Aggies fall victim to the coaching carousel
EDITOR’S NOTE: All salaries listed in this article are from the USA TODAY NCAA Salaries page. Any pay the university guaranteed, even if paid by a shoe or apparel company or another source, is listed. Bonuses are not included but can be found on the USA TODAY page.
One year after joining the Utah State football staff, both Josh Heupel and Kevin Clune have been hired away to new staffs.
Its the second straight year Utah State has lost both its offensive and defensive coordinators.
Heupel started the mass exodus and joined Mizzou as the offensive coordinator on Dec. 17. Heupel said he was excited about joining the Tigers because of the program and the plans head coach Barry Odom has for it.
“First and foremost I believe in the person Barry Odom is and what he stands for,” Heupel said. “I believe in the vision that he has for this program … I believe this is a special place that has just scratched the surface of what it can be, and it’s a program that is capable of winning championships on a consistent basis.”
Clune was hired by former Aggie great Gary Andersen to be the defensive coordinator for Oregon State.
“Coach Clune has been with me a number of years and I’m excited that he will once again be on my coaching staff,” Andersen said in a press release after Clune was hired. “He is a proven recruiter, tactician, and shares our philosophy about developing and changing the lives of student-athletes.”
The departures of Clune and Heupel were not the only ones to be hired away from the USU staff. Joe Lorig, the former safeties coach in his time at Utah State, is now the special teams coordinator for Memphis. Ikaika Malloe, the former defensive line coach for the Aggies, returned to his alma-mater Washington to do the same job for the Huskies.
With four assistants gone, Utah State is in a pinch to find new coordinators and assistants to finish the recruiting period and join the team before spring football, which generally begins in March.
The Aggies are not strangers to finding new coordinators and assistant coaches. Utah State has shuffled through 11 coordinators or position coaches and had two head coaches in the last five years.
USU coaches most often leave to a larger school or conference with more opportunities to win big games and are often compensated with a larger salary.
According to USA TODAY’s Salary Database, Heupel was the Aggies’ highest paid assistant, making $232,420 at USU. The former offensive coordinator at Mizzou, Josh Henson, made $675,000.
Clune, who made $202,000 at Utah State, will fill in for Kalani Sitake, who left Oregon State to be the head coach at BYU. Sitake was the highest paid staff member for the Beavers at $730,000.
Joe Lorig spent two years at Arizona State and then two years with Utah State, where his base salary was $92,156. Lorig will move to a Memphis team who didn’t have a special teams coordinator last season. The lowest paid member of the Tigers’ staff last season made $204,000.
Malloe made $75,000 a year with the Aggies and moves up to the bigger PAC-12 conference to coach for the Huskies. His predecessor at Washington made $345,000 a year.
— kalen.s.taylor@gmail.com
Twitter: @kalen_taylor
I have been critical of the Statesman over the past few years, so I feel I should also applaud a story that used a fantastic graphic to draw me in and provide an easy way to understand just how much money these other schools can offer. I am left wondering, however, what the current administration’s plans are to combat this exodus of coaches from what appears to be simply a matter of salaries. An interview with someone in the AD would have been great and a quote from Matt Wells would have been fantastic as well!