Anfield Energy (OTCQB:ANLDF) +13.2% in Tuesday’s trading after the Trump administration approved its proposed Velvet-Wood uranium mine project in Utah after a quick 14-day environmental review as part …
Anfield Energy (OTCQB:ANLDF) +13.2% in Tuesday’s trading after the Trump administration approved its proposed Velvet-Wood uranium mine project in Utah after a quick 14-day environmental review as part …
Utah State season preview with breakdowns, top players and transfers, what will happen, and projected win total.
Has Bronco Mendenhall found a home?
Utah State has had a rough run, and it needs Mendenhall to work his magic as soon as humanly possible.
The program won ten or more games four times in the last 13 seasons – the only double-digit campaigns in Utah State history – and going to bowl games has become the norm.
But three straight losing seasons, and the firing of head coach Blake Anderson just before last year started, made 2024 impossible to turn things back around.
But Mendenhall is used to this. He was great right away at BYU for 12 seasons before running off for the Virginia job. In Year Four, he took the Cavaliers to the Orange Bowl. After taking three years off, he resurfaced in New Mexico, taking over and winning five games with one of the best offenses in the nation.
Utah State might need a little bit. Mendenhall knows what he’s doing, but close to 30 players transferred out, the portal didn’t fill in enough gaps, and this whole thing will be put together with duct tape and a few prayers.
But there’s enough in place to potentially match the four wins of last season. And because it’s Mendenhall, it should be fun regardless of the first year record.
– Bronco Mendenhall isn’t quite bringing over the New Mexico offense that finished fourth in the nation, but he’ll give it a shot. Coordinator Kevin McGiven spent the last several years making the San Jose State offense go. Offense wasn’t a problem for Utah State, finishing sixth in the nation, averaging 468 yards and 32 points per game, but …
– Leading passer Spencer Petras is done, but Bryson Barnes threw 12 touchdown passes and got in enough work last year and at Utah to be ready for the gig. His 348 rushing yards over the last two games might be a glimpse of what’s to come in the Mendenhall attack. However, Arizona transfer Anthony Garcia will get every shot in fall camp.
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– Jalen Royals was a special receiver who’ll be a big deal for the Kansas City Chiefs. The transfer portal needs to pick up the slack with Corey Thompson (UNLV), Brady Boyd (Texas Tech), and Demick Starling (WKU) all relatively untested options who’ll get every shot.
– The line isn’t totally starting over, but all five starters will be replaced. Jake Eichorn (BYU) will come in through the transfer portal, and there’s a little experience to play around with.
The job will be to crank up the running game, and it won’t just be Barnes. Miles Davis (BYU) and Javen Jacobs (New Mexico) are quick backs who should each average over five yards per carry.
Utah State Aggies Preview 2025: Defense
– The defense couldn’t do much of anything, even with all the help coming from the strong Aggie offense. The D had a nice pass rush, but it allowed 470 yards and 38 points per game. Defensive coordinator Nick Howell is still around, and …
– The Aggies might have the best safety in the Mountain West. Ike Larsen is back after making 217 tackles, nine picks, and 17 broken up passes over the last three years.
Omari Okeke and transfer Bobby Arnold (New Mexico) will step in at the other slots. The corners might be even better, with Bryson Taylor and Noah Avinger two big-play parts of last year’s New Mexico secondary.
– Top pass rusher Cian Slone is gone to NC State, but Bronson Olevao Jr. is back at one linebacker spot – he was second on the team with 3.5 sacks and 23 tackles – and John Miller should be a bigger tackler in the middle coming off a 52-tackle season.
– The line doesn’t have a ton of experience with Slone gone on one end, but Gabriel Iniguez is a decent run stopper inside, Bo Maile can play inside or as a 3-4 end, and the transfer portal will help with tackle Tyree Morris (Lafayette) an instant starter.
Utah State Aggies Key to the Season
Be way, way better against the run. The Aggies allowed 5.4 yards per carry and got hammered over 200 yards in seven games.
It’s way, way too tough to hold up when the team is getting crushed in the time of possession battle, and in this way, the offense has to control the clock a bit better. But it’s been years since the program has consistently stopped the run.
Utah State Aggies Key Player
Tyree Morris, DT Jr. Again, the run defense must be more than just a speed bump. The 6-6, 273-pound Morris might not be huge, but he’s active. He made 65 tackles, two sacks, and five tackles for loss last year for the Leopards, and now he has to be a disruptive force.
Utah State Aggies Top Transfer, Biggest Transfer Loss
Top Transfer In: Noah Avinger, CB Sr. If it’s not Morris, and if it’s not fellow former Lobo defensive back Bryson Taylor, it’s Avinger, a strong-tackling option for any defensive back spot.
He started out at San Diego State, missed the 2023 season, and then stepped in at corner for New Mexico and stopped everything the porous defensive front didn’t, coming up with 91 tackles and five broken up passes.
Top Transfer Out: Rahsul Faison, RB Sr. The Aggies have other options at running back and should be okay, but the 5-11, 200-pound Faison would’ve rolled in this new offense. He wasn’t bad in the old one, running for 1,845 yards and 13 touchdowns in two seasons. Now he’s at South Carolina.
Utah State Aggies Key Game
at New Mexico, Oct. 25 No one’s expecting a College Football Playoff national title out of the Aggies, but there are games you can lose, and games you can’t. Bronco Mendenhall losing to the Lobos after his one-and-done era in Albuquerque is one of those the Aggies shouldn’t drop. – 2025 Utah State Schedule Breakdown
Utah State Aggies Top 10 Players
1. Ike Larsen, S Sr. 2. Noah Avinger, CB Sr. 3. Bryson Barnes, QB Sr. 4. Bryson Taylor, CB Sr. 5. John Miller, LB Sr. 6. Bronson Olevao Jr., LB Jr. 7. Tyree Morris, DT Jr. 8. Miles Davis, RB Sr. 9. Gabriel Iniguez, DT Sr. 10. Omari Okeke, S Sr.
