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| Cause for celebration |
Thursday marked the second contract extension announced for Andersen in the past year, with a contract running through 2018 and giving a nice, hearty raise to both Andersen and his assistants. It undoubtedly also increases the buyout that USU would receive if Andersen were to depart for a bigger job at some point.
But more and more, I get the sense that Andersen really does plan on staying at USU for at least a decent amount of time. He's said it a hundred times at this point, yet the speculation continues that he's going to just up and leave the Aggies as soon as he gets a chance.
Tony Jones (still rocking the Aggie football coverage), tweeted a handful of things related to this very topic. One was about Andersen being sick of the those rumors that he would leave, another about those rumors taking some of the fun out of this season's success. Other schools are even trying to use the speculation of Andersen leaving as means of negative recruiting against the Aggies.
Andersen genuinely looks to be here for a while. His oldest son is just a sophomore on the team, and he has two boys in their senior year of high school who will likely end up coming to USU as well.
On top of that, he seems to love everything about carving out this legendary legacy that he's well-underway of leaving. He also appears to know that if he keeps doing what he does for another decade in Logan, a big, brass version of himself will end up sitting in front of Romney Stadium sometime in the future.
And even if that doesn't end up being the case as long term as Aggie fans would hope, this extension gives USU some financial security should the big boys come calling and Andersen is willing to listen. In the meantime, Gary will get more of what he deserves, as will his assistants (which he credits as being the most important part of this deal).
If I were a betting man, I would say that if the head coaching job at the University of Utah were to open up, Andersen would accept if/when he was offered. But Kyle Whittingham doesn't look to be going anywhere, much to the dismay of those who thought he would jump ship after an undefeated 2008 season. Whittingham is another one of those guys who seems to love where he is and what he's doing and doesn't see the need to take on a whole new challenge along with all the uncertainty that comes with it.
Regardless, this deal is huge for Utah State. It gives Andersen more of what he's earned, his assistants are getting taken care of and USU has more security down the road. This is a great day for Utah State University!!!
