This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Logan
The visor that Utah State coach Matt Wells wears day or night and inside or outside for football activities serves a storytelling purpose.
Asked to summarize the two-month process of restocking his coaching staff, Wells responded by lowering his head to reveal further balding and graying on top at age 42. That's the apparent fallout of losing six coaches to other schools — undoubtedly the biggest turnover in college football history, without a head coaching change or any firings.
Skipping to the end, Wells likes how the new staff members have blended into the program and how the players are responding to them in spring practice. "These guys want to be at Utah State," he said, "and that's important to me."
That's not to say the departed coaches were unhappy in Logan or looking to move, necessarily. Having them picked off by other programs, including three in Power 5 conferences, is largely a compliment to what the Aggies have done, although two departures to Fresno State were less easily explained.
In any case, every time his phone buzzed with an unrecognized number in January and February, Wells became less eager to answer, wondering, "Who wants one of my guys now?"
One night, he reluctantly fielded a call from a friend, North Carolina coach Larry Fedora. Not again, Wells was thinking. So when Fedora said he just needed some background about a former colleague, that was a victory. The exodus stopped at six, even though the remaining assistants — Kendrick Shaver, Jovon Bouknight and Luke Wells — also were marketable.
At one point in January, Matt Wells and those three assistants were handling all of the recruiting. Wells was meeting with position groups such as the offensive linemen to assure them that he would find them another coach, before heading out on the road again. Wells cites only one recruit being lost in the coaching turnover and, using some creativity in the job descriptions, he filled the six staff positions and made other promotions in response to the losses.
"I'm not overdramatizing … probably the hardest two months of my career," he said.
That's life at this level. It even happened to Urban Meyer in Utah's Mountain West era, when he lost three coaches to the Big 12 and the Pac-12 after his first season of 2003. The side effect of Utah State's resurgence in this decade is having coaches become attractive to other programs, while the Power 5 salary scale overwhelms the Aggies' ability to keep them.
"Do the math," Wells suggests, explaining the departures. Even the likes of Group of 5 member Memphis overpowered USU in hiring linebackers coach Joe Lorig. Other coaches went to Missouri, Washington and Oregon State for considerably more money.
Losing two-thirds of his staff naturally caused Wells to field some questions about what in the world was happening in Logan, but "not probably as much as you'd think," he said.
And now the replacements are in place. Try to follow this hiring road map: Frank Maile returned to USU as co-defensive coordinator after two years at Vanderbilt, where he worked for one of those seasons under Dave Kotulski, a former Aggie defensive coordinator and now the linebackers coach. Mike Canales, a former USU quarterback, is back on campus 33 years later as the running backs/tight ends coach. Offensive line coach Steve Farmer came from Louisiana-Monroe, where he once worked with Luke Wells. Special teams coordinator Stacy Collins, then the South Dakota School of Mines head coach, became acquainted with USU last spring when he visited Lorig and studied the Aggies' practices. Cornerbacks coach Julius Brown had no ties to USU, other than having coached at MW rival Boise State.
That's a long paragraph, but it covers seven weeks of interviewing and hiring.
Wells' strategy included making Collins strictly a special teams coach, unusual in college football. As a former head coach, Collins can help oversee practice when Wells is focusing on the offense. That's the other piece of this staffing puzzle. Wells now will be calling USU's offensive plays, a job that may seem easy compared with the administrative headaches he endured in the winter.
Twitter: @tribkurt —
Aggies' revolving door
USU's new football staff members:
Coach, position Former job
Julius Brown, CB Boise State, CB
Mike Canales, RB/TE North Texas interim HC
Stacy Collins, ST South Dakota Mines HC
Steve Farmer, OL Louisiana-Monroe OL
Dave Kotulski, LB Vanderbilt DC (2014)
Frank Maile, DL/co-DC Vanderbilt DL
USU's former football staff members
Coach, position Current job
Kevin Clune, DC Oregon State DC
Josh Heupel, OC Missouri OC
Joe Lorig, LB Memphis ST/LB
Ikaika Malloe, DL Washington DL
Dave Ungerer, RB/ST Fresno State RB/ST
Mark Weber, OL Fresno State OL