Utah State surprises doubters in near-upset of No. 19 Washington
Sep 14, 2026, 9:40 AM
Utah State football returns to Logan with a renewed vigor after nearly upsetting No. 19 Washington in a 16-14 loss on Saturday, September 12. (Kristin Murphy, Deseret News)
(Kristin Murphy, Deseret News)
SEATTLE – Utah State’s defense knew it would be an uphill battle against No. 19 Washington.
A true dual-threat quarterback, Demond Williams Jr., on the other side, and career backup Grady Brosterhous making his first career start for the Aggies.
All signs pointed to Utah State returning to Logan with an 0-2 record and massive improvements needed.
RELATED: Defense shines, offense fizzles in Utah State’s loss at Washington
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Instead, USU battled from the first whistle until a last-second Hail Mary attempt ended in an interception, sealing a 16-14 win for No. 19 Washington at Husky Stadium on Saturday.
The Aggies remain winless. They also served notice that this program, just seven days removed from an embarrassing home loss to Idaho State, isn’t going to be an easy out in the rebuilt Pac-12.
“There’s no chance that I’m going to be faulting their effort or their preparation that they put in all week,” head coach Bronco Mendenhall said, “to give us a chance right to the very end.”
They had that chance. And for a team most expected to be nothing but a small thorn in Washington’s side, that alone is a statement.
Defense sets the tone
If the final score surprised the rest of the country, it didn’t surprise the guys on Utah State’s sideline.
Defensive coordinator Nick Howell’s group showed tremendous resilience, allowing three points on three turnovers.
The Aggies held Washington to a single offensive touchdown on 12 possessions. The Huskies’ other nine points came on Tyler Robles field goals of 30, 26 and 43 yards. Demond Williams Jr. never threw a touchdown pass. Washington converted just 6 of 18 third- and fourth-down attempts.
When a reporter described the defensive effort as “pretty well,” Mendenhall corrected him on the spot.
“I think that effort is much stronger than ‘pretty well,'” Mendenhall said. “I think the effort was outstanding and gave us a great chance to win the game.”
Too strong 💪@asher_cngham6 with the sack! pic.twitter.com/wR8FRrHlk0
— USU Football (@USUFootball) September 12, 2026
Safety Brevin Hamblin, who finished with seven tackles and a pair of key third-down stops, put it more simply.
“Our mentality doesn’t change on any part of the field,” Hamblin said. “Whether that’s red zone, midfield, we got them backed up — our mentality is to get off the field and keep points off the board.”
The film work showed.
Hamblin said the Aggies identified that Washington had two running backs out and expected the Huskies to lean on the ground game, particularly in the red zone, after struggles there against Washington State in Week 1. USU’s successful game plan centered on stopping the run and staying on top of routes.
The defense also bailed out an offense that gave Washington short fields.
After Brosterhous’ second interception handed the Huskies the ball at the Aggie 44 in the fourth quarter, USU’s defense allowed only a field goal.
For the season, the Aggies have surrendered just 13 points off seven turnovers — a staggering number that speaks to a unit that refuses to compound mistakes.
“It’s a huge momentum shift when you get the third-and-one stops, the third-and-two stops,” Hamblin said. “No matter the distance, we’ve got to get off the field.”
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Grady Brosterhous wasn’t supposed to be the story
The decision came Wednesday. McCae Hillstead’s forearm injury wasn’t healing fast enough, and Mendenhall needed to get starter’s reps to someone who could play a full game in Seattle. That someone was Brosterhous, a graduate transfer from Virginia making his first career start.
He delivered the play of the game on Utah State’s second possession of the second quarter — a 78-yard touchdown strike to Javon Robinson, the program’s longest play from scrimmage since 2020. Brosterhous read Washington’s Tampa 2 coverage, signaled the route to his receivers, and let Robinson do the rest.
.@gbrosterhous12 ✈️ @JavonR10 for 78 yards to pay dirt!#ShowMe | @pac12 pic.twitter.com/iiY61YMVAC
— USU Football (@USUFootball) September 12, 2026
“We knew they were going to come out in that Tampa 2 look. We had practiced that all week,” Brosterhous said. “He did the rest. He saw Demick Starling at the end of the play blocking all the way down to the end zone. And that was just heart.”
He was efficient early — 8-of-10 for 117 yards at halftime — and gutsy late, engineering a 13-play, 75-yard touchdown drive in the final five minutes against a defense that had smothered everything Robert Anae’s offense tried in the second half. The seven-yard strike to Wood that made it 16-14 was the product of composure under chaos, with Brosterhous burning two timeouts and navigating a collapsing pocket before finding his target.
The interceptions — two of them, including one that nearly became a third in the fourth quarter when a Washington defender couldn’t hang on — will be teaching tape. But Mendenhall wasn’t interested in dwelling on the mistakes.
“He’s tough,” Mendenhall said. “He scrambled, and he took hits, and he didn’t play perfect. But our team believes in him, and he epitomizes, I think, what resiliency and tough people look like.”
He added: “It’s been a long time since he started a football game. And to come in this environment and battle the way he did — hard to find fault with him, even though there’s plenty of room for improvement for the offensive side of the ball.”
Brosterhous was his own harshest critic.
“Bottom line, I need to play a lot better,” he said. “I missed some throws out there. I missed some reads in some crucial moments. … But I battled out there. That’s really me as a person. I’m going to battle for my teammates no matter what.”
What’s ahead
The run game remains a problem.
USU’s running backs finished with negative yardage; only Brosterhous’ scrambles produced positive gains on the ground. Mendenhall was characteristically blunt: “Plus-one runs right now, or quarterback scramble, is our only running game, just to be blunt.”
But the turnovers dropped from four against Idaho State to three against a far superior opponent, and the takeaway was clear to Mendenhall.
“When we hold on to the ball, even if we don’t score a lot and move it a lot, we got a great chance at the end of the game,” he said. “And I think that’ll be against anyone we play.”
Utah State heads home 0-2 with a trip to No. 17 Utah on deck — another ranked opponent, another hostile environment.
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Brosterhous said the key is to keep improving, not treat the loss as a ceiling.
“Just because fall camp is over doesn’t mean that this is where our team is,” he said. “We’re going to continue to take steps forward. … I think just having that mindset of moving on and learning what we can, and taking that into next week.”
Mendenhall, who opened his press conference by saying he loves his football team, closed by reinforcing the point.
“I’m still proud of the growth and the development of this team and who they’re becoming,” he said. “Lucky to be their coach. Grateful to be at Utah State.”
The Aggies lost by two to a team favored by nearly four touchdowns. The record says 0-2. The film says something else entirely.
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Brian Preece is a sports.ksl.com insider covering Locals in MLB and the Salt Lake Bees. Follow Brian’s Bees and Beehive baseball here. Find Brian on X, Instagram, and BlueSky at @bpreece24.
Parts of this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team.
