Following the sudden departure of Bret Bieleman to Arkansas, it appears that Wisconsin has found its new head coach. According to sources who spoke to ESPN, the Badgers are set to name Utah State's Gary Andersen as the new head coach of the football program.
Since Wisconsin is a public university, the school can't officially name the coach until Thursday due to rules that say the earliest a state job in Wisconsin can be filled is two weeks after the job's posting. According to the report, Andersen interviewed with athletic director Barry Alvarez on Monday.
According to the Wisconsin State Journal, sources reported that Andersen was the top choice of Alvarez to replace Bielema, who left the school suddenly to take the head coaching position at Arkansas.
"That is the direction it is heading," the source said.
The Salt Lake Tribune says that Andersen is likely to take his coaching staff from the Aggies along with him to Wisconsin.
Andersen spent four years as head coach of the Aggies and went 27-14. This past season the team went 11-2, losing to Wisconsin and BYU. In the game against the Badgers, Utah State had a lead over Wisconsin, but lost 16-14 after missing a field goal as the last seconds ticked off the clock.
Utah State played in the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl and Andersen led the school to its first postseason win in nearly 20 years after dismantling Toledo 41-15 last week. Wisconsin is set to play in the Rose Bowl on New Year's Day, but Alavarez will be coaching the team.
Before playing in last week's bowl game, Andersen said he would likely stay at Utah State.
"Opportunities are wonderful," Andersen said in a story on Idahostatesman.com, according to SportsMadison.com. "It was very humbling the last three or four weeks to go through that process and be involved in jobs. You learn a lot, but you also learn a lot about yourself and where you want to be. And you sit back and take a deep breath and know who you want to be able to be around. I love the kids I get to coach here. ... The kids I have in the program, it just was not time. I look them in the eye and I need to be where I'm at."
One Utah State player, wide receiver Matt Austin, tweeted about the news after it started to come out.
Before coaching at Utah State, Andersen spent time as an assistant at Utah from 2004 to 2008, head coach at Southern Utah in 2003 and an assistant at Utah from 1997 to 2002. Andersen also played football in college as an offensive lineman and center. While at Utah he worked with head coach Urban Meyer, who went on to win two championships at Florida.
The 48-year-old Andersen was the defensive coordinator under Meyer when the team went 12-0 in 2004 and won 35-7 over Pittsburgh in the Fiesta Bowl and also in 2008 when the Utes went 13-0 under coach Kyle Whittingham and defeated Alabama 31-17 in the Sugar Bowl.
In his first two seasons at Utah State, Andersen led the Aggies to a 4-8 record and then improved in 2011 to 7-6. The team played in the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl in 2011, but lost to Ohio. This past season the team played in the same bowl game and defeated Toledo by a wide margin.
The Aggies had their best season in school history this year under Andersen, going 11-2, including 6-0 in the Western Athletic Conference where they finished in first place. The team opened the season with two straight wins before losing to Wisconsin, then won another two in a row before losing 6-3 to BYU.
Following the tough loss, Utah State won the next six regular-season games, including a 48-41 overtime win over then-No. 20 Louisiana Tech. Over the final win streak, the team scored at least 38 points in every game and allowed less than 10 points in three of those wins.
The Utah State defense was ranked eighth in the nation in scoring, allowing just 15.4 points per game this season and averaged over 400 total yards of offense per game. The Aggies were 33rd in scoring with nearly 35 points per game and finished the season averaging 204 