‘God first, family second and football third’ — How Anderson’s philosophy is changing Utah State Football

As featured in the 2021 Football Preview Magazine

Sitting on a sofa in his office on the second floor of the Jim and Carol Laub Athletics-Academics Complex with his back facing Merlin Olsen Field back in August, Utah State head coach Blake Anderson leaned forward, looked me directly in the eye and shared something he regrets. 

“I think I did things really poorly, the first half of my career,” he admitted. “I was the first one in the office and the last one to leave.”

Anderson, who began coaching in 1993, did things this way for over a decade. At Eastern New Mexico, Trinity Valley Community College or Middle Tennessee, you could either find him in his office studying the game or at clinics and camps recruiting. Committing all his time to try and outwork everyone else. 

In the workplace, this had its benefits. Anderson climbed his way from a graduate assistant at a division two school to a co-offensive coordinator at an FBS school in a span of nine years. But in his personal life, working nonstop had its consequences.

“To be honest, with my family, my wife and kids, it took a toll on us,” he said. “It literally almost ruined my family.” 

This forced Anderson to step away from coaching in 2005. After two seasons away from the game, reprioritizing his life, he decided to come back. He took a job as offensive coordinator at Louisiana in 2007. 

His return came with a vow to his family. He was going to be different. He promised his wife and kids he would “put God first, family second and football third.” 

Fast forward 14 years, Anderson’s career has dramatically changed. He’s a head coach and has been for nearly eight years. He’s won a lot of games, mostly at Arkansas State, where he made six bowl games and won two Sun Belt championships. He’s now a head coach in the Mountain West. 

In his personal life, things are considerably different as well. One by one his kids grew up and moved out of the house. Then, tragedy. In 2019, Anderson lost his wife and “best friend” Wendy, after a three-year battle with cancer. Additionally, his father passed away the same year. In an effort to go forward with life, he moved out to Utah, remarried and adopted the daughters of his new wife, Brittany.

Through it all, the pledge he made to his family over a decade ago has become fortified. It’s ingrained in his D.N.A., preached to his coaching staff and players and is the lifeblood of his football program. Faith, family and football. 

In his first nine months in Logan, Anderson has made sure this mentality has rubbed off on the new coaching staff he put together. 

His expectation is that his coaches will go to their children’s sporting events or musical productions, even if that means leaving the office early one day. 

At organized team dinners, which are hosted by different coaches, Anderson has his team gather in a circle and hold hands while he gives a blessing on the food and a prayer for his team and their families. 

To get acclimated to Utah, he took his coaching staff to Beaver Mountain ski resort several Saturdays last winter to spend a day on the slopes. He also gathered his staff for a daily noon pick-up basketball game at the Wayne Estes center during the off-season. 

The night before Easter he became the Easter bunny, going to the houses of his coaches with young children, and putting “stick bunnies” in the front lawns. 

“I try to make sure to keep those things front and center,” Anderson said. “Clearly losing my wife, losing my dad — he just reminded me how important relationships really are — so I encouraged these guys to do their work, be efficient, do a great job of preparing but, but don’t be afraid to spend time on relationships.”

Outside linebackers coach and special teams coordinator Nick Paremski, who has worked under Anderson for five years, affirmed that Anderson lives up to his words. 

“I’ll tell him hey, my sons got a baseball game or whatever and he’ll say, go, nothing that needs to be done can’t wait till tomorrow, come in an hour earlier tomorrow,” Paremski said. “Our wives love him because he’s not keeping us at the office 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.”

This kind-hearted behavior by the head coach is “untraditional” in the football industry, according to running back coach Chuckie Keeton. But the chance to maintain balance in life has made the move back to Logan “a smooth transition” for him, while ultimately making him better at his job. 

“I look at it as you only get that time off whenever you’re efficient with how you’re working and so it’s somewhat of an incentive to work better with our days,” Keeton said. “And it’s really tough to be 100% focused on football if your life away from football is a little bit awkward, tough, or whatever it may be.”

