Welcome Back Deven Thompkins and Hello Emphraim Branda

After entering the transfer portal during the 2020 Utah State football season, Deven Thompkins has announced that he will be returning to play for the Aggies next season.

As Thompkins states he has two years of eligibility left and is excited by what new head coach Blake Anderson is bringing to the program.

Things did fall off track as instead of competing for the Mountain West Conference title this season Utah State fell back to a one win season and there wasn’t a lot of excitement about Gary Andersen and how he was going to continue have the program compete for the conference title. A year after winning 11 games, Utah State won only seven games and lost their bowl game to Kent State.

In addition to the news that Deven Thompkins is returning, the news was also announced that Emphraim Branda, who served as a co-defensive coordinator for Miami, is coming to Utah State to be the defensive coordinator. Considering that defense has been a problem for the Aggies success recently, a change and new life at defensive coordinator is very welcome. Branda also served as the safeties coach for Miami so there could also be a bigger emphasis on secondary play for the Aggies. Miami did not have a great defense in 2020 but did well in 2019, where they ranked 13th nationally in total defense, 23rd in scoring defense, and 18th in passing defense.

There seems to be a greater amount of energy with the hiring of Blake Anderson and it seems that Utah State is headed in a direction they need to head in if they want to continue to compete for Mountain West titles and improve the state of the program moving forward.