So off the Mountain West wire, supposedly Utah State had some big-name candidates: Besides Gary and Jay Hill, we had Rich Rodriquez (West Virginia and Arizona), Mark Helfrich (Oregon), Matt Canada (Maryland), etc. So the following points should be pinned at the top of the board:

1. For our measly $1.1 million plus in little 'ole Logan, Utah, it looks like lots of high profile coaches think that's a pretty good gig, at least for a few years.
2. Further, it's likely that none of the above coaches think that being USU's HC would harm their career and could probably enhance it.
3. That in the future, when USU fans say "who are we going to get if we fire _________?" Remember, there's lots of qualified people that would love to make more than $1.1 million a year trying to prove themselves.
4. Coaches are not loyal, they do it for the money. That includes former Utah State head coaches and assistants, USU grads, etc. Loyalty should only be mutual -- there are not many Stew's and LaVell's; I will be loyal to Utah State first.
5. USU athletics are under the control of its boosters and fans (and yes Laub is No. 1, 2 & 3). Coaches, players, and AD's are roll players, but not USU athletics until they starting putting $$$ into the program over many years. The boosters' and fans ' voices, money, and interests will always matter. Without the fans, their is NO USU athletics.

I am fine with Gary Andersen as the HC. Let's hope he has the energy and the ability to still coach at a high level for years to come. If not, let's hope he quits or we have the courage to replace him.

Go Aggies !!!!!

Is it official yet?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Things have changed a lot in the past 10 years.

USUBlue wrote: ↑

December 8th, 2018, 1:20 pm

So off the Mountain West wire, supposedly Utah State had some big-name candidates: Besides Gary and Jay Hill, we had Rich Rodriquez (West Virginia and Arizona), Mark Helfrich (Oregon), Matt Canada (Maryland), etc. So the following points should be pinned at the top of the board:

1. For our measly $1.1 million plus in little 'ole Logan, Utah, it looks like lots of high profile coaches think that's a pretty good gig, at least for a few years.
2. Further, it's likely that none of the above coaches think that being USU's HC would harm their career and could probably enhance it.
3. That in the future, when USU fans say "who we going to get if we fire _________?" Remember, there's lots of qualified people that would love to make more than $1.1 million a year trying to prove themselves.
4. Coaches are not loyal, they do it for the money. That includes former Utah State head coaches and assistants, USU grads, etc. Loyalty should only be mutual -- there are not many Stew's and LaVell's; I will be loyal to Utah State first.
5. USU athletics are under the control of its boosters and fans (and yes Laub is No. 1, 2 & 3). Coaches, players, and AD's are roll players, but not USU athletics until they starting putting $$$ into the program as well. The boosters and fans voices, money, and interests will always matter. Without the fans, their is NO USU athletics.

I am fine with Gary Andersen as the HC. Let's hope he has the energy and the ability to still coach at a high level for years to come. If not, let's hope he quits or we have the courage to replace him.

Go Aggies !!!!!

I wish the fans had more voice, until we put in as much revenue into the program as what the University does our impact is limited. I would say that money boosters do have input as they should.

Stan being involved has made this a decent job before him this was a complete joke. If fans and boosters come out in big numbers this could be a very good job, that is the bottom line.

Oleblue posted:
I wish the fans had more voice, until we put in as much revenue into the program as what the University does our impact is limited. I would say that money boosters do have input as they should.

Stan being involved has made this a decent job before him this was a complete joke. If fans and boosters come out in big numbers this could be a very good job, that is the bottom line.
[/quote]

Mr. Oleblue:
If you are referring to a Laub, I think it is time you realize that Stan Laub is long deceased. And referring to him by his first name is even more inappropriate. I apologize in advance if you meant another Stan, but would advise not using first name only as if you are a close acquaintance.

What about Stan Albrecht

hipsterdoofus21 wrote: ↑

December 8th, 2018, 2:16 pm

What about Stan Albrecht

That is possibly whom he meant, but his last point was about fan and booster support followed by his reference to "Stan" whose name, of course, is on the new north end zone facility but the result of a multimillion donation by the Jim Laub family. At no point did he mention the AD or USU President. But then again, maybe he is on a first name basis with Mr. Albrecht and that is to whom he was referring.

tinplater wrote: ↑

December 8th, 2018, 2:21 pm

hipsterdoofus21 wrote: ↑

December 8th, 2018, 2:16 pm

What about Stan Albrecht

That is possibly whom he meant, but his last point was about fan and booster support followed by his reference to "Stan" whose name, of course, is on the new north end zone facility but the result of a multimillion donation by the Jim Laub family. At no point did he mention the AD or USU President. But then again, maybe he is on a first name basis with Mr. Albrecht and that is to whom he was referring.

