Utah State’s cowboy entrance took over Maverik Stadium this year. Bronco Mendenhall wants to make it a permanent tradition.

When the Utah State University football team took the field last week, it marked the end of the first season of a raucous new ritual that the Aggies are hoping to make a tradition.

Since the start of this season, riders on horseback carrying Utah State University flags have been leading the school’s football team onto the field at Maverik Stadium.

“This is something that we’ve always wanted to do,” said Colton Bair, the head coach for the USU rodeo team. Bair and his wife, Hilary, have been coaching both the women’s and men’s rodeo teams for the past five years.

Students and other Utah State faithful appear to love it.

“It gave me chills to see it in person,” football fan Landon Bullock said. “We need this to happen before every game.”

Fellow fan Tyson Butler agreed. “Having the horses was an awesome choice,” he said.

For years, the university’s hype protocol included the team’s mascot, Big Blue, leading the football team onto the field riding a blue motorcycle while the Aggie Marching Band played the school’s fight song.

Giving USU football games a more Western-style tribute took some work.

The idea began with Bair and Colton Allred, a university carpenter, who said he was inspired by the gameday entrances of other universities that led their football teams using mascots riding horses or those universities’ own rodeo teams.

“I just thought what a better way to represent our school than to have genuine cowboys lead out our Aggies,” Allred said. “Utah has a rich culture of rodeo, and I mean, with a coach that has the name Bronco, it’s only fitting.”

Bronco Mendenhall, who is in his first season as the Aggies’ head coach, loved the idea when he met Bair over the summer to discuss the football and rodeo programs.

“I love rodeo,” Mendenhall said. “I grew up in the horse business. My dad and I trained cutting horses, so I’ve grown up in the agriculture world.”

Utah State is the state’s only land-grant university, meaning it has been federally charged with disseminating research and practical knowledge to the communities it serves. The university has especially deep roots in agriculture and the culture of the American West.

“We were able to agree that this would be a great way to promote our land-grant university and represent agriculture at Utah State football games,” Bair said.

Mendenhall said it wasn’t just a good idea but a way to respect the roots of the university, which was founded in 1888 as the Agricultural College of Utah.

“This is an agriculture school,” he said. “How come the games aren’t representing that? To have such a cool history and a cool area and to not do something that honors that, that reflects that, it doesn’t make sense.”

The plan still needed to go through the athletics, facilities, and landscape management departments — and, of course, risk management. But it was approved on all levels in time for the team’s first home game on Aug. 30 — a 28-16 victory over the University of Texas at El Paso.

That’s where Allred saw the idea become reality.

“My family and I went to the home opener to watch the tradition unfold,” Allred said. “When the horses and the cowboys rode out, I heard cheers and gasps of surprise. Maverik Stadium got a little louder.”

Bair was moved, as well.

“It’s quite the adrenaline rush, having these performance animal athletes and team members charge the Maverik Stadium,” he said.

And Mendenhall joked that there was only one downside.

“After we did it the first game, man, more people were talking about that than the game,” he said.

USU rodeo team ropers Payt Goodey, Zane Brackett and Chantry Brackett are the primary riders during the football games. When rodeos and home football games have had conflicting schedules, other rodeo team members who were not competing that day have been able to ride at the game.

Mendenhall has taken a special interest in the rodeo team beyond the ceremony. He and Bair even watch each other’s teams practice.

The coaches aren’t done. They’re looking for ways to expand the rite — including, perhaps, having USU football alumni ride out with the rodeo team.

Many fans have asked how long this new addition to USU football games will continue. Both coaches expressed a desire for it to continue into the future.

“No matter how long I am here, I hope it just keeps going,” Mendenhall said. “I think it fits this school. I think it fits this community. I think it fits our team.”