Utah State Aggies 2024 Fun Stats
– 2nd Quarter Scoring: Opponents 186, Utah State 89
– Field Goals: Opponents 20-of-22, Utah State 10-of-16
– Time of Possession: Opponents 32:41, Utah State 27:19
Utah State Aggies 2025 Season Prediction, Win Total, What Will Happen
It’s Bronco Mendenhall, and while that will only go so far on a team that returns four starters and lost just about everyone of note through the transfer portal, he should have the team ready and good enough to at least push for the four wins of last season.
It’s not an awful deal to miss Colorado State, San Diego State, and Wyoming, but it would’ve been nice to miss Boise State, or UNLV, or Fresno State. Making things worse, there’s a trip to Hawaii kicking off a run of four road games in six dates.
The Aggies will beat McNeese and slip by UTEP in the opener. It’ll pull off at least one other Mountain West game – at New Mexico and home against Nevada are most likely – but this is a true rebuilding campaign.
Set The Utah State Aggies Win Total At … 3.5
Likely Wins: McNeese
50/50 Games: Air Force, at Hawaii, Nevada, at New Mexico, San Jose State, UTEP
Likely Losses: Boise State, at Fresno State, at Texas A&M, at UNLV, at Vanderbilt
As good as Utah has been under head coach Kyle Whittingham, it’s not Ohio State, or Alabama, or at the elite of elite programs – it has yet to make the College Football Playoff. The margin for error …
After a wildly disappointing year, the Utes are about to explode. 2025 Utah season preview with breakdowns, top players and transfers, keys to the season, what will happen, and projected win total.
Almost everyone has an off year.
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As good as Utah has been under head coach Kyle Whittingham, it’s not Ohio State, or Alabama, or at the elite of elite programs – it has yet to make the College Football Playoff.
The margin for error is just small enough that something like not having the quarterback situation fully settled can be the difference between blah and fantastic.
Six quarterbacks. That’s how many threw at least 30 passes for Utah over the last two seasons; there wasn’t any continuity to the offense, and that was just enough to go from 2022 Pac-12 champion level to 13-12 over the last two seasons.
Overall, the program is good enough to be dominant in the Big 12, but last year, thanks to that offense, the Utes lost four games by six points or fewer, lost at Arizona State by eight, and didn’t have their mojo in the other two losses.
Utah has gone 2-7 in its last nine games decided by one score. That’s about to change.
And now everyone is about to underestimate the Utes.
Yes, the Big 12 is tough from top to bottom, but no, it’s not better at the higher end than the Pac-12 was before it self-imploded.
Yes, Utah – the program that was a mortal lock in bowl games with a 14-1 record from 1999 to 2017 – hasn’t won a bowl game in seven years.
And yes, Utah has made the pivot to change all of that.
The Big 12 is winnable, and Utah is the team to do it if New Mexico transfer quarterback Devon Dampier – who comes with former Lobo offensive coordinator Jason Beck, and a few other parts – can bring that same firepower from last year’s attack to Salt Lake City.
A conference championship, a trip to the College Football Playoff, and doing some damage once it gets there. This Utah team should be good enough to do it all.
Utah’s abortion trigger law remains blocked by court injunctions until at least 2026, while legality has been decided in most other states.
KEY POINTS
After Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, 12 states banned abortion access, 10 imposed stricter limits, 19 maintained similar restrictions and 9 expanded to include full-term abortions.
Utah’s abortion trigger law, which would allow abortions only in limited cases, has been blocked by court injunctions since 2022 with the first procedural hearing scheduled for April 2026.
Unlike Roe v. Wade which had an individual plaintiff, current lawsuits against state abortion laws often feature organizations like Planned Parenthood claiming third-party standing, a controversial legal approach.
In 2020, Sen. Daniel McCay, R-Riverton, sponsored Utah‘s abortion trigger bill, which would allow abortions only in the case of rape, incest, substantial impairment of the mother’s health, or if the baby had a lethal birth defect or severe brain abnormality, as the Deseret News previously reported.
While the bill made its way through the state Legislature, “there was a lot of pushback from those who advocate for abortion,” McCay told the Deseret News.
However, “for the most part, it passed through the House and the Senate without much delay,” he said.
The bill was signed into law by former Gov. Gary Herbert, and it sat there, unused until June 24, 2022, when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade with the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision.
Before Roe was overturned, Utah was one of 18 states that had passed trigger bills limiting abortion access, which were set to go into effect if the federal decision from 1973 was ever overturned.
As of today, 12 states have banned abortion access, 10 states have imposed stricter gestational limits, 19 states have kept their laws at viability, similar to what was in place under Roe, and 9 states have expanded their laws to include some full-term abortions, per the Kaiser Family Foundation.
McCay was surprised to see Roe v. Wade overturned as soon as it was, just two years after Utah passed its trigger law.
“If anybody thought that Roe v. Wade was going to be overturned as quickly as it was after the bill, I would argue they had a sharper crystal ball than I had,” McCay said.
The trigger law went into effect early on Friday, June 24, the day Roe was overturned. The next day, on Saturday, the Planned Parenthood Association of Utah, along with the American Civil Liberties Union of Utah (ACLU), filed a lawsuit against the bill, claiming it violated the Utah Constitution.
On Monday, June 27, 2022, District Court Judge Andrew Stone granted a temporary restraining order to block the law for 14 days.
Next, Stone issued a preliminary injunction, extending the block until Planned Parenthood‘s lawsuit came to a resolution. Then on August 1, the Utah Supreme Court upheld Stone’s injunction 4-1, which allowed Stone’s lower court block to remain while the case moves forward.
