Early UW Football Opponent Outlook: Newly Minted Pac-12 Utah State

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The Washington Huskies open the 2026 college football season against a pair of Pac-12 Conference schools, the second being Utah State.

A former member of the Mountain West Conference, the Aggies and second-year coach Bronco Mendenhall join the Huskies' former conference officially this fall and follow Washington State in traveling to Husky Stadium on September 14.

Mendenhall holds a 1-1 overall record against UW, beating then-coach Tyrone Willingham 28-27 at Husky Stadium in 2008, which sparked the first of what proved to be seven home losses that encompassed an 0-12 season and led to Willingham's firing.

Now entering his third season on Montlake with a 15-11 overall record, Jedd Fisch has never faced a Mendenhall-coached team. With a blank slate—the Aggies are breaking in a new offensive coordinator in Robert Anae, a new starting quarterback and 30-plus new transfers—the second of three non-conference matchups provided a potential early trap game.

While UW returns at least seven starters from last season on offense, led by junior quarterback Demond Williams Jr. and four of five offensive linemen, Utah State is expected to lean on graduate transfer Grady Brosterhous, a three-year backup at Virginia from 2022-25, where Mendenhall coached from 2016-21.

The 6-foot-3, 210-pound signal-caller ultimately never played for the Cavaliers' coach and held only two other scholarship offers from Trinity College in Connecticut and the University of Rochester in Upstate New York coming out of Weddington High School in Matthews, North Carolina.

In two seasons at Virginia, Brosterhous scored more touchdowns on the ground (4) than he completed passes as a traditional quarterback (1). His only completion came on the Cavaliers' second drive against Georgia Tech in early November, a 21-yard completion to Malik Washington, which set up the first of two touchdown drives in the entire game, a 45-17 victory for the Yellow Jackets in Charlottesville.

Behind the veteran transfer are three freshmen—Crew Cacciacarne, Kaleb Maryland and Brady Goodman—and one junior, McCae Hillstead, a transfer from BYU who started four games as a freshman at Utah State in 2023.

The lack of an established quarterback means Mendenhall will likely rely on senior running back Javen Jacobs, who started 10 of 13 games for the Aggies last season after following his coach from New Mexico, not just for his impact as a true runner, but also as a reliable weapon out of the backfield and as a kick returner for Utah State.

Jacobs finished first in the Mountain West and fourth in the nation in receptions by a running back (43), fifth in the nation in touchdown receptions by a running back (3), and ninth in the country in receiving yards by a running back (379), a dynamic threat that defensive coordinator Ryan Walters and his staff will have to game plan for.

Defensively, Utah State finished No. 90 in scoring defense in 2025, allowing 28.7 points per game, a stark contrast from UW's 18.7 points per game allowed under Walters, which put the Huskies at No. 15 in the country and fifth in the Big Ten Conference.

The Aggies are projected to have five transfers poised to be starters for defensive coordinator Nick Howell, a veteran coordinator in his own right having served in the position at various schools for 14 consecutive seasons— according to his USU bio.

Senior outside linebacker Jeremiah Holmes, a 6-foot-4 transfer from The Citadel, made his first career start at Clemson in 2024. Holmes finished his three years making 29 appearances (13 starts) for the Southern Conference program with 55 total tackles, 7.5 tackles for loss, 4.5 sacks, 2 interceptions and 2 fumble recoveries.

Fellow linebacker transfer Harrison Taggart has 17 career starts under his belt from his three seasons combined at BYU, California, and Oregon, with 135 career tackles, 5 tackles for loss, a sack and an interception over 40 games.

Fisch and co. have the benefit of Williams Jr. and the majority of UW's returning starting offense being in more of a lockstep than the Aggies' defense. Much like in the Huskies' 38-10 win over Boise State in the 2025 LA Bowl, getting off to a strong start offensively will be paramount against Utah State in a quietly sneaky-good matchup in Week 2.

This article originally appeared on Huskies Wire: Early UW Football Opponent Outlook: Newly Minted Pac-12 Utah State

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