Yahoo Finance Utah State fires Gary Andersen after 0-3 start
Gary Andersen’s tenure at Utah State is over three games into the 2020 season.
Andersen was fired by the school Saturday, two days after Utah State lost 34-9 to Nevada on Thursday. The Aggies are 0-3 and have been outscored 114-29 in those three losses.
"After a thorough analysis on the current state of our football team, we believe a change at head coach is in the best interest of our program moving forward," Utah State athletic director John Hartwell said in a statement. "The continued success and development of Aggie football is a priority and we want to make sure we are regular contenders for the Mountain West Championship.”
Assistant head coach and co-defensive coordinator Frank Maile will be the team’s interim coach.
Andersen was in his second tenure with the school. He was much more successful in his first stint. Andersen spent four years at USU from 2009-2012 and turned the team from 4-8 in his first two seasons to 11-2 in his final season. That catapulted him from Utah State to Wisconsin.
He spent two years with the Badgers and was 19-7 before leaving for Oregon State after his unhappiness with Wisconsin’s academic standards. He then resigned six games into the 2017 season at Oregon State. He had just a 7-23 record with the Beavers.
After he wasn’t a head coach anywhere in 2018, Utah State turned to him to replace Matt Wells after Wells left for Texas Tech. The Aggies fell from 11-2 in 2018 to 7-6 in 2019 in Andersen’s first season back.
Andersen is the second head coach to part ways with his employer in this pandemic-impacted 2020 season. Jay Hopson was out at Southern Miss after the team’s first game of the season.
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Nick Bromberg is a writer for Yahoo Sports.
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