That means abortion in Utah is still legal up until 18 weeks of pregnancy.
Chief Justice Matthew Durrant, the sole dissenter, has held that the preliminary injunction blocking the law should be overturned, and Planned Parenthood should be denied third-party standing, per previous Deseret News reporting.
McCay agrees with Justice Durrant: “The Planned Parenthood case should have failed for lack of standing.”
Of the four justices who voted to uphold the injunction, McCay said, “I think the hard part for them is they’re trying to figure out a way to come up with a Solomon solution that is a compromise between what the law says and what they want to be the outcome, and I think that gets increasingly harder for them to do.”
The case’s first procedural hearing is scheduled for April 2026, Pro-life Utah President Mary Taylor told the Deseret News.
Of the abortion trigger bills passed, a vast majority have been contested in courts
The only states with abortion trigger bills that have made it to 2025 relatively injunction-free include laws in Arkansas, Alabama, Oklahoma and South Dakota. All four of these states have total abortion bans.
However, as the dust has mostly settled post-Roe, these states’ abortion laws are outliers in how similar legislation has gone into effect elsewhere across the nation.
More commonly, abortion-related trigger bills faced legal battles, with Planned Parenthood acting as the plaintiff, claiming the legislation violates state constitutions.
In South Carolina, for example, the state passed a 6-week “fetal heartbeat” abortion trigger bill in 2021. The next year, the law went into effect after the Supreme Court overturned Roe, but it was quickly met by a lawsuit by Planned Parenthood in July.
The South Carolina Supreme Court ruled that the trigger law did indeed violate the state’s constitution, and the state’s legislature proceeded to pass a new version of the law. Gov. Henry McMaster signed the bill into law on May 25, 2023, and later that day, Planned Parenthood filed a lawsuit, claiming the new law was unconstitutional, per The State.
On May 26, South Carolina Circuit Court Judge Clifton Newman blocked the ban from taking effect and ordered the state’s Supreme Court to look at it again.
In August, the Supreme Court declared the 2023 Act constitutional and allowed it to go into effect, per U.S. Law.
On the other hand, several abortion trigger laws have been overridden by states amending their constitutions after the issue was put on the ballot.
In the cases of Arizona, Ohio and Missouri, their more restrictive abortion laws were overturned by a vote among state citizens, and the right to abortion was added into the states’ constitutions.
Three years after Roe was overturned, abortion laws are undecided in only a few states — and one of them is Utah.
Recent lawsuits against state abortion laws differ fundamentally from Roe v. Wade
Roe v. Wade was a civil lawsuit pressed by Norma McCorvey (under the pseudonym, Jane Roe) against Henry Wade, then-Dallas County District Attorney in Texas.
Author of “The Family Roe” Joshua Prager described how McCorvey became the Roe plaintiff to NPR.
Before 1973 in Texas, abortion was criminalized in the state for over 100 years. McCorvey was “a prostitute at this time,” Prager said, adding that by her third pregnancy, she wanted an abortion. She had given up her previous two children for adoption.
Lawyers Linda Coffee and Sarah Weddington filed a lawsuit on McCorvey’s behalf when she was six months pregnant with the Roe baby, per the Brennan Center. They challenged whether Texas’ abortion laws were constitutional.
The case was heard before the U.S. Supreme Court in December, 1971, and in 1973, 7 of the 9 justices agreed that the Due Process Clause implies a right to privacy, and the post-Roe federal legal climate governing abortion was born.
The Planned Parenthood lawsuit against Utah’s abortion law, meanwhile, has a non-person plaintiff.
“Planned Parenthood didn’t have a woman that had been injured. Planned Parenthood is claiming a woman could be injured, and that’s highly unusual for the courts to accept that as what they call ‘standing,’” Taylor said.
In Chief Justice Durrant’s dissent, he explained how plaintiffs must show “distinct and palpable injury that gives (them) a personal stake in the outcome of the legal dispute.”
McCay added, “It has to be a person, having that standing or the potential for injury to bring those claims, and we’ve always kind of followed that process.”
“This is a major departure from third party standing over the last 20+ years,” he said.
However, a large majority of the lawsuits resulting in enjoined abortion laws have been pressed by Planned Parenthood, ACLU and other organizations.
Utah’s Supreme Court held in 2024 that providers, including Planned Parenthood, “had third-party standing to challenge the constitutionality of the state’s ban on behalf of their patients,” a decision which Justice Durrant disagreed with.
“Appellate litigation is undoubtedly too expensive, inconvenient and time-consuming. But if these factors alone are enough to justify the exercise of third-party standing, then we risk a dangerous expansion of that doctrine,” he said in his dissent.
Utah lawmakers feel as though their hands are tied
In a conversation with the Deseret News, McCay said he’s heard talk from fellow lawmakers of following suit from other states and passing a 4-week or an 8-week ban, “but we’re just so afraid of the courts enjoining it and restarting it, so it’s really frustrating.”
He explained that while his constituents want more restrictive laws against abortion in the state, lawmakers are “afraid” that new legislation could cause them to restart in the courts.
“It pains me that we are just kind of sitting on our hands, worried that the court will restart litigation and the litigation process just because they’ve gone one way or the other,” McCay said.
Are the widespread injunctions a sign of judicial overreach?
“It is healthy for the legislature, the judiciary and governors to have tension between them,” McCay said. “And I think that tension, while at times I can find it frustrating, I worry about the day when there isn’t tension between those organizations.”
The system is designed to have tension, he explained. “Sometimes it works in my favor, and sometimes it doesn’t.”
However, while every state started its own individual abortion battle on the same day, nearly all have reached legal conclusions, one way or another, and Utah has largely been left behind in its slow trudge toward the case’s procedural hearing.
