Jaren Hall is a rising pro prospect and the BYU quarterback will look to have another big game when he leads the No. 19 Cougars into Thursday night’s contest against visiting Utah State at Provo, Utah.
Hall has topped 300 yards in back-to-back games and has nine touchdown passes against one interception this season for the Cougars (3-1). He matched his career high of four touchdown passes and passed for a season-high 337 yards during Saturday’s 38-24 home win over Wyoming.
He enters the game against Utah State (1-3) with a streak of 115 consecutive passes without being intercepted. It is his third career streak of 100 or more throws without being picked off. He also has streaks of 163 and 119 in his career.
“Jaren’s smart, and he has a great football IQ,” Cougars coach Kalani Sitake said. “… Jaren always wants to get better, and we are lucky to have him as the leader on our team. I just like that he takes care of the football.”
Hall has passed for 1,164 yards this season and has completed 71.5 percent of his passes despite receiver Gunner Romney missing the first four games due to an undisclosed injury.
Hall is on pace to easily outdo last year’s success, when he completed 63.9 percent of his passes for 2,583 yards, 20 touchdowns and five interceptions.
The Cougars racked up 525 yards of total offense against Wyoming to mark the second time they topped 500 this season.
“I’m glad we were able to get the win, and these guys were resilient and played hard,” Sitake said. “We have a quick turnaround for the Utah State game so we need to get ready for that.”
Utah State has lost its last three games by an average of 31 points. The Aggies were shellacked by Alabama, whipped by FCS program Weber State and lost its Mountain West conference opener to visiting UNLV on Saturday.
Making the struggles more maddening is that Utah State matched the program record for victories last season, going 11-3.
“No one is more frustrated than we are,” Aggies coach Blake Anderson said. “We got used to a lot of success last year and right now, we haven’t seen it.”
Utah State committed six turnovers in the 34-24 loss to UNLV, and five were interceptions from quarterback Logan Bonner, a seventh-year senior who began his career at Arkansas State and followed Anderson to Logan after the 2020 campaign.
A year ago, Bonner set program records of 3,628 yards and 36 touchdowns while being picked off 12 times. This season, he has thrown for 753 yards, six touchdowns and eight interceptions.
The Aggies are averaging just 15.5 points per game while allowing an average of 36.
Anderson admitted there isn’t much time to resolve all his club’s issues prior to facing the Cougars.
“Short week against BYU. It’s going to be a huge challenge,” Anderson said. “We have to build on the few things that we did well, try to get better this week and find a way to put it all together in one game. See if we can get that done.”
BYU recorded a 34-20 victory at Utah State last season for its fourth win in the past six meetings.
The series will go on hiatus after the contest because the Cougars canceled the next four season’s worth of games due to its upcoming entrance to the Big 12. BYU will lose scheduling flexibility by leaving the ranks of independent programs.
–Field Level Media
