Utah State and UNLV are in remarkably similar positions heading into the 2025 season, an interesting thing to be able to say about programs that had vastly different levels of success in 2024. And yet, there are numerous parallels which can be largely showcased by comparing the situations their respective head coaches find themselves in.

UNLV head coach Dan Mullen and Utah State head coach Bronco Mendenhall both took short breaks from college coaching and have since returned (granted Mendenhall ended his hiatus a year sooner), taking on the new challenge of replicating past successes, but now in the transfer portal/NIL era of collegiate football.

Both are dealing with the extreme conditions of this current era, ranking 132nd and 133rd in returning production. And both face fan bases that

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