“A lot of time is ticking away,” McCay said. “To the advocates against abortion, to their point, a lot of children are dying. And the courts, it seems like, aren’t really concerned about that outcome.”
Starter condos in addition to affordable single family homes? See Utah’s latest plan to get more affordable housing built.
Last year, Utah launched Gov. Spencer Cox’s novel plan, making some $300 million in public funds available for low-interest loans to encourage developers to build more affordable homes for first-time buyers.
But just $10.7 million has been transferred from the fund, in February for a Nilson Homes project just outside Plain City, Weber County, according to the Utah State Treasurer’s office. The first dozen of what eventually will be 275 homes priced below $450,000 have been built and sold.
So the 2025 Legislature quietly made a change to the program that allows for a new type of affordable housing in addition to the traditional single-family house to be built with money from the funds set aside.
Starter condominiums.
“They’re the natural entry point into the housing market,” said Steve Waldrip, a former state lawmaker and the first to fill the recently created role of senior adviser for housing strategy and innovation to the governor.
The apartment-like, multistory housing can be much less expensive than a single-family home and, Waldrip said, allow developers to take advantage of smaller and odd-sized lots, particularly around public transit stations.
Steve Waldrip, housing adviser for Gov. Spencer Cox, poses for photos in Salt Lake City on Monday, May 19, 2025. | Scott G Winterton, Deseret News
“The governor has been very vocal about wanting single-family homes to be the priority of the administration. So we’ve done and are doing things in that arena. But there are places where you just can’t do that,” he said.
Say there’s 2 acres available to develop. Instead of building just a couple of houses, Waldrip said, “you could do 50 condos, or 100 condos. You get ownership in both instances. But because of the volume benefit of the condo process, they come a lot cheaper.”
Although many communities have balked at high-density development, he said they “are much more amenable to condos than apartments because you have that ownership component. It provides much more housing stability.”
In Utah and the rest of the country, though, there’s been little interest in building lower-priced condos for years because of costly insurance and regulatory issues, he said. Such projects are seen as offering a lower reward for a much higher financial risk than building apartments.
Utah lawmakers have taken steps to remove some of the roadblocks but there’s more to be done. Last session’s legislation also extended the availability of funding for building starter homes and now condos for an additional year, until 2028.
Waldrip said the state is working to create a Utah-specific construction defects insurance policy to counter premiums that can be four times higher for condo than apartment development because of regional pricing.
While that might take more legislation, he doesn’t see it as a “show-stopper” for the administration’s new push for starter condos, especially since a larger financing issue was resolved by allowing the nonprofit Utah Housing Corporation to make loans, just as banks have.
That change in the law, slipped into a larger housing bill after being successfully pitched to the Legislature’s closed-door caucuses last session, is a way around federal regulations requiring 50% of a condo project to be sold before FHA loans that first-time buyers rely on are available.
“We’re just talking about taking some of the risk away from condo development,” Waldrip said. “What have we been building? Apartments. We’ve been building apartment after apartment after apartment. … We have all these built-in disincentives to creating condos.”
So will that be enough to get apartment developers to shift to condos?
Tom Henriod, head of Rockworth Companies, poses for photos at a construction site in Layton on Thursday, May 22, 2025. | Scott G Winterton, Deseret News
Waldrip believes it is. He said the changes being made to the starter home program are in response to a developer who came to the state for help making the switch, Tom Henriod, a partner in the Holladay-based Rockworth Companies that develops projects throughout the West.
“That was the beginning of the discussion of how to create this condo project,” Waldrip said.
Henriod’s detailed proposal from late last year for “Advancing Affordable Condominium Development in Utah” fills the front and back of a single sheet of paper. It spells out that the supply of affordable homes “is nearly nonexistent,” so more and more households remain renters.
There’s also a warning about the “(w)idening wealth gap between owners and renters fostering greater class distinction, discord between classes and increased risk of societal unrest,” noting that the government‘s solution is usually to subsidize rental units for low-income residents.
“We’re not trying to be alarmist … but we mean it,” Henriod said, making a point to single out that statement in his proposal. “We need people to feel like they have ownership in their community, literally.”
Jed Nilson’s starter home project in Plain City on Thursday, May 22, 2025. | Scott G Winterton, Deseret News
How a starter condo program could work
Condo units could be built for $350,000 or less and sold at or near cost to lower-income buyers, Henriod said. Developers would be paid a yet-to-be determined fee of maybe 10% of the project‘s overall cost, he said, similar to what they get for building subsidized apartments.
What‘s not sustainable in his mind is continuing to build multifamily housing only for renters.
“There should be a large contingent of it that‘s for sale,” said Henriod, who has built thousands of apartment units over the years. “This idea is really borne from that thought, that we need more for-sale housing at smaller purchase prices, period.”
But his last condo project, near Trolley Square in Salt Lake City, was some 15 years ago. The challenges of building multiple units sold to individual buyers versus an apartment complex with a single owner are just too steep for developers, Henriod said.
“I‘ve got better tax options if I do apartments. I‘ve got liability issues that exist with the condos that don’t exist with apartments. It‘s so much easier for me to get financing and I don’t have to worry about figuring out how my buyers of all these individual condos can get financing,” he said.
Those issues have led developers to say “why bother” building something sold as a “box in the air” with a fractional interest in shared parts of a building, Henriod said. “It‘s tough. It‘s super tough. There’s a lot of reasons why no one has been doing this.”
A mortgage payment on an affordable condo may actually be a little less than the nearly $2,000 typical rent for a two-bedroom apartment, he said, allowing the owner to build equity estimated to be valued at $158,000 over a decade.
“It‘s not rocket science,” said Henriod, a father of four children ages 10 to 21. “I‘m thinking about my kids and what are they going to buy. I‘d like them to be able to buy something, gain equity and get into a move-up market. I think that‘s what the American dream really is.”
