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The best season in Utah State football history officially ended Tuesday morning as the Aggies were ranked No. 16 in the final Associated Press poll of the season and No. 17 in the last ESPN/USA Today Coaches' poll.
Following Alabama's 42-14 trouncing of Notre Dame in the BCS National Championship game Monday night, Utah State was ranked No. 22 in the final Bowl Championship Series (BCS) standings of the season.
It was the first time the program ended a college football season ranked since 1972 when the Aggies finished with an 8-3 record and were ranked No. 19 in the final United Press International (UPI) poll of the year.
This year's Aggies were just one of 17 teams to finish the year with 11 or more wins during the 2012-13 season, ending the year 11-2, winning the Western Athletic Conference crown and defeating Toledo 41-15 in the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl in Boise on Dec. 15. Utah State won its first outright conference championship since 1936 and just its third in school history joining the 1921 and 1936 teams that both won Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference titles.
Utah State received 456 votes in the final AP poll, up from 379 votes in the last poll released on Dec. 2, when the team was ranked No. 18. In the last coaches' poll of the season, Utah State earned 444 votes after garnering 334 votes in its previous poll when team was ranked No. 20 in the nation.
The Aggies ended the 2012-13 year ranked in the AP poll for four-consecutive weeks for the first time in school history. That achievement bested the 1960 Utah State football team that was ranked No. 18 and 19 nationally in back-to-back weeks. The ranking in the final AP poll is just the seventh time in school history that Utah State was nationally ranked in a weekly AP poll.
This year was also a first for the Utah State program in that it was ranked in its first-ever USA Today Coaches' poll, which began in 1991. The Aggies had also never appeared in the BCS standings prior to this season.