Column: Utah State losing coaches, players should be celebrated
On Dec. 23, former Utah State Volleyball head coach Rob Neilson was hired by BYU to be its new head coach after six seasons at the helm in Logan. In his tenure at Utah State, Neilson won four Mountain West championships and posted an overall record of 112-59, including an impressive undefeated conference slate and NCAA tournament win over Tennessee in his final campaign.
Since that record-setting season, the Aggies have also lost top contributors and several All-Mountain West players to various Power 4 programs.
For Utah State and its fans, Neilson’s departure was not a new, unforeseen development but a recurring reality. Just since Neilson’s hire in 2020, Utah State Men’s Basketball has seen three head coaches and numerous all-conference players leave for bigger programs before finding Jerrod Calhoun, now in his second season with the program.
JACK LEWIS BURTON Coach Danny Sprinkle talks about the game against Fresno State in a press conference at the Thomas & Mack Center on March 14.
These departures almost always bring bemoans and figurative, or literal, tears from Aggie fans as they weep what might have been. While this mourning from the USU faithful is normal and expected, the departure of coaches and players for bigger, more prominent or higher-paying programs should be celebrated and congratulated more than complained about.
As unfortunate as it is, the current landscape of college athletics does not favor mid-majors such as Utah State. The system has always favored the bigger schools with bigger budgets, and the transfer portal and NIL surge of the last 5 years has only exacerbated that issue. Every Group of 6 and mid-major fanbase can sit around and complain about it, but that will not change the reality.
Because of that, continually losing coaches and athletes to the portal and to bigger programs needs to be encouraged and touted as a strength of Utah State, not a weakness. After all, BYU isn’t hiring Neilson because he has a track record of losing games.
JACK LEWIS BURTON Women’s Volleyball Head Coach Rob Neilson encourages Andrea Simovski, 7, playing against Wyoming at the Wayne Estes Center on Nov. 8.
At the end of the day, a carousel of coaches and players is a sign of success for the programs and universities that are losing them. Using USU basketball as an example, the only former head coach in the last 10 years not to get hired away to a new program was Tim Duryea, who coached from 2016 until his firing in 2018. Duryea posted an overall losing record in three seasons, with no conference championships and zero NCAA tournament appearances.
That is the alternative to losing coaches to power programs.
Similarly, Utah State athletes entering the transfer portal to make more money at a bigger school is a mark of on-field success in Logan that likely led to conference championships and postseason play. However, players and coaches eventually leaving does not mean the fans and community should not invest in those programs and individuals.
“It’s not only how do you keep them, it’s how long can you keep them,” said head football coach Bronco Mendenhall on early signing day in early December. “The better that we do, the more tampering will happen … our relationships, our culture, our success will then possibly hold a player an additional year. It might not hold them for all five, but an additional year.”
The issue of successful players entering the transfer portal is not a problem just mid-majors have, but all college athletic departments. Such is the nature of pay-to-play. Though, as Mendenhall noted, the strong financial and vocal investment from the school and community may help keep coaches and players away from those opportunities, even if just for an extra year or two.
JACK LEWIS BURTON #1 Great Osobor celebrates making a 3-point shot at the Dee Glen Smith Spectrum on Jan. 20.
The days of Stew Morrill coaching Utah State to titles and NCAA tournaments for 16 years with Jaycee Carroll playing his whole career in Logan are likely in the past. It’s a sad reality, but a reality nonetheless.
Coaches and players will continue to come, and we should enjoy them, invest in them and cheer them on while they’re here. And when the time comes, we should hope they have enough success to be lured away and wish them all the best on their way out.