“First name basis.”

Give me a break, Mr. Plater. You don’t need to be on a first name basis with Stan Albrecht to refer to him by his first name on an internet forum.

Yea SA is still very influential at USU. if he wanted GA then that carries a LOT of weight.

had US gone 3-9 Matt Wells been fired, would that same list have been interested?

You guys can call me by my first name even after I die. After all that's what name are for.

YoungBloodAggie wrote: ↑

December 8th, 2018, 2:26 pm

tinplater wrote: ↑

December 8th, 2018, 2:21 pm

hipsterdoofus21 wrote: ↑

December 8th, 2018, 2:16 pm

What about Stan Albrecht

That is possibly whom he meant, but his last point was about fan and booster support followed by his reference to "Stan" whose name, of course, is on the new north end zone facility but the result of a multimillion donation by the Jim Laub family. At no point did he mention the AD or USU President. But then again, maybe he is on a first name basis with Mr. Albrecht and that is to whom he was referring.

“First name basis.”

Give me a break, Mr. Plater. You don’t need to be on a first name basis with Stan Albrecht to refer to him by his first name on an internet forum.

Agree, except when there are two Stan's in the possible conversation, and when the focus of the discussion was on boosters and fans. Break given.

Blitz79 wrote: ↑

December 8th, 2018, 2:35 pm

You guys can call me by my first name even after I die. After all that's what name are for.

Talking about first names reminds me of a couple funny things. I was writing a letter to the mayor as a requirement for a scout merit badge. My mom saw it addressing him as Doug, and told me I should say Mr or Mayor Thompson, then my dad was like "He probably gets called worse things than his first name."

And in 6th grade, we were learning about debate and the teacher let us pick whatever topic the whole class wanted to debate. One kid suggested if we can call a teacher by their first name. Everyone in the class liked that and raised their hand to vote for that one. There was only one problem with that topic. The problem? Half the class had to argue siding with having to say Mr. and Mrs. as the whole class couldn't argue in favor of first names.

Wasn’t your point first names are inappropriate? I understand it was confusing. But you said if it’s Laub it’s inappropriate.

This isn’t 18th century London and he isn’t royalty. In America the first name basis is endearing

Imakeitrain wrote: ↑

December 8th, 2018, 3:19 pm

Wasn’t your point first names are inappropriate? I understand it was confusing. But you said if it’s Laub it’s inappropriate.

This isn’t 18th century London and he isn’t royalty. In America the first name basis is endearing

I felt it was inappropriate to refer to dead in a car accident "Stan" because it is not correct...Stan Laub did not make the facility gifts received from his brother Jim (whom I feel perfectly comfortable in this context to refer to by his first name). I have been a life long friend of brother Jack Laub and guess I am perhaps overly sensitive.

tinplater wrote: ↑

December 8th, 2018, 2:21 pm

hipsterdoofus21 wrote: ↑

December 8th, 2018, 2:16 pm

What about Stan Albrecht

That is possibly whom he meant, but his last point was about fan and booster support followed by his reference to "Stan" whose name, of course, is on the new north end zone facility but the result of a multimillion donation by the Jim Laub family. At no point did he mention the AD or USU President. But then again, maybe he is on a first name basis with Mr. Albrecht and that is to whom he was referring.

if you want to be completely accurate Stan Laub's name is on the indoor practice facility, not the North end zone that of course is named for Jim and his wife, of course I was talking about S.Albrecht.as to the one that made the job a decent one. I shall try to be clear in the posts in the future so everyone can figure out what I'm talking about. I do know Mr Albrecht as Stan, also I made a contribution to the Stan Laub facility back in the day. Even if I had meant that Stan Laub did make USU a decent job I fail to see that as a insult.

