New assistant football coach ready to go
Lance Anderson had connections to Utah State even before he got a job here.
His connections made him excited to come, but it also doesn’t hurt that it’s a job he loves.
His father played football and wrestled at USU in the 1960s, and Anderson worked for four years with Aggie defensive coordinator David Kotulski at Bucknell.
Anderson was hired by Utah State head football coach Mick Dennehy Jan. 16 to replace Dave Reeves as an outside linebacker coach. Reeves took a head coaching position at Rocky Mountain College in Montana.
“I’ve always loved the game and always thought I’d like to be a coach,” Anderson said. “It doesn’t even seem like work to me, I love doing it.”
The move brings Anderson closer to his parents and family, which lives in Paul, Idaho. After spending four years in Pennsylvania at Bucknell and last year in California at St. Mary’s College, they’re glad he’s coming back.
“My whole family is pretty excited,” Anderson said. “Especially where my dad went to school here and played football here, and it’s easier for them to come down and watch us play and see my family.”
Anderson walked on to the football team at BYU after playing safety in high school in Rupert, Idaho.
He played on the junior varsity team in 1989 before leaving to serve a mission in Phoenix for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
When he returned, BYU no longer had a junior varsity program and Anderson felt he’d have a better chance of getting playing time at Idaho State where he was a walk-on in 1993 and 1994.
Anderson graduated from ISU in 1996 with a degree in biology and a minor in chemistry.
“Initially going to college, I knew I wanted to coach,” Anderson said. “That’s what I’ve always loved and always dreamed of doing, but I just wondered, financially, could I really be successful in that field?”
Anderson considered medical school or a career in pharmaceutics before deciding on football,
“I finally decided I really want to do something I enjoy, and we’ll find out if I can be successful at it.”
His career began as an running backs coach at Idaho State before moving on to coach in the semi-pro Regional Football League in Mobile, Ala. for a year with Tom Walsh, who had been the head coach at ISU.
“It was an interesting experience,” he said. “We had a lot of guys who had played in the NFL. We were working with some high-caliber athletes and it was a little different working at the professional level. What the players were trying to do was further their career and get back in the NFL. It was a great opportunity.”
The league only lasted one year. As soon as the season ended, Anderson went to Bucknell where he first met Kotulski.
“I was very impressed with [Kotulski], with his knowledge of the game, especially the defense. He has a great scheme and he can match wits with the best of them and we were very successful on defense.”
“I really enjoyed the four years I spent with coach Kotulski at Bucknell and I’m very excited at the opportunity to coach with him again. I’ve really learned a lot from him.”
As co-defensive coordinator at St. Mary’s, Anderson ran the same defense he had learned from Kotulski, which gave him an advantage when Dennehy started look for a new assistant to replace Reeves.
“A year ago at this time, we had a real dramatic change in the landscape of what we planned on doing here in the future defensively,” Dennehy said.
Because of the change in defensive scheme when coach Kotulski came in, Kotulski had to spend a lot of time coaching the coaches, Dennehy said.
Anderson’s connection to Kotulski and the defensive system as well as his ties to the area made him a natural choice, Dennehy said.
“He’s a great fit in a lot of ways,” Dennehy said. “Having coached the backers, having an understanding about what we’re doing defensively and the terminology, and he’s excited to be back close to home, which is a real plus.”
Anderson and his wife Sherri have two children, 5-year old Aubrey and Jaren, who turns 4 this month. Sherri is also expecting a boy in April.
-royburton@cc.usu.edu