Nothing’s planned yet, but the company’s already scouting property, including in Cottonwood Heights, Salt Lake City, Ogden, Spanish Fork and Murray. Henriod said he’s just waiting for the state to come out with specifics of the starter condo program.
“Hopefully soon,” he said, adding the company would love to be able get started in the next year or so since it takes at least three to four years to secure the necessary permits and then build a 200-unit complex.
Tom Henriod, head of Rockworth Companies, talks while posing for photos at a construction site in Layton on Thursday, May 22, 2025. | Scott G Winterton, Deseret News
‘We don’t want them to make too much’
It‘s the Utah Housing Corporation that will fund condo projects from the state monies set aside for starter homes once the details of the program are in place. Just how long that‘s going to take remains to be seen.
“We make no promises,” said David Damschen, who served as Utah state treasurer before becoming president and CEO of the nonprofit agency created some 50 years ago. “We’re moving as quickly as we can. … We’re not messing around.”
The hope is that Utah Housing Corporation’s new role in the governor’s starter home program as a lender to developers will be fairly well defined by late summer, he said. A new hire has already been made to help with what will be a significant expansion of the agency’s construction financing.
“Obviously, we’re very subject to how things unfold. We’re spending a lot of time with the developer community as well as legal counsel, making sure we understand the sources of risk, making sure we understand how the incentives will be viewed,” Damschen said.
If the new program “doesn’t work for developers to do really great work, produce high-quality, affordable units, it‘s not a good program. So we have to strike a delicate balance,” he said, between the risk of financing condo construction and the reward of more affordable housing.
Claudia O’Grady, vice president of Utah Housing Corporation’s Multifamily Finance Department, said it‘s possible there could be units for sale as soon as next year. She said she’s been hearing from developers interested in converting existing apartment projects into condos.
Jed Nilson’s starter home project in Plain City on Thursday, May 22, 2025. | Scott G Winterton, Deseret News
“If it can get done in a manner that meets our program requirements, and our objectives of affordability, a quality product at affordable, entry-level prices, we’re going to entertain those applications,” O’Grady said.
She said the condo projects would be fee-based to incentivize developers to participate and hopefully allow the units to be sold at cost, although the “finer points” of that model still need to be worked out. That includes the size of the fee paid to developers.
“Yes, there’s profit in it,” Damschen said. “We don’t want to let them make too much.”
For buyers, for now the intention is to require owner occupancy for at least five years. Income limits are also being discussed, but Damschen said there’s value in keeping it simple for Utahns seeking to become homeowners.
“You can overcomplicate programs such that they’re not as appealing either to developers or to homebuyers, or mortgage lenders. So there’s a focus on simplicity. There’s a focus on the cost,” he said, noting down payment assistance would be available to first-time buyers.
Damschen believes the starter condos will be welcomed.
“It‘s not really single-family homes versus condos. It‘s apartments, rental apartments, versus condos. That‘s really where the initiative stemmed from, was generally, cities are more interested in … housing units that provide home ownership opportunities,” he said.
At the same time, making the transition from renter to owner by purchasing a single-family home is often out of reach for Utahns.
“Increasingly, single-family detached homes at $400,000, $450,000, $500,000 are not affordable to first-time homebuyers,” Damschen said. “But for a lot of folks buying their first home, a condo at $300,000 will do the trick.”
What homebuilders say about the affordable housing gap
Utah‘s largest homebuilder, Ivory Homes, backs the governor’s efforts. Chris Gamvroulas, president of Ivory Development, said the starter home program was initially geared to small- and medium-sized builders.
Asked if Ivory was interested in building starter condos, he said “we have so many other projects that are in our pipeline already that for us, it wouldn’t make sense. But I know there’s a lot of builders that are looking into it now and are hopeful that it can bridge the gap.”
Gamvroulas said high-density housing that for sale could enable more Utahns to earn equity rather than paying rent. Over time, he said, they could sell their unit and buy a single-family home like the ones Ivory builds.
“We’re homebuilders. We sell homes. That‘s our business. We want to get people into homes and have them own them. It‘s good for families. It‘s good for individuals. It‘s good for our state. It‘s good for business,” Gamvroulas said, adding, “It can be a condo. It can be a town home.”
Jed Nilson, the owner of Ogden-based Nilson Homes, is the first and so far only builder to participate in the governor’s starter home program. Now, he’s eager to do the same with starter condos.
When the JDC Ranch development near Plain City is complete, 275 of what‘s now 1,000 homes will be single-family detached houses priced for first-time buyers. The 12 starter homes built so far cost between $370,000 to $400,000 and were all snapped up by eager buyers, Nilson said.
“The governor did a press conference there on Thursday, Oct. 31. By the following Wednesday, we had a waiting list of 150-ish people. So there’s huge demand. We have done zero marketing,” he said, noting that list continues to grow.
The $10.7 million he received through the state program was used to buy 130 lots and add roads and utilities for the initial phase of the development started last year as well as to build the 12 starter homes, Nilson said.
The phase also will include another nine single-family detached starter homes as well as 70 townhomes priced under $450,000, he said, citing a requirement that homes in that price range must make up at least 60% of the project to qualify for the state loan program.
For the construction of the market-rate homes in that phase, Nilson said he took out a separate loan at a higher rate.
It took months to put together the initial loan from the state fund, made by First Utah Bank, Nilson said, so he initially had to fund all of the development and construction. “It was a little bit of a nail-biter,” he said, but worth the wait.
How the first starter home project came together
Nilson, who took over a business started by his father in the late 1970s, said Utah‘s lack of affordable housing is “my problem to fix. If anybody can fix the problem, it has to be builders and developers.” So why aren’t more participating in the program?
“Builders have been building large homes on large lots for the last 20 years,” he said. Bigger means more profits, even though Utahns are clamoring to buy smaller brand-new homes on smaller lots.