USUBlue wrote: ↑

December 8th, 2018, 1:20 pm

So off the Mountain West wire, supposedly Utah State had some big-name candidates: Besides Gary and Jay Hill, we had Rich Rodriquez (West Virginia and Arizona), Mark Helfrich (Oregon), Matt Canada (Maryland), etc. So the following points should be pinned at the top of the board:

1. For our measly $1.1 million plus in little 'ole Logan, Utah, it looks like lots of high profile coaches think that's a pretty good gig, at least for a few years.
2. Further, it's likely that none of the above coaches think that being USU's HC would harm their career and could probably enhance it.
3. That in the future, when USU fans say "who are we going to get if we fire _________?" Remember, there's lots of qualified people that would love to make more than $1.1 million a year trying to prove themselves.
4. Coaches are not loyal, they do it for the money. That includes former Utah State head coaches and assistants, USU grads, etc. Loyalty should only be mutual -- there are not many Stew's and LaVell's; I will be loyal to Utah State first.
5. USU athletics are under the control of its boosters and fans (and yes Laub is No. 1, 2 & 3). Coaches, players, and AD's are roll players, but not USU athletics until they starting putting $$$ into the program over many years. The boosters' and fans ' voices, money, and interests will always matter. Without the fans, their is NO USU athletics.

I am fine with Gary Andersen as the HC. Let's hope he has the energy and the ability to still coach at a high level for years to come. If not, let's hope he quits or we have the courage to replace him.

Go Aggies !!!!!

I know this is at least partly directed at me, so I'll bite.

First, are you excited by this list of names? Because I'm really not. It's basically a list of unemployed former P5 coaches who got fired by their previous employers. (And in the case of Rich Rod, he didn't just fail to win games but there was also sexual misconduct involved.) I would take GA over any of the P5 retreads listed above, and I'm no huge fan of GA. I would have preferred either Lance Anderson or Jay Hill to GA. But at least GA knows how to recruit and win in Utah, which is more than I can say for the other names mentioned.

Second, I think our current football coaching job is far more attractive than our basketball job was last year. We are returning most of the two-deep from a top 25 team. This would be a great opportunity to come in and win for a couple years before moving on to a better job. Duryea left a team that had one MWC-level player and looked like it was going to be a cellar dweller for the indefinite future. Also, I believe Matt Wells' salary was the 4th-highest salary in the conference. In any event, a 5-year contract worth over a million per year is almost enough to retire on even if you fail. So you should get some decent names interested in that. That's a far cry from the $300k salary we were paying Duryea (which was at the bottom of the MWC). Also, we are about to get the buyout money on Wells' contract, whereas we had to pay Duryea for the balance of his contract. There are many reasons why it's much easier to replace a coach who left for a new job because he was winning than it is to replace a coach who was fired because he was losing.

Also, it is worth pointing out that if the reports on this board can be believed, aside from Smith, the other two finalists for last year's basketball opening were Joe Dooley and Barret Peery. I know I wasn't the only one on the board who was underwhelmed by those two names. To be clear, I'm thrilled with Smith thus far. But we may have gotten really luck with him. If he had turned us down, the remaining candidates had far less impressive resumes. So yes, I was definitely wrong when I advocated given Duryea another year. I will openly admit to that. But I also don't think I was crazy to worry that we might have trouble finding a good coach to replace Duryea. It looks like we got a good one, but we very nearly didn't.

Finally, I'll just point out that USU tried the "fire the coach every 3-5 years" approach to building its football program for a couple decades. We had a couple good years here and there but no sustained success. And most of the time the new coach was no better (and quite often worse) than the coach he replaced. The program didn't experience sustained success until we started investing money to improve our facilities and paying coaches better salaries. I do think USU has a lot of good things going for it right now, especially in football. I hope GA wins and stays for a while, but I'm optimistic that we can find a good replacement if he fails or if he burns out again. But I also hope that we continue fundraising and investing in facilities, because there's nothing magic about USU that is going to attract good coaches if we fall behind our peers in terms of salaries and facilities.

Yeah, I'm not overly impressed with that list either. Some of those coaches I wouldn't want anywhere near the Aggie program. Nor do we know whether any of those coaches were interested enough to take the job if offered on terms with which USU would be comfortable. I'm excited about Gary, but I hope USU includes some protections in the agreement that were not included in Wells's contract (or Gary's prior contract) in terms of requiring notice and permission before interviewing for another job, non-solicitation of players and recruits, sanctioned departures only after season/bowl games, and a significant buyout. If Gary truly is on board for the long haul, he shouldn't have a problem with any of that.

The buy out can be a two way street if USU needs to fire him a $3 million dollar contract buy out might not be so good. I thought the contract with Wells and Tim seemed very poorly done.

I'm not overly impressed with the list, though, it is far more appealing than what we would have seen 10 years ago.

Boosters influence the programs at most major colleges, especially in the SEC. Arizona State flirted with Navy's head coach until major boosters stepped in and said no way to the triple option.