Utah State Football Team Honored at MS Dinner of Champions

At the 36th-annual Dinner of Champions, hosted by the Utah-Southern Idaho chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, Utah State’s football team was recognized as the 2013 Team of the Year.

Utah State concluded the 2013 season with a 21-14 win against 24th-ranked Northern Illinois in the San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl to finish the year with a 9-5 record and tie the 1960 and 1961 teams for the second-most wins in school history. With its win against Northern Illinois, USU posted back-to-back bowl wins for the first time in school history as it played in its third-straight bowl game, also a first in school history.

Utah State, who finished the 2013 season by winning six of its final seven games, also set the school record for conference wins as it posted a 7-1 league mark in its first season in the Mountain West to win the Mountain Division of the conference and advance to the inaugural Mountain West Championship game.

Utah State ended the year ranking tied for 37th nationally in both the Associated Press and ESPN/USA Today Coaches' polls, marking the second time in as many years that USU has concluded the season ranked among the top teams in the nation as the 2012 team was ranked 16th in the final AP poll, 17th in the final coaches' poll and 22nd in the final Bowl Championship Series (BCS) standings.

In all, nine awards were given out during the MS Dinner of Champions as Ron Jibson, chairman, president and CEO of Questar ,was given the T.K. McCarthey Silver Hope Award. Norma Carr, Salt Lake Community College athletics director was given the Lifetime Achievement Award. T. Charles Casper, assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Utah School of Medicine was given the Above & Beyond Award, and Bruce White was given the Living With Hope Award posthumously. Kyle Beckerman and Nick Rimando of Salt Lake Real and the U.S. World Cup Team were both named Sports Professionals of the Year. Olympic snowboarder Sage Kotsenbrug was named the Sportsman of the Year. BYU basketball and volleyball player Jennifer Hamson was named the Female Collegiate Athlete of the Year, and Utah basketball player Delon Wright was named the Male Collegiate Athlete of the Year.

Utah State plays its third game of the 2014 season this weekend as it hosts Wake Forest Saturday, Sept. 13, at 5 p.m., in a game that will be televised nationally on CBS Sports Network (Comcast Ch. 269/753HD, Dish Network Ch. 158, DirecTV Ch. 221). Wake Forest is the first-ever Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) team to visit Logan.

For USU football ticket information, contact the USU Ticket Office at the Dee Glen Smith Spectrum, or by phone by calling 1-888-USTATE-1 or (435) 797-0305. Tickets can also be purchased 24 hours a day at www.UtahStateAggies.com.

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