Utah State and the Dark Side of the Coaching Carousel

Let’s take a second and jump back in time to March 2018. We’re not talking about that NCAA Tournament, notable for UMBC’s upset or Loyola-Chicago’s run to the Final Four. We’re not talking about Villanova cutting down the nets a second time in three years or the great production out of Trae Young and DeAndre Ayton. Instead we’re looking back at Utah State basketball.

Before the 2018 NCAA Tournament even began, Utah State announced a head coaching change, dismissing Tim Duryea after three seasons as head coach. Duryea wasn’t a bad coach but hadn’t turned the tide for the Aggies much like had happened during his 14 previous years as an assistant. Utah State decided to go in a new direction and it’s a phrase they’ve found themselves uttering often over the last decade.

What has followed has been a unique situation where Utah State has made sensational head coaching hire after sensational head coaching hire while watching those coaches quickly head out the door for bigger jobs. The Aggies had not made the NCAA Tournament in seven years when they fired Duryea back in 2018, coming up short in their first five years in the Mountain West. However, they have since made six of the seven Tournament under four different head coaches.

First came Craig Smith, who broke that Tournament drought in his first season and led the Aggies back to the Dance again after the pandemic before leaving for Utah in 2021. Next came Ryan Odom, who got Utah State back in the NCAA Tournament in his second season before bolting for VCU and inevitably winding up at Virginia. Danny Sprinkle came to town but lasted just one season, winning a Tournament game before heading up to Washington and the Big Ten. He was replaced in 2024 by Youngstown State coach Jerrod Calhoun but the story was far too similar.

The Aggies just beat Villanova by double-digits before falling to Arizona in the second round of the 2026 NCAA Tournament. Not a full day later and Calhoun has already been announced as the next head coach at Cincinnati. It’s hard to blame Calhoun for taking a Big 12 job, let alone at his alma mater, but it’s a story far too familiar for Utah State. The Aggies are thrust into another head coaching search right as they’re about to enter the new-look Pac-12.

Utah State is far from the only program dealing with this type of issue but their recent success only highlights their struggle. The Aggies have reached the NCAA Tournament six times in eight years and most mid-major schools can only dream of that kind of sustained success. The fact that that happened under four different head coaches with largely different rosters speaks to the strength of this program.

However, the Aggies now have another important hire ahead and finding a fifth brilliant coach in a year isn’t exactly a proposition with the highest odds. Regardless, Utah State is an attractive landing spot and becomes even more prestigious as a Pac-12 destination. There’ll be no shortage of potential names for the Aggies in the days ahead but one thing has become clear with their recent success. Duryea had great familiarity but no D1 head coaching experience. Smith, Odom, Sprinkle, and Calhoun had all led D1 programs and finding another coach like that might be the key to continued success.

We’re not going to list out a bunch of candidates here, but it would be interesting if Smith gets attention for the opening after Utah fired him last season. After all, he built this momentum and just coached in the old Pac-12 and might be the stable name needed in Logan after all of these recent changes. Then again, there are some other brilliant up and coming coaches across the nation, but would it be only a matter of time before a Big 12 or Big Ten job lures them away?