“I do still make money, I just don’t make as much money as if I were building the market rate homes,” Nilson said. “Here’s the thing that also helps me out, the fact that when I build these starter homes, I get to build more homes.”
He’s not just talking about shrinking the lot size to accommodate smaller, less expensive homes. Local governments have long resisted a push by state lawmakers for them to accommodate smaller lot sizes.
For the 240-acre JDC Ranch development that‘s expected to take seven years to build out, Nilson said with help from the governor’s office, he was able to secure permission from Weber County to build on about 30 acres that normally would have to be set aside as open space.
In exchange, he said the county expects a total of 275 detached starter homes built, so the development has been redesigned to add those alongside the homes originally planned, bringing the total number of units in the project to 1,000.
Lot sizes range from around 4,000 square feet for the two models of starter homes, to between 6,000 and 13,000 square feet for the market rate homes, Nilson said.
His starter homes have a deed restriction requiring the owner to live there, he said, so properties can’t get bought up by investors and turned into rentals. They also come with landscaping and fencing, and ongoing maintenance through a homeowners association.
“We don’t have to worry that we’re going to put in affordable housing and people won’t be able to afford to put their yards in or they won’t be able to afford to maintain their yards,” Nilson said. “Even if my last name weren’t on the business, I want to be proud of what I create.”
Starter homes will sell as fast as they can be built because there’s so little on the market for Utahns who want a new house priced under $450,000, he said, adding that his 12 starter homes all closed on the day they were finished.
“If I had a hundred more, they would all be sold,” Nilson said.
The next phase of the JDC Ranch development with more starter homes is underway and other projects are planned in Utah and Box Elder counties. He said there’s still some money available from his first loan from the state fund and his company is in the process of borrowing more.
Nilson said he’s also ready “to test one on the condo side,” using a loan from the state fund to build a starter condominium project somewhere along the Wasatch Front since “the true way that we start to create affordability is if we go up.”
Opening up the starter home program to condos “is a huge game-changer for the state of Utah, where developers like myself in a master plan like this where it has a thousand units, maybe we could have done some condos and brought it up 1,100 units,” at even lower price points, he said.
“This program is going to help the state significantly,” Nilson said, because including condos may be what makes it possible to meet Cox’s goal of 35,000 new starter homes. “Now I see how we’re going to be able to do it. I think it‘s really brilliant.”
Oregon baseball learned its NCAA tournament fate Monday morning and the Ducks are all smiles. They will host Utah Valley (32-27) from the WAC at PK Park in the Eugene Regional starting Friday. It’s …
Oregon baseball learned its NCAA tournament fate Monday morning and the Ducks are all smiles.
They will host Utah Valley (32-27) from the WAC at PK Park in the Eugene Regional starting Friday. It’s the fifth straight time the Ducks have been in the NCAA tournament, and their first time hosting a regional since 2021.
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Joining the Ducks and Wolverines in the regional will be Cal Poly out of the Big West and former Pac-12 foe Arizona, winners of the Big XII tournament. Cal Poly (41-17) upset UC-Irvine in their conference tournament. As for the Wildcats (39-18), they defeated TCU to earn that league’s automatic berth.
Oregon (42-14) enters the NCAA tourney as one of the hottest teams in the country, as the Ducks have won 11 of their last 12 games. The lone loss came in the Big Ten tournament to the eventual champions, the Nebraska Cornhuskers.
As the 12-seed, Oregon’s Eugene Regional is matched up with the Chapel Hill Regional, where the 5-seed North Carolina team is favored to win.
Oregon and Utah Valley will play Friday night at PK Park after the Cal Poly-Arizona game earlier in the day.
A couple who moved from Los Angeles to Utah about 45 years ago to run a radio station are now operating the only Hindu temple in a predominantly Mormon town.
SPANISH FORK, Utah (AP) — Charu Das was in Los Angeles in 1980 when a for-sale ad for a small radio station in rural Utah County — about 50 miles south of Salt Lake City — caught his eye.
Das and his wife, Vaibhavi Devi, have been longtime members of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) also known as the Hare Krishna movement, a Hindu sect that worships Krishna as the supreme being. At $225,000, ownership of the radio station plus the parcel of land around it, seemed like a bargain to Das, whose dream at the time was to broadcast Krishna radio.
The Spanish Fork property in Utah County was not far from the state’s largest freshwater lake, tucked away amid rolling hills with the snow-capped Wasatch mountain range providing a majestic backdrop. Most county residents were — and still are — members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, widely known as the Mormon Church.
“We came here not knowing what Krishna had in store for us,” Das said.
Today, the little radio station is just a dot on their lush 15-acre (6-hectare) campus. At the property’s center sits the Shri Shri Radha Krishna Temple, a 10,000-square-foot (930-square-meter) house of worship. Its architecture is unique to temples in northern India with ornate facades, domes, a large covered pavilion, overhanging windows and archways.
Llamas and cows graze on the property’s pastures. Peacocks crow as they strut around, suddenly fanning out their iridescent blue and green plumage. A lake provides water to cultivate flowers for worship and organic vegetables and fruits, much of which are used for a donation-based vegetarian buffet open to visitors.
“This place is like Vrindavan in Mormon country,” Das said, evoking the historical city in northern India, where Hindus believe Krishna spent much of his childhood. The city has thousands of temples dedicated to the worship of Krishna and his chief consort Radha — also one of the main deities at the temple in Spanish Fork.
Das and his wife said they hadn’t planned to build a temple. Initially, they added a log house where they held Sunday services and began breeding and selling llamas to support themselves.
In the early 1990s, Vaibhavi Devi floated the idea of adding a temple, and they eventually built two: one on their property and the other in Salt Lake City. They were completed thanks in part to support and seed money from devotees, the local Hindu community and Latter-day Saints.
