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Utah State To Hire Gary Andersen As Next Head Coach, Per Report
Andersen to make round two as Aggies head coach.
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Gary returns to Logan
Utah State has found its next football coach and it is a familiar name to those in Logan, Utah: Gary Andersen, this according to Jason Turner of the Herald Journal. An official announcement is expected to come Sunday.
Andersen reportedly beat out Rich Rodriguez, Matt Canada, and Mark Helfrich, all three were considered candidates for this opening.
Andersen will replace Matt Wells who recently took the head coaching job at Texas Tech.
In an odd twist, Andersen is replacing his replacement with the Aggies as it was Wells who became the head coach at Utah State when Andersen left for the Wisconsin job after the 2012 season.
Since leaving Utah State, Andersen went 20-7 in two years as the Wisconsin head coach and appeared in the conference title game in his second year.
Andersen surprisingly left the Badgers to head back to the West Coast and was named the Oregon State head coach. That did not turn out all that well as he went 7-23 and abruptly stepped down midway through the 2017 season. Since then he has been the assistant head coach and defensive assistant at the University of Utah.
There were reports that the boosters pushed to bring back Andersen who was responsible for the revival of Aggies football.
In his first stint, Utah State was 26-24, two bowl appearances and a bowl win in 2012 where the team finished as WAC champions with an 11-2 record.
Second stints as head coaches at prior locations can be hit or miss. John Robinson at USC was bad but Chris Ault at Nevada and Bill Snyder at Kansas State are success stories.
Bringing back a familiar face might have been the easy answer overtaking former Power 5 coaches who may view the Aggies as the first step in getting back to a power conference.
Whereas Wells might be just fine coaching for a long time in the lower pressure of Logan, Utah, while doing great things.
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