Utah State football: Will Aggies make bowl without Jordan Love?

Will Utah State football falter after losing star quarterback Jordan Love and the defense improve enough to not miss bowl game for first time since 2016?

Utah State entered 2019 with big expectations. The Aggies were coming off of an 11-2 season in 2018 in which they were contenders for the Group of Five bid for a New Year’s Six game and quarterback Jordan Love had a stellar season and was getting a lot of NFL draft buzz as well.

While the Aggies still made a bowl game, 2019 had to be seen as a disappointment in the first year of head coach Gary Andersen’s second go around at Utah State.

Most thought that the transition back to Andersen would be pretty seamless after former coach Matt Wells left to take the head job at Texas Tech because of the familiarity and success that he had in his first stint before leaving for Wisconsin.

The defense took a huge step back under Andersen, after being one of the Group of Five’s best in 2018, but more surprisingly, the offense was inconsistent and Love became a turnover machine and did not look like the same quarterback from 2018. He was still a first-round pick by the Green Bay Packers in April’s NFL draft and Utah State’s biggest concern in 2020 will be how to replace him.

The defense is going to need to take big leaps as well if the Aggies are going to contend in the Mountain West this season and be a more consistent team in Andersen’s second season.