On September 23, 2024, Utah State accepted an offer to leave the Mountain West and join the Pac-12 Conference on July 1, 2026.

At the time, USU was the only Division I school that did not have a women's basketball program besides the mostly male Virginia Military Institute and The Citadel.

[6] It took eight years for Utah State to post a winning record, finishing the 2010–11 season at 16–15 after reaching the second round of the WNIT.

As of January 2016, Aggie football has an overall record of 547–533–31 (.506)[8] After strong success throughout the mid-20th century, they struggled during most of the next several decades, following two ill-fated stints as an independent program and two more years in the geographically distant Sun Belt Conference after the Big West Conference, which had housed the Aggies since 1978, elected to stop sponsoring football in 2001.

Many attribute the decline to administrators at both Utah and BYU freezing then-superior USU out of the newly formed WAC.

To turn things around, then-athletic director Scott Barnes inked deals with TV stations, replaced the head football coach, raised funds, and accomplished numerous necessary reorganizations, despite the athletics department's financial disadvantages in comparison with other state and conference schools.

In large part due to his efforts, USU Athletics was crowned the 2009 National Champion of the Excellence in Management Cup, which seeks to identify the university that wins the most championships with the lowest expenses.

[11] After many years of futility, the Aggies experienced a renaissance under head coach Gary Andersen, who replaced Brent Guy following the 2008 season.

Of the women's sports at USU, gymnastics has probably been most successful historically, heading to the postseason 26 times, including five trips to the national championships.

[12] The soccer team finished the 2008 season with a perfect record in conference play, as well as a WAC title.

The USU men's track and field team has long enjoyed success, with a bevy of All-American athletes from decades past.

The most used sports venue is the Dee Glen Smith Spectrum, where basketball, volleyball, and gymnastics events are held.

Romney Stadium is built on a hillside, and appears much smaller from outside than it actually is, as much of the seating and the field are below street level.

Early USU sports teams were sometimes simply referred to as the "Farmers" as well as the Aggies, though the former name was never official.

Beginning in the 1930s, an image of a "bean-pole farmer" with a pitchfork in hand and hay stalk in mouth began to be used to represent the college, though this too was never made official, and disappeared following the transformation into a full-fledged university in 1957.

In fact, for a brief period, USU's teams were indeed nicknamed the "Scotsmen" as well, and a remnant of this era lives on in the current and popular fight song "The Scotsman".

[14] For a few years, USU used an actual white bull, painted blue, which was brought to sporting events and corralled on the sidelines.

[15] In 1987, USU Student Athletics Vice President John Mortensen decided that Utah State should still have a mascot and spent $750 on a costume for Big Blue.

Possibly Big Blue's most well-known antic was his tradition of rappelling from the JumboTron to kick off team introductions for men's basketball games.

The words are sung twice through without a break, accompanied by synchronized arm gestures originally created by a small students in Section K of the Spectrum in the early 90s (thought to represent milking of a cow by hand, but was actually mimicking the WWF Bushwackers entrance to an arena) the gesture eventually spread to the entire student section.