3 takeaways from Utah State’s season opening win against Robert Morris

Utah State football is 1-0.

The Aggies defeated visiting Robert Morris 36-14 Saturday night, the first win of interim head coach Nate Dreiling’s career.

Twenty seven players made their Utah State debut, with many making an immediate impact, including quarterback Bryson Barnes, linebacker John Ross Maye and safety Jordan Vincent.

It wasn’t a pretty game for a large portion — the Aggies’ trailed 14-10 at halftime — and injuries put a damper on the affair, but the Aggies’ 2024 season is underway.

Here are three takeaways from Utah State’s season opening win.

A defense remade. Mostly

It isn’t a secret that Utah State struggled defensively in 2023. The Aggies finished the year ranked No. 117 in the nation in total defense, and over the final few games of the year USU was considerably worse than that ranking even.

It was those struggles that led to Dreiling coming to Logan — along with the rest of a new defensive staff — plus numerous FBS and lower division transfers, all in an attempt to rebuild what was USU’s Achilles heel.

It was only one game — against on overmatched FCS opponent in Robert Morris — but it looks like the changes have paid off.

USU allowed only two scores in the game, a 40-yard touchdown on a play-action pass that came on a busted coverage and a 31-yard touchdown run that saw an Aggie or two completely miss on their assignment.

Outside of those two major miscues, and a major one or two more, Utah State handled everything the Colonials could throw at them, often with relative ease.

“This is a completely new defense from last year,” Maye — a graduate transfer from Lenior-Rhyne University — said. “That is what we wanted to identify as. We want to be physical, we want to get to the ball and we are going to make you feel us once we get there.”

All told, the Aggies limited Robert Morris to 362 total yards of offense, notably 137 on the ground. The Colonials averaged just 4.9 yards per play, 7.8 yards through the air and four yards on the ground.

Utah State wasn’t perfect by any means, particularly early, but as the game went on the Aggies’ defensive front started to control the line of scrimmage and the players behind them got more and more confident and better and better at tackling, too.

Utah State will face tougher opponents going forward, but for Game 1 of a new regime and a new team, it was a positive defensive showing.

A new playmaker at receiver emerges

Most people familiar with Utah State know the name Jalen Royals after last season. The senior wideout had a breakout campaign in 2023 and expectations were high that he could be even better this year.

Royals can’t go it alone at wide receiver, though, and outside of him USU had very little proven talent on the outside.

Kyrese White has made sure that is no longer a concern.

The senior wideout — playing primarily out of the slot — exploded onto the scene Saturday night, scoring the first two touchdowns of his Aggie career.

White scored the first two touchdowns of the game for Utah State, one a 57-yard reception wherein he went untouched across the middle of the Robert Morris defense, easily out-running every defender.

White’s second touchdown was a 53-yard reception in which he did nearly the exact same thing, only this time he bounced off a defender as well.

White finished the game with three receptions — he was targeted five times, the second-most on the team — and his performance made it clear that Royals has a running mate.

“Man, isn’t he awesome. Unbelievable,” Dreiling said. “I knew he was going to have a breakout year. We had a receiver (Micah Davis) transfer out the day before fall camp and we didn’t miss a beat on offense (because of White).

“Kyrese had an unbelievable fall camp, has incredible hands and he can roll, as you guys saw today. He is one of the players that is going to have have a big year. If they are going to play two (defenders) on top of Jalen, someone is going to have to step up. I couldn’t be more proud of how he handled it today.”

A team unlike many others

There was plenty that went wrong for Utah State early on, and the Aggies trailed Robert Morris 14-10 at halftime despite being favored to be win the game by more than 30 points.

A different USU team may have crumbled after that first half performance — you don’t have to go back very far to find an Aggie team of that ilk — but not this one.

USU responded in dramatic fashion, ultimately proving the much better team in the end.

It is because this team is different, quarterback Bryson Barnes said, in large part because of how it has handled the firing of former head coach Blake Anderson in July, followed by the tragic drowning of defensive back Andre Seldon Jr., later in the same month.

“The team, there is a vibe about this team,” Barnes said. “Coach A left and everyone just rallied together. We’ve had a lot of adversity that last 60 days and everybody just rallied together.

“So we trailed in the first half, but nothing was different. No one was feeling sorry for us, it was just a matter of putting the past in the past and moving forward, executing the game plan that the coaches put forward for us.”