The radio station took a backseat amid construction and management of two temples, he said.
Devi, an artist, supervised the project, channeling her creativity throughout the process, her husband said. She hired an aerospace professional to design the smaller temple domes, and an Idaho company that fashioned potato storage structures to build the large, main temple dome. She also spent six months on scaffolding decorating the vaulted ceiling inside the main sanctuary, painting dancing demigods, lotus flower motifs and masterfully crafting foam to look like marble.
The temple now conducts school tours as one way to support itself; about 4,000 students from area schools visit the temple each year, Das said.
Monica Ringger Bambrough, a volunteer interfaith liaison for the Latter-day Saints church in the region, helps coordinate days of service for youth groups at the Krishna temple.
“Our kids don’t get to see how others live out their faith,” she said, adding that the only two non-Mormon houses of worship in town are the Krishna temple and the Jehovah’s Witnesses Kingdom Hall across the street.
The Krishna temple’s biggest annual event is the Hindu Festival of Colors marking the start of spring, which draws thousands to Spanish Fork. It features color throws, mantra music, devotional dances and yoga. Das often takes the stage as master of ceremonies and “senior rapper.” He’s been writing rap songs, including one that captures a profound verse in the Gita about devotion and spirituality.
“The Bhagavad Gita is 700 verses divided into 18 chapters, which takes about 45 minutes to read,” he said. “But I have a three-minute rap version for you.”
Connecting with an audience through modern music has inspired him to spend more time in the radio station, which originally brought him to Utah. He’s experimenting with AI-generated music, including a country-western jingle advertising their vegetarian buffet.
“This is it,” Das said. “This is how we’re connecting with people. This is what Krishna brought us here for.”
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Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
Three years after the devastating accident that left him in critical condition with neck and spine injuries, Surafel Mesfin is graduating Logan High School in Utah.
Three years after the devastating accident that left him in critical condition with neck and spine injuries, Surafel Mesfin is graduating Logan High School in Utah.
Ahead of the 2025 season, Utah State football comes in at No. 119 overall in the SP+ rankings, third-worst among MW teams and ahead of just 17 other teams (all of whom are in the G5). In the MW, only …
It has been three seasons now since Utah State football was numbered among the best teams in the Group of Five.
In 2021, the Aggies caught lightning in a bottle and pulled off one of the most impressive season-to-season turnarounds in recent memory, capping it off with the program’s first Mountain West Conference title.
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Since then, though, USU has been nothing if not mediocre. Sometimes worse than that.
Last year, albeit amid considerable turmoil, the Aggies were one of the worst Group of Five programs in the country — and programs in general — with just four total wins. Only one of those wins came against a team that finished the year with a winning record (Robert Morris, which finished 7-5 at the FCS level).
The Aggies were competitive for a good portion of conference play in 2024, but competitive didn’t lead to many wins.
Given that, it isn’t a surprise that Utah State isn’t considered by many to be one of the better teams at the Group of Five level ahead of the 2025 season — or even a Group of Five program worth being mentioned.
Listed in order from the least likely to earn a College Football Playoff berth to the most likely, those 10 teams are:
UTSA (American Athletic Conference).
Army (AAC).
Louisiana (Sun Belt).
Liberty (Conference USA).
Memphis (AAC).
James Madison (Sun Belt).
Navy (AAC).
Tulane (AAC).
Boise State (MW).
Noticeably and quite understandably absent was Utah State.
Few expect much of anything out of the Aggies next year, who are certainly not positioned among the best teams at the Group of Five level.
Which begs the question, just how far away are the Aggies?
How Utah State football compares
By the end of the 2024 season, by almost every metric, Utah State was in the bottom third of the MW.
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ESPN’s final FPI for 2024 had the Aggies as the fourth-worst team in the MW — which was also where the Aggies finished record-wise.
A cursory glance at most statistical categories in 2024 found USU near the bottom of the league, save for on offense.
In three games played against MW teams that finished with a winning record last season, Utah State was competitive only once, against Colorado State. Both Boise State and UNLV handled the Aggies. When it came to competing at the level of the best MW teams, USU was far off the pace.
Expand things to the entire Group of Five and things look even worse for Utah State. The top 10 G5 teams last year all finished ranked in the top 67 in FPI. The Aggies finished No. 112. When looking at strength of schedule, game control and average win probability, USU ranked No. 93 or worse in every category, far off the pace of the best teams at the G5 level.
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Last year was last year, though. There’s not a lot of reason to rehash it too much, not with a new coaching staff in place in Logan and 50-plus new players on the roster. So how does USU measure up in 2025?
The most notable preseason predictor is ESPN’s SP+ metric, created by Bill Connelly. SP+ takes into account 1) Returning production; 2) Recent recruiting; 3) Recent history.
As Connelly notes, SP+ “is a predictive measure of the most sustainable and predictable aspects of football, not a résumé ranking, and along those lines, these projections aren’t intended to be a guess at what the AP Top 25 will look like at the end of the season. These are simply early offseason power rankings based on the information we have been able to gather.”
Ahead of the 2025 season, Utah State football comes in at No. 119 overall in the SP+ rankings, third-worst among MW teams and ahead of just 17 other teams (all of whom are in the G5). In the MW, only Nevada and New Mexico are rate worse.
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Everything about the SP+ metric hurts the Aggies.
When it comes to returning production, USU brings back just 31% of its total production from last season, the fourth lowest by any team at the FBS level. On offense, USU’s strong suit last year, the Aggies bring back just 19% of the production from last season. Only one team brings back less (Miami-Ohio). On defense, USU brings back 43% of its production, but that isn’t especially encouraging given the team’s defensive struggles last season. And the year before that. And the year before that.
Recruiting rankings don’t do any favors for USU either.
