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Utah State Coaching Search: Conflicting Reports On Gary Andersen Returning
Aggies bringing in a familiar face.
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Round two for Gary Andersen?
Utah State seems to have found its next head coach and it is a familiar name in Gary Andersen. Football Scoop is reporting through its sources that the former Aggies head coach will back on the sidelines.
However, there are other conflicting reports saying Andersen is not going to be the next Aggies coach and a national search is underway.
https://twitter.com/BruceFeldmanCFB/status/1069255943978803206
Andersen is currently an associate head coach with the University of Utah where he is a key figure in coaching the defense.
Having Andersen going back to Utah State would mark his second stint with the team. He was in Logan from 2008-2012 where he brought Utah State out of the depths of being an extremely bad football team and peaked as an 11-2 team in 2012, WAC champions and ranked in the top 20. Overall, he went 26-24 for the Aggies in that stretch.
He was then hired off to go to Wisconsin where he had success going 9-4 and 11-3 in two years, but then abruptly took the Oregon State head coaching job to get out back West.
He promptly went 7-23 and stepped down midway through his third season amid frustration with how the program was going under his watch. Andersen was very generous by turning down the $12 million still owed to him.
As for what this means in him possibly returning to Utah State, not all coaches which make a repeat stint work out. He could be a John Robinson at USC where he was nowhere near the great coach the first time around or he could be Bill Snyder who did a pretty good job returning to Kansas State.
For Utah State fans, this is likely to be perceived as a great hire, if it happens, since Andersen brought life into the program and there is a sense of continuing that with Andersen 2.0. Matt Wells did great things this year with his times at the Aggies and the cupboard is not bare, at least on the offensive side of the ball, and with Andersen doing what he does on defense this hire could work out just fine.
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