Andersen part two failed, what’s next for the Aggies?
And just like that, Gary Andersen is out as head coach of Utah State football. After a four-year run spanning the early 2010s, Andersen lasted just 16 games in his second stint. For some, the glory of that earlier run now slightly tainted by the completed dud of the last year-and-a-half.
So where do the Aggies go from here? Two issues dominate the immediate future. Firstly, there remain five games on the schedule, and though Andersen is now out, Utah State football has to try and salvage this season. Frank Maile, the assistant head coach/co-defensive coordinator, will take the reins as interim head coach and attempt to do what Andersen could not do with this team this season: win a game. Secondly, the program needs a new head coach.
Let’s look at the latter of those two issues first.
All eyes turn to athletic director John Hartwell for that task of bringing in the next head of Utah State football. His resume for hiring new coaches is already impressive but he will have to nail this pick or it could set the program back for a long time. During a Nov. 9 press conference addressing the coaching change, Hartwell gave a long-winded answer about finding the right guy for the job.
“I don’t want to establish any preconceived parameters. I want us to find the best guy for this job,” Hartwell said. “Do they need to have an understanding of the return mission program, things like that? Do they need to have an understanding of Utah? Yea. But do they have to have coached here, lived here, have a certain number of people on the staff that have been here? No. I’m not going to box us into that, nor am I going to box us into saying that you have to have been a head coach. I want us to be wide open in this search and go find the best person, the best candidate to lead Utah State football forward. I’ve got some ideas about what qualities I’d like to see but I’m not going to be boxed in terms of candidates from that perspective.”
As for other things said at the presser, they were the usual clichés that pop up. A “national search” will be undertaken and interim head coach Frank Maile will be considered. All that jazz.
The outside candidates could be anyone, though speculation will be rife for weeks. A current fan-favorite candidate is Weber State head coach Jay Hill (and Hartwell may have subtly acknowledged that fact in his press conference). The 45-year old coach has built the Wildcats into a perennial FCS playoff contender with four consecutive postseason appearances, three straight Big Sky titles and three straight 10-win seasons. Aside from that prominent local name, Hartwell could reach anywhere to find his new man. Countless coordinators are eager to move up the coaching ladder and some head coaches would consider Utah State an upgrade from their current programs.
The timeline for hiring a new head coach is something fans are laboring over as well. Hartwell himself said he would prefer to have the new coach as quick as reasonably possible.
“The sooner the better,” he said, “because what that does is it alleviates the anxiety of ‘Who it’s going to be? What kind of coach is it going to be?’ All those questions. But I’m not going to rush to a decision. I want to make sure that we get the right person.”
Hartwell went on to state he would like to hire a new head coach “on or before Dec. 15,” adding that if they did so they’d be “doing well.”
As for what the football team will do in the immediate future, interim coach Maile will attempt to avoid being the coach of just the second winless team in Aggie history (the last and only winless year was 1941 when they went 0-8).
As many are aware, this isn’t the first time Maile has been interim head coach. When Matt Wells accepted the job for his current position as head coach of Texas Tech, he left the Aggies — taking all but four full-time coaches with him — when they still had one game left to play: the New Mexico Bowl. Maile and his ‘little staff that could’ prepared that team for the game which they ultimately won 52-13 over North Texas.
As for how different that experience and this opportunity will be, Maile said he doesn’t see a difference, aside from the fact that unlike the New Mexico Bowl, he’ll have an entire staff and coordinators under him.
“I was put in a place where I had to lead young men and coaches forward and I feel like I’m in the same situation again,” Maile said. “The experience of doing that for the bowl game helped a little bit.”
While problems abound on both sides of the ball, Utah State’s anemic offense has drawn plenty of ire. When asked about what his philosophy would be, Maile didn’t say he’d go with one style and seemed willing to keep the current style. But earlier in the press conference he did expound on the things that needed to be in place for success on offense.
“It’s always been about two things for me football-wise and it’s effort and execution,” Maile said. “Effort’s never been a problem with our team. Right now it’s really execution of our game plan and sometimes that means simplifying things.”
In that same answer he also commented on the talent the team has and the staff’s duty to put them in the right place.
“We have talented kids, we have good players,” Maile said. “They’ll play hard for us. They’ll play fast, they’ll play physical. But we’ve got to put them in better situations to be able to execute that game plan.”
Much like the man whose position he is taking, Maile is a defensive head coach by trade, meaning offensive coordinator Bodie Reeder will retain much of the responsibility as the resident offensive expert. Maile said he has no intent of getting in Reeder’s way.
“I told Bodie when I sat down with him about the offense to be him. Be him and do what he came here to do,” Maile said. “I’m the last guy to walk into that offensive room and start telling him what to do so I ain’t going to do that.”
The Utah State football program is going through a major pivot. Since 2009, Andersen has had an influence on this program both as the head coach and from Wells who was Andersen’s successor. In short time, the Aggies are going to permanently move away from that Andersen influence, the source of one of the best decades in program history.
@jwalker_sports
— sports@usustatesman.com