When Blake Anderson was hired by Utah State on Dec. 12, 2020 as the program’s head football coach, it didn’t come as too much of a surprise.
Then-USU athletic director John Hartwell had a proven track record when it came to new hires. Namely, he wasn’t shy about picking coaches — in all sports — who didn’t have many, if any ties to the state of Utah.
Think Craig Smith and Ryan Odom for men’s basketball, Amy Smith and Kristin White for gymnastics, Manny Martins for soccer or men’s tennis coach Aaron Paajanen. The list could go on, too.
Hartwell went everywhere and anywhere looking for coaches, and often struck gold with them (though not always).
With Utah State once again conducting a search for a new head football coach — barring an announcement that Nate Dreiling will have the interim tag removed and will be the guy for the Aggies permanently — all eyes are now on current USU AD Diana Sabau.
The question is does Sabau have any sort of track record to suggest what kind of coach she’ll go after?
Sabau was hired by Utah State on Aug. 7, 2023, and since then she has been responsible for two coaching hires, three if you count Dreiling’s promotion to interim head coach.
The two coaches — not counting Dreiling — are women’s basketball coach Wesley Brooks and men’s basketball coach Jerrod Calhoun.
Both of those hires could, probably even should, be considered successes, at least so far.
Brooks took over a program in dismal condition, and though the Aggies are 1-7 overall to start the season there is a near unanimous consensus that things are trending in the right direction.
As for Calhoun, well. he appears to be the next gem of a coaching hire in Logan. USU’s mens basketball team is currently undefeated, rated No. 14 in the first edition of the NET rankings and boasts notable wins over Iowa and St. Bonaventure.
Based on early season success, it won’t be a surprise if the Aggies make it back to the NCAA Tournament for the fifth time in the last seven seasons, and contention for the Mountain West Conference title seems all almost near certainty.
The most obvious connection between those two hires and Sabau is Ohio.
Before coming to Utah State, Brooks was at Ohio State. Calhoun, meanwhile, was at Youngstown State. Sabau, notably, has spent the majority of her professional career in or near Ohio, as she was at Ohio State for two decades and then worked for the Big Ten from 2021-2023.
Will Sabau dip back into the Ohio ranks for USU’s new football coach?
Her basketball hires may suggest it, though in multiple public appearances over the last few weeks, Sabau has made it known that when it comes to the position of head football coach at Utah State specifically, she values head coaching experience, ties to Utah and an understanding of the culture surrounding The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Truth be told, in Brooks’ case, he had ties to Utah before coming to Utah State, too. In 2016 and 2017, Brooks was an assistant coach on the University of Utah’s women’s basketball staff.
Sabau wanting head coaching experience isn’t all that surprising either. Calhoun was the head coach at Youngstown State for seven seasons and wasn’t exactly an unknown in the coaching industry.
And after promoting Dreiling to interim head coach following the termination of Anderson, Sabau went out and hired a pair of veteran coaches to support Dreiling in his first time leading a program — Troy Morrell and Dave Weimers.
Morrell came out of a decade-long retirement to join the Aggies and was the head coach at Butler Community College for 14 years, during which time he won three National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) national championships and had a winning percentage of .875.
Wiemers, meanwhile, came to Utah State with six years of head coaching experience and a close relationship with Dreiling, having coached him at Pittsburg State and later working with him on the coaching staff at the same school.
When those hires were announced, Sabau told the Deseret News, “Nate is young. He is a really new head coach, and it was important to me, from a leadership perspective, that we give him the tools and the personnel that will make him most successful.”
She then added about Morrell and Wiemers, “We are bringing in two coaches that are going to add a lot but are really excited to be a part of Utah State and that is what I want.”
So far in her time at USU, Sabau hasn’t had to make a lot of coaching hires. The Aggies have a lot of established coaches in place, and where Aggie coaches aren’t proven its because they are still very early in their tenures.
When Sabau has had to make a hire though, it has been based on experience and relationships.
So far, her hires have worked out for Utah State. The next one, though, is the most significant of all.