APEarlier this season, Utah State nearly pulled an upset over Wisconsin in Madison. Perhaps sooner rather than later, the Aggies’ coach could be leading the Badgers. Maybe.
Per reports from Sports Illustrated, ESPN and the Wisconsin State-Journal, USU coach Gary Andersen has spoken with Wisconsin athletic director Barry Alvarez for the position left vacant by Bret Bielema, who left earlier this month to take the Arkansas job.
Andersen led Utah State to an 11-2 record this season with a win over Toledo in the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl. Only five points — a 16-14 loss to Wisconsin and a 6-3 loss to BYU — separates the Aggies from an undefeated season. Andersen is 27-24 in four years with USU. He signed an extension with the university earlier this year that would take him through 2018.
Jacksonville Jaguars assistant Mel Tucker is also considered to be a frontrunner for the job even though he said he was not interested in the job last week “at the time.” Oregon State coach Mike Riley and Miami coach Al Golden have also declined interest in the job.
Alvarez will coach the Badgers in the Rose Bowl, but has said he has no interest in returning to the sidelines as the team’s coach in 2013.
Updated 12/19 8:30 a.m. ET: Both ESPN and the Associated Press are among the outlets reporting that Gary Andersen will in fact be Wisconsin’s new head coach. An announcement likely won’t be made until Thursday.
You gotta see this guy’s BS about how he’s never leaving Utah State in last weekend’s Idaho Statesman. It’s rich. They all say it, but he went out of his way to crow about it. He’s even got (sniff) an Aggie tattoo!
And they hired him: http://host.madison.com/sports/college/football/badgers-set-to-hire-utah-state-s-gary-andersen-as/article_9006c6ea-4971-11e2-aec1-001a4bcf887a.html
Trapperjd
It doesn’t explicitly say he was hired
Solid hire, but another HC with a tat of another school’s logo?
Will the spread be coming to Madison????
Wow that is a big time hire for the Badgers! I’m sure the sky is the limit in Madison now. Urban Meyer is not going to sleep well tonight!
Please note the sarcasm in my above post….
@ronin262
It is ironic that you throw out Urban Meyer’s name in your highbrow comment considering he too was once an up-and-coming respected, mid-major coach at a state university in Utah.
I’m sure that is just an oversight on your part…
Lets not forget urban Meyer hired Anderson at Utah.
Lets not forget urban Meyer hired Anderson at Utah to run the defense. The same utah team Meyer dominated. Why hire a guy with no experience or a cast off from a larger program, beilema had little going prior to his hire either.
Time will tell but I like this hire.
I’m more interested in if Barry put in some language to avoid another Bielema type situation in Wisco?
This guy should be a fine hire, but they need him to stay for a while….and they need to start finding QB’s like Russel Wilson more often so they can be contenders nationally.
intergalacticbronco,
Damn! hahahahahahhahaha very nice.
Love when someone shows how short term their memory is, but love when someone smacks them down even more.
Props to intergalacticbronco
Good hire Barry. Proven head coach, has won before. Hopefully if Neb has to hire someone soon they do the same thing. Hire a guy whos won and has experience in the captain’s chair.
Matckeeper, this is sports. Coaches leave all the time with years left on their contracts. All Barry can do is put a buyout in it and if another school wants him bad enough there’re going to pay it anyways. Barry can’t stop it and neither can any other AD out there.
Honestly, if we still had BB and had the choice him and GA, I would take GA. Hope it works out.
True that, bender..
I want to believe this is a solid hire and I think it could be worse. But a 58 year old guy probably isn’t going to be in it for the long haul. I know the guy was on a staff of a lot of good Utah teams but up until this year didnt have a very good head coaching record. Only time will tell and this guy should do alright. If not welcome back to the 1980′s Badger fans!
GA is 48, not 58…presto, 10 more years!
Boom! Back in business. Guess I gotta lay off the 5:30 Wisconsin Twitter updates.
Well the Big 10 can just look da ferk out cause Anderson is twice the coach Bullema is. Great hire.
Amen to that…
I like it. I like it a lot.
Houndofthebaskervols
Your confidence has made me confident in this hire. On Wisconsin!
After seeing Bielema screw up the ending of Ohio State , and Penn State games maybe this guy has the balls to go for it when he has the Championship game is his back pocket.
Sounds like the Badgers got a good one.
@brewcrewfan54….I can tell I like you by your name.
And yes, I understand this is sports….however, this is college sports, much different than professional sports.
These coaches promise kids (yes kids, remember how mature we all were/are at 16,17,18) the world on these recruiting visits and will leave them in the dust in a heart beat.
College football is the worst mix of business and sport in the history of sports. Ala the BCS, the Conference change insanity, etc., etc., etc.
But I do agree, this is the ‘sport’ of college football today.