Former Orem Star Cooper Legas Named Utah State Starting QB Against Wyoming

Nov 16, 2020, 12:54 PM | Updated: Feb 26, 2021, 2:33 pm

(Photo courtesy of Scott G Winterton, Deseret News)

KSL Sports

LOGAN, Utah – Utah State interim head coach Frank Maile announced on Monday that Cooper Legas will be the starting quarterback against Wyoming on Thursday.

Legas is a redshirt freshman from Orem High School in Orem, Utah. He was a three-star recruit coming out of high school. While playing for the Tigers, Legas threw for 9,770 yards, ran for 2,770 yards and accounted for 124 touchdowns and led Orem to back-to-back state championships.

It will be Legas first college football start in his first collegiate game.

“Cooper is a winner,” Maile told the media on Monday. “He’s a competitor and so that’s one of the main reasons why we recruited Cooper in the first place is he was a champion in three different sports. So not only did he lead his football team as a team captain to a championship in high school. He was a wrestling state champion, and he was a javelin thrower champion. You can kind of fudge a little bit with football because it’s a team sport. But when you’re talking about wrestling and the mentality it takes to win a championship in wrestling, that’s an individual sport where you call for no help and you can’t turn to anybody and so Cooper’s a winner at the end of the day. We’re looking forward to his leadership and his competitiveness to lead the Aggies to a W.”

.@USUFootball interim head coach Frank Maile announced that Cooper Legas (Orem HS) will be the starting quarterback this Thursday against Wyoming.#AggiesAllTheWay

— KSL Sports (@kslsports) November 16, 2020

USU Silent On Shelley Dismissal

On Sunday night, Utah State announced that they have dismissed quarterback Jason Shelley from the football team. In the release, Utah State said that Maile would not comment further on the matter.

During Maile’s press conference on Monday, he barely mentioned the QB situation in his opening remarks.

“They (Wyoming) lose their quarterback and so they get a younger quarterback coming into the game to play. So we got to take advantage of that. Just like they’re probably thinking the same thing with us this week with us having a new quarterback stepping into the light,” said Maile.

.@USUFootball is looking for a new quarterback. Interim head coach Frank Maile said he will not comment on this matter moving forward.#AggiesAllTheWay https://t.co/mUAAUJQN6A

— KSL Sports (@kslsports) November 16, 2020

Andrew Peasley Not Available For Wyoming Game

When the season started back in October, then-head coach Gary Andersen said that Shelley and Peasley would get reps. Peasley was not available for the Aggies in their game on Saturday against Fresno State. Maile said he won’t be able to play this week against Wyoming as well.