Anderson’s philosophy hasn’t just blessed the lives of his staff, but it’s gotten the word out: He’s a guy you want to work for. That has helped him bring in new staff to Utah State that boasts an impressive amount of experience. 

One of those hires is his new defensive coordinator, Ephraim Banda. 

Before coming to Logan, Banda was a co-defensive coordinator at ACC blue-blood Miami, where he’d been coaching since 2016. Working under Miami head coach and longtime boss Manny Diaz, Banda was in a good situation. He was an excellent recruiter, bringing in the top safety in the nation in 2019 and 2020. And he coached up an elite defense. 

In his first season as co-defensive coordinator in 2019, the Hurricanes held offenses to 309.8 yards per game, which was No. 13 nationally, and in 2020, Miami finished No. 4 in the ACC in total defense. 

“I wasn’t going to leave for anything,” he said. 

But in late 2020, when he got a phone call from Anderson offering him the position at Utah State, he listened. Because according to Banda, the world of college football coaching is “a small world” and despite never working for him before, he knew Anderson would be a great boss. 

“You know, there are four or five coaches out there that you just hear stories about, that are just awesome human beings that you want to work for and he’s one of those guys,” Banda said. “Blake Anderson is like on the Mountain Rushmore of coaches you want to work for.” 

Knowing he would be joining the staff of a tenured head coach who “didn’t just promote family, but lived it” was the biggest factor that convinced Banda and his wife, Crystal, to bring their family out to Utah. 

Another coach who joined Anderson in Utah is the new wide receiver coach and passing coordinator, Kyle Cefalo. 

Hired by Anderson to be a graduate assistant at Arkansas State when he was 23 years old, then to his first position job at 27, all but one of Cefalo’s seasons as a coach have been under Anderson. 

For Cefalo, the opportunity to continue the journey with Anderson, who he considers to be the most competitive person he knows, was a no-brainer. Throughout his seven years under him, Anderson has shown nothing but trust and transparency, giving him the freedom to make decisions and lead his guys. This has given Cefalo the confidence to develop as a coach and made him incredibly loyal to Anderson. 

“I don’t ever want to let him down,” Cefalo said. “So I want to do the best job that I can, I want to work as hard as I can, you know, not only for myself, only for the team, but for him personally.” 

Along the way, Cefalo has gone through the highs and lows with Anderson, giving him a chance to connect with him on a deeper level than “him just being my boss.” 

When Wendy was originally diagnosed with cancer, Cefalo was right by Anderson’s side. He was there when she beat it the first time. And he was there when cancer returned, and Wendy ultimately passed. 

“Unfortunately, I’ve probably seen him at his lowest,” Cefalo said. “Things like that, you don’t want to go through them, but it’s the people around you who help you get through them. And he would ask me questions that I wouldn’t have an answer to…I’d just go and sit with him.” 

These experiences shaped Cefalo and have shaped Anderson. Surrounding yourself with people who have seen you at your worst, yet will still go through anything with you, is what family is about. 

And when it’s coaches of a college football team who carry a bond like that, showing there’s more to it than just coaching football, it’s something that can become infections.

“I think the players see a group of coaches that genuinely enjoys being around one another,” said Cefalo. “I think they pick up on that.” 

This is the culture that is being established at Utah State. Family first. A major upgrade from last season, when some players felt as if some members of the staff didn’t care. 

“I think this group of guys that we have, as a coaching staff, are definitely all genuine. I can tell that they all want to be here and they all want to win,” said senior wide receiver Savon Scarver. “So you know, it’s nice to have people behind you that want the same things as you do and are going to push you to be better than what you are at that same time.”

For Anderson, it feels good to have built something that has “affected more people around me in a positive way.” Putting God first, family second and football third began as a way to keep his family together but has turned into something which has strengthened an entire program. 

Anderson’s won more football games doing things this way and believes he will continue to win football this way as he begins his tenure at Utah State.