Background
The first intercollegiate athletic event in the school's history took place on November 25, 1892, when the Agriculturalists defeated the football team from the University of Utah, 12-0. The football program has a rich history (Merlin Olsen and Phil Olsen are alumni) throughout the mid-20th century, but has struggled lately, following two ill-fated stints as an independent program and two more years in the geographically distant Sun Belt Conference, after the Big West Conference, which had housed the Aggies since 1978, elected to stop sponsoring football in 2001. USU's other teams remained in that conference until the school was finally invited to join the Western Athletic Conference (WAC) in 2005. USU had lobbied to join its in-state rivals Utah and BYU in the WAC for many decades prior to 2005, and were only allowed in after the two other schools had left to form the Mountain West Conference.
Recently, the men's basketball team, under coach Stew Morrill, has become a nationally respected program, with several conference championships and trips to the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship. The basketball program has been one of the most successful programs in the country since 2000, winning at least 23 games in each season, many conference championships, and appearing in the NCAA tournament numerous times. In fact, many Aggie sports have been extremely successful for many years, though this is often overlooked due to the recent futility of the football team.
Following the great heights of the 1960s and 70's, Aggie football has fallen upon hard times in recent decades, leading to a disproportionate lack of USU sports coverage in statewide and national media. Many of the Aggie faithful attribute the decline to administrators at both Utah and BYU freezing then-superior USU out of the newly-formed WAC. However, other factors cited as leading to the decline include a failure to upgrade facilities until recently, a lack of donors to athletics, and the complacency of past athletics directors. The futility of the football program has had an extremely negative effect on the perception of the university as a whole, and it is something that the Aggies are only now recovering from. 2011 saw the first winning season in many years, a bowl game, and in May 2012, an invitation to the Mountain West Conference, which will give USU its first stable, promising conference home in a half-century.
However, new athletic director Scott Barnes has recently inked deals with TV stations, replaced the head football coach, raised funds, and accomplished numerous necessary reorganizations, despite the athletics department's dismal budget in comparison with other state and WAC schools. In large part due to his efforts, USU Athletics was crowned the 2009 National Champion of the Excellence in Management Cup, which seeks to identify the university that wins the most championships with the lowest expenses. The Aggies brought in WAC championships in five sports during the 2008-09 academic year, tied for the most in school history.
Read more about this topic: Utah State Aggies
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