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Stuart Johnson, Deseret News
It isn’t a secret that defense has been the greatest failing of Utah State football over the last few years.
While the Aggies’ offense generally thrived under former head coaches Blake Anderson and Nate Dreiling — the most notable common denominator being former wide receivers coach Kyle Cefalo, who is now at Cal — USU’s defense has steadily gotten worse and worse, falling to as low as No. 129 in the country this past season.
Enter Nick Howell.
The Aggies’ fourth defensive coordinator in four seasons, Howell is the latest tasked with turning things around on the defensive side of the ball.
Whether or not he is successful in that endeavor remains to be seen. The Aggies are not even finished with the first spring camp of the Bronco Mendenhall era after all, and although USU brought in 19 new defenders as part of its 36-player signing class, this isn’t a Howell-crafted defense yet.
But Howell isn’t new to the defensive coordinator role. In fact, he’s been a DC since 2013, at BYU (2013-2015), Virginia (2016-2021), Vanderbilt (2022-2023) and New Mexico (2024).
None of those stints came at a program or in a situation exactly equal to what Howell now faces at Utah State.
When he took over at BYU as defensive coordinator, he wasn’t taking on a rebuild. Far from it. Prior to him taking over in 2013, BYU ranked No. 13 in the country in total defense (2012).
Plus, Howell had previously been on the BYU defensive staff coaching defensive backs, outside linebackers and special teams at various times.
The Cougars improved initially under Howell’s direction, finishing No. 3 overall in total defense in 2013. Things steadily got worse from there (BYU ranked No. 47 in total defense in 2014 and No. 56 in total defense in 2015).
However, that decline coincided with BYU’s foray into independence entering its fourth and fifth seasons. The recruits BYU had landed when it was a Mountain West Conference power were largely gone at that point.
When Howell followed Mendenhall to Virginia ahead of the 2016 season, the Cavaliers’ defense was fairly middle-of-the-road, ranking No. 79 in the country the previous year.
It took time (two seasons), but Howell eventually got things going at Virginia and in three of his final four seasons at UVA, the Cavaliers ranked in the top 50 nationally in total defense.
It wasn’t just total defense, though. Under Howell, Virginia proved adept at defending against the pass (top 10 in 2017 and top 20 in 2018) in multiple seasons, and the year the Cavaliers played in the Orange Bowl against Florida, they tied the program record with 43 sacks.
It wasn’t all perfect though. Howell’s last season in Charlottesville was a real struggle, with UVA ranking No. 96 in total defense. That Cavaliers squad won games with an electric offense and not much else (which should sound pretty familiar to USU fans), but the bright spots of Howell’s run at Virginia outweighed the negative.
When Mendenhall retired, Howell took the job at Vanderbilt, perhaps the best analogue for what he nows faces at Utah State. The year before Howell arrived, the Commodores ranked No. 118 in the country and hadn’t been much better in previous years.
Things were bad in Nashville.
They didn’t get better under Howell either, with the team’s defense rating dropping in successive seasons. There were bright spots — in 2022 Vanderbilt led the SEC with 12 interceptions — but on the whole a thorough rebuild of the Vanderbilt defense proved too tall a task to pull off in two seasons.
The same held true during Howell’s lone season at New Mexico. The Lobos were not particularly good defensively before Howell got there and they didn’t get better under his direction, not statistically at least.
In fact, UNM ranked No. 130 in the country in total defense last season, worse even than Utah State.
Which Howell did Utah State get? The one with successful stints at BYU and Virginia or the one whose defenses struggled at Vanderbilt and New Mexico?
In truth, they are one and the same. Coaches are really only as good as the players on the field. Adding more defensive talent (under Anderson the Aggies prioritized offensive talent in recruiting) must be the priority for Utah State going forward.
Of that Howell is well aware.
“First of all we are looking for a player that’s talented, that is a productive football player that can make plays,” Howell said last week during an interview on USU football’s Coaches Corner.
He didn’t leave it at that. Howell noted a desire to find “tough people” with a strong work ethic and a real care for football, and he also needs smart players for his defense.
“We run a defense that is really fun,” he said, “and we’ve coached at a lot of different places where kids were really intelligent and we were able to do some really cool things, so it is the ability, the mindset and the mental aptitude to be able to play the game.”
Can Howell turn around the Utah State defense? He has enough experience and good enough of a track record to engender optimism. At the very least, things can’t get much worse for USU defensively.
Any real improvement is going to ultimately come down to the quality of players Howell can bring to Logan, though. Fail to improve on that and the Aggies will be right where they’ve been, which will mean more of the same, no matter what sort of electric offense offensive coordinator Kevin McGiven can come up with.
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