While 247 Sports’ Composite rankings has USU with the third-best 2025 class in the MW that is mostly due to sheer numbers. On a quality basis (average ranking of recruits) the Aggies rank in the middle of the league at No. 6. When it comes to incoming transfers, USU’s incoming class ranks second to last in the MW.
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Throw in the rough 2024 season, which featured the team’s lowest win total in a 12-game season since 2016, and it isn’t hard to see why SP+ does not look favorably on Utah State ahead of the 2025 season.
Could the Aggies proved the predictors wrong? It has happened before. Utah State wasn’t expected to do much of anything in 2021, but a veteran-laden roster — featuring the right mix of returners and instant impact transfers — exceeded all expectations in dramatic fashion.
The Aggies have been remade under new head coach Bronco Mendenhall, in a way not too dissimilar to what Blake Anderson did in his first offseason leading the program, though there are still a lot of unknowns about that rebuild.
Here’s what we know. Many — though not all — of the transfers USU has landed in the winter and spring are players who were at the Power 4 level but didn’t play much, if at all. There is considerable potential there, but not much proven at this point.
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Many of the incoming freshmen won’t be ready to contribute right away either, if they are even on the roster (some of the more notable signees will serving missions for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints).
Of the Aggies’ returners, meanwhile — as noted by Connelly — there aren’t a lot of proven contributors.
Everything points to a long term rebuild being needed in Logan. A one season turnaround is highly unlikely, and the Aggies are not currently among the best the Group of Five have to offer. Not yet at least.
Utah State linebacker John Miller (26) and safety Ike Larsen (6) celebrate with safety Jordan Vincent (24) after he intercepted a pass against Hawaii in the first half of an NCAA college football game Saturday, Nov. 16, 2024, in Logan, Utah. | Eli Lucero
Clayton Keller, Logan Cooley, Michael Kesselring and Josh Doan skated over to get a gold medal placed around their necks.
It was a mammoth moment.
Clayton Keller, Logan Cooley, Michael Kesselring and Josh Doan skated over to get a gold medal placed around their necks.
The four Utah Mammoth players suited up for the U.S. Men’s National Team at the 2025 IIHF Men’s World Championship and beat Switzerland 1-0 in overtime on Sunday at Avicii Arena in Stockholm. It marked the first time in 92 years (since 1933) that Team USA won gold at the Worlds.
The World Championship is an annual international men’s hockey tournament put together by the International Ice Hockey Federation. NHL players can opt to participate if their respective teams missed the playoffs or were ousted in the first two rounds. This year’s World Championship was in Stockholm and Herning, Denmark, from May 9-25.
Switzerland’s Leonardo Genoni catches the puck and the stick of United States’ Logan Cooley during the final match between United States and Switzerland at the ice hockey world championships in Stockholm, Sweden, Sunday, May 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)
After 60 minutes of scoreless play in the final, USA and Switzerland headed to a 20-minute, 3-on-3 overtime period. The Americans quickly ended the tournament on top.
Cooley corralled the puck out of the defensive zone and pushed it up to Tage Thompson who proceeded to rip it from the right circle for the game-winning tally at 2:02. Cooley’s primary assist on the play marked his 12th point in 10 games. The center had a cumulative four goals and eight assists which tied Frank Nazar (Chicago Blackhawks) for most on the team.
Cooley and Keller — who was named captain for Team USA — were atop the squad’s scoring production. The Mammoth duo was on the first line and played with both Thompson (Buffalo Sabres) and Conor Garland (Vancouver Canucks).
Garland and Keller had familiarity skating with each other; Garland was a fifth-round pick of the Arizona Coyotes in 2015. The forwards had three seasons on the same NHL team before Garland was traded to Vancouver in July 2021.
Following a career-high 90-point season with Utah, Keller posted 10 points (three goals, seven assists) in 10 games in the tournament. The 26-year-old was left off of the Team USA roster for February’s 4 Nations Face-Off and has his eyes on a spot in the 2026 Milan Olympic lineup. It is likely a reason Keller attended the World Championship for the first time since 2019. And his performance — both on the ice and leadership-wise — could bode well for him.
Cooley might be an under-the-radar pick for the Olympics, too. While he was not in the prominent conversation for 4 Nations, Cooley was a consistent difference-maker for Team USA this time around. The 21-year-old anchored the top line and showed the two-way, defensively detailed game that benefited the Mammoth. Cooley finished his sophomore NHL season with 65 points (25 goals, 40 assists) in 75 matchups.
Switzerland’s Sven Andrighetto, left, and United States’ Michael Kesselring fight for the puck during the final match between United States and Switzerland at the ice hockey world championships in Stockholm, Sweden, Sunday, May 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek)
Doan was the 13th forward for Team USA through most of the Worlds. The forward provided a depth role — somewhat similar to his bottom-six minutes in Utah — and had one goal.
Kesselring played on the third pair with the Chicago Blackhawks’ Alex Vlasic. The defensemen have seen each other throughout their hockey careers — they played against each other in Hockey East, for Northeastern and Boston University, respectively, from 2019-21.
Kesselring has joined Team USA at the World Championship the past two years and said it gave him more confidence going into this season with the Mammoth during which he took on a greater role. Kesselring had four points (one goal, three assists) at Worlds and 29 points (seven goals, 22 assists) in 82 games in Utah.
Barrett Hayton and Karel Vejmelka participated in the World Championship, too. Hayton had two points (one goal, one assist) for Canada while Vejmelka logged a .902 save percentage and 2.98 goals against average with Czechia. Both teams were eliminated in the tournament‘s quarterfinal round.
Sunday’s victory was not just historic for Team USA but gave Keller, Cooley, Kesselring and Doan winning experience on a major stage ahead of their second season with the Mammoth — during which they’re aiming to make the playoffs.
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