Austin Gatewood is in his second season as a senior analyst for defense at Utah State. The 2026 campaign will be Gatewood’s third year working for head coach Bronco Mendenhall. In his role, Gatewood works on practice planning, analytics and pregame scouting.
In his first year at Utah State in 2025, Gatewood helped Utah State to a 6-7 record (4-4 Mountain West) and its 12th bowl game in the last 15 years. With Gatewood on staff, USU had six defenders earn All-MW honors as cornerback Noah Avinger and linebacker John Miller were both named to the first-team, while defensive tackle Gabriel Iniguez Jr., linebacker Bronson Olevao Jr., and safeties Brevin Hamblin and Ike Larsen were both named honorable mention. Avinger highlighted these honorees as he was named a HERO Sports Group of Five Second Team All-American.
Utah State had one defender honored by the MW during the season as Hamblin was named the MW Defensive Player of the Week following his performance against Nevada as he had a team-high eight tackles, including a career-high-tying 1.0 sacks and a season-high 1.5 tackles for loss, to go along with an interception he returned 38 yards for a touchdown. Hamblin also recovered a fumble in the red zone at the 1-yard line.
Defensively, Utah State forced 17 turnovers during the season with 13 interceptions and four fumbles and limited its opponents to just 17 points during the year following 11 Aggie turnovers.
Gatewood came to Utah State after serving as a defensive analyst at New Mexico during the 2024 season. At UNM, he helped the Lobos to a 5-7 record, marking the program’s most wins in eight years. Highlighting their season was a 38-35 victory against No. 19 Washington State, snapping a 26-game losing streak against nationally ranked teams.
At New Mexico, Gatewood helped mentor three defenders who earned All-Mountain West honors as the team ranked third in the conference and 29th in the nation with two defensive touchdowns.
Gatewood spent the 2023 season as the outside linebackers coach at East Tennessee State. In 2022, he was a defensive quality control staffer with Vanderbilt and worked under USU defensive coordinator Nick Howell.
At Vanderbilt, Gatewood spent four seasons, starting as a football operations intern before moving into a defensive graduate assistant role, followed by a defensive quality control role.
Gatewood played four years at East Tennessee State, starting in 42 of 45 possible games and totaling 169 career tackles with 23 tackles for loss, 5.5 sacks, eight forced fumbles and two interceptions.
A native of Ooltewah, Tennessee, Gatewood earned a bachelor’s degree in physical education from ETSU in 2017 and a master’s in liberal arts and sciences from Vanderbilt in 2022.