LOGAN, Utah — Forty three miles down the road in Ogden, Utah, where the University of Hawai'i practiced yesterday, Weber State is ranked 13th in the NCAA's Football Championship Subdivision (formerly Division I-AA).

Further down the highway, 78 miles away, in Salt Lake City, there is excitement about 10th-ranked Utah's Bowl Championship Series possibilities.

And, in Provo, Brigham Young is No. 17.

Everywhere you look in the Beehive State, it seems, there is, well, a buzz about winning football.

Well, almost everywhere.

Utah State — the Warriors' opponent today in a 9 a.m. (Hawai'i time) Western Athletic Conference game — is the program that success forgot.

More like bypassed completely. What the 1-7 (1-3 WAC) Aggies are experiencing is referred to hereabouts as "Aggony." It is 11 consecutive losing seasons and no turnaround in sight.

Aggies' coach Brent Guy is in the fourth year of a five-year contract. At 7-36, he might need a victory over UH today to save his job in a place where the accumulated frustrations have mounted like the nearby Wasatch Range. If 25,513-seat Romney Stadium is even half full, it will be a surprise.

Guy and the Aggies nearly had a statement-maker last week — until a 58-yard field goal on the game's final play spelled a devastating 30-28 loss to Fresno State on homecoming.

Once upon a time Utah State was a power in the region and jealousy, some Aggies will tell you, is what prompted BYU and Utah to keep State out of the mix when the WAC was born in 1962. For the past 20 years the Aggies have been the poor stepchild in the state, not admitted to the WAC until Utah and BYU had fled, and not invited into the Mountain West.

Lacking visibility and existing on one of the WAC's thinnest athletic budgets, the Aggies have struggled everywhere they have been in recent years: as an independent, in the Sun Belt and now the WAC. The Aggies' struggles against UH have, as much as anything, underlined the gap. UH has won the three previous WAC meetings by a combined 165-70.

Guy is a class act, a man who has tried to do the right things in a difficult situation. And people here will tell you that there is sentiment for keeping him, if only there was a sign that progress is being made and corners are being turned.

Which is why today's game could carry an importance beyond whether or not the Aggies avoid the WAC cellar. Today is the penultimate home game of an Aggie season that — barring a win here — is heading for a third consecutive double digit loss mark. As such the game against the defending WAC champions represents, for the Aggies and their coach, an opportunity. Maybe even a last-ditch one.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8044.