogs at worst are a solid MWC team. At best, they could contend for a top 3 placement in the conference this season.
The Bulldogs have an experienced QB, and their defense played well enough against Kansas, particularly on the back end.
What's more, Matt Entz is a proven winner as a head coach, albeit at the FCS level.
The timing of the game, if USU is reasonably healthy, bodes well for the Aggies, though. By late November, Utah State's coaching staff should have figured out how to get the most out of this year's roster.
All things considered, the trip to Fresno should be difficult but not daunting for the Aggies.
Under Ken Niumatalolo, the Spartans are well positioned to contend in the MWC this season. The schedule is light after a Week 2 trip to Austin, Texas, to take on the No.1-ranked Longhorns. SJSU misses both Boise State and UNLV during conference play.
By the time the Aggies host the Spartans on Oct. 17, SJSU could very realistically be 5-1, with the only loss coming to Texas. SJSU has a veteran QB back in Walker Eget. Offensively, it looks as though the Spartans will be just as good as they were in 2024, if not better. Plus, the team returns much of its defense from the year before.
At a neutral site, SJSU might be the clear favorite in a matchup against USU. Mostly because there are a lot of knowns about SJSU and a lot of unknowns about USU.
Of course, the game will not be played at a neutral site. It will be played in Logan. Because of that, USU might actually be the favorite. ESPN gives the Aggies a slight edge over SJSU in the head-to-head matchup, with USU holding a 53.3% chance to win the game.
Of the top teams in the MWC, SJSU is the least proven, despite a solid season last year. That makes this a game Utah State probably should win, especially if the Aggies are going to become bowl eligible.
Emotions are going to run high in this afternoon meeting between the Lobos and the Aggies. More on the New Mexico side than the Utah State side, but the Aggies may not experience a more hostile environment in 2025 than what they'll see in Albuquerque.
New Mexico isn't expected to be a great team in 2025, or even a good team, for that matter.
A lot of talent left when Mendenhall left to take the Utah State job, some of it following Mendenhall to Logan, but much of it finding new homes at Power conference teams, too.
Jason Eck proved to be a really good coach at Idaho, though, and the Vandals had their best three-season stretch since the early '90s on his watch.
New Mexico probably won't be challenging for bowl eligibility and probably will be a bottom three team in the MWC when all is said and done, but for this game, you can be sure the Aggies will see the best the Lobos have to offer.
Will it matter? Probably not. The game is late enough in the season -- Oct. 25 -- that USU should have figured out who it is by then. And while University Stadium holds just under 40,000, an average of 16,000 came to games last season, per Nevada Sports Net.
Utah State should walk away from Albuquerque with a win, but it won't be an easy one, if only because of the emotions attached to it.
No matter if the Falcons are good or bad, and they were bad last season, they are a tough team to play.
The triple-option is brutal to defend and, making it worse for Utah State, the Aggies have to play Air Force the week after they play Texas A&M. This game could be a lot higher up on this list because of that alone. USU will be trying to recover from playing the other Aggies, while having to play against a very physical, run-heavy Air Force team.
Not an ideal set of circumstances.
The game is in Logan, though, and Air Force was not good last season, although the Falcons did win their final four games of the year. Their rushing attack in particular finally performed up to the standard that is usual in Colorado Springs late in the year, unlike most of the season, when Air Force struggled to find any consistency in the run game.
Utah State is the favorite this time around -- ESPN gives the Aggies a 61.3% chance to win -- but USU-AF games have proven almost impossible to predict in recent years. Whenever it has seemed that one team would win, the other does, oftentimes running away with it.
All things considered, the game against the Falcons should be one of the easier ones for the Aggies, but that just means it won't be easy. USU's 2025 schedule is a difficult one, with very few gimmes, and Air Force does not qualify as one of those. Until it does.
The Miners are an interesting team. Not a particularly good one, though. UTEP is projected to be a middle-rung Conference USA team. Fine, but nothing special.
Yet, the Miners do have former five-star recruit Malachi Nelson tabbed as the team's starting QB. An intriguing move, at the least.
Transfers have come in also, along with some new coaches, lending an air of mystery to UTEP ahead of the season opener against Utah State.
It is that mystery that makes the game a little difficult to nail down. USU doesn't really know who UTEP is, especially on defense, with the Miners having a new coordinator.
Utah State should be able to handle UTEP at home. But the game could also go the way of the 2022 season opener. The Aggies hosted UConn to start the 2022 season and, though they won the game, it didn't come easy. In many ways, it foreshadowed what was to come. USU had to fight for every win that season.
If USU handles UTEP, Mendenhall probably has a good team on his hands -- one that could contend in the MWC, or at least surprise some teams. If the Aggies struggle against UTEP, though, it might be a long year for USU. You never want to overreact to a season opener, and Mendenhall's New Mexico team lost to an FCS opponent to start last season, but the UTEP game is one of Utah State's clearest chances of a win in 2025.
The Wolfpack are largely expected to be the worst team in the MWC in 2025.
The conference preseason poll had Nevada last, just behind New Mexico but also very clearly not in the same tier as teams like Wyoming, Utah State, San Diego State and Hawaii.
Still in the early stages of a rebuild under Jeff Choate, Nevada had to replace a lot of production from a season ago.
The Wolfpack have a new starting QB, a new starting RB (former Aggie Herschel Turner), a mostly unproven receiving corps and an almost completely new offensive line. And that is just one side of the ball.
Utah State doesn't play Nevada until November. The Aggies should be better at that point than they will be at the start of the season. The Nevada game is, in a lot of ways, a breather, sandwiched between trips to New Mexico and UNLV.
ESPN gives Utah State a 69.2% chance to win the game, the third-highest percentage in a game for the Aggies in 2025, behind only the UTEP and McNeese State games.
On paper, right now, the game against Nevada should be one of the easier ones for the Aggies, and a needed conference win.
The Cowboys aren't projected to be one of the better FCS programs in 2025. McNeese State isn't found in the FCS Coaches Preseason poll. In fact, the Cowboys didn't even receive a single vote.
ESPN currently gives Utah State a 93.1% chance to defeat McNeese when the teams meet on Sept. 20 in Logan.
If there is a gimme game on the schedule for the Aggies in 2025, it is this one.
Of course, McNeese is an improving program. Over the last three seasons, the team has won four games (2022), a single game (2023) and then six games (2024).
Located in talent-rich Louisiana, McNeese State is a former giant. For years, it was a perennial contender in the Southland Conference. The man behind much of that success, Matt Viator, is back at the helm now, too.
Will McNeese upset Utah State? It isn't likely, but the Cowboys will have talent and athleticism enough to give the Aggies a challenge, at least for a time. And the closer the game is, the more stress will be on Utah State.
Sandwiched between the Air Force and Vanderbilt games, there is a chance that USU could overlook McNeese too.
Utah State should win the game, though. It should be the easiest win of the season for the Aggies.