Does anyone have an idea what kind of team Utah State is?

At Mountain West Conference media days in the summer, interim Utah State football coach Nate Dreiling said he thought it would take three or four games to determine exactly what sort of team the Aggies would be this season.

He amended that projection considerably before USU’s season opener against Robert Morris, stating unequivocally that the Aggies were going to be tough this season. He hoped one of the toughest teams in the country.

And after each game so far this year — the season opening win over Robert Morris, the blowout loss at USC and the hot-and-cold rivalry loss to Utah — Dreiling has repeated that idea.

“The toughness was there the whole game,” Dreiling said Saturday following the loss to the Utes. “I don’t think anyone is ever going to question our toughness. Proud of how they played.”

Of course, for as tough as the Aggies are proving to be in the Dreiling era — through three games USU has visibly had the same effort level in the first quarter as the fourth quarter, regardless of the score — being tough by itself doesn’t make a team good, bad or mediocre.

Wins and losses are the ultimate judge, and myriad other things determine the quality of a team in the end, toughness among them.

All of which begs the question — Is Utah State a good team, undone by a difficult schedule? A bad team, exposed by elite teams? Or something in between, like the Aggies have been for multiple seasons now?

In truth, it may still be too early to tell. It at least looks like it is going to take more than three games to figure that out. Utah State, after all, was such an unknown entering the season, with 50-plus new players on the roster, half of the coaching staff replaced from a season ago and a new head coach.

“I would say that in this era of college football, it is kind of hard,” safety Jordan Vincent…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/does-anyone-idea-kind-team-230415083.html

Author : Deseret News

Publish date : 2024-09-15 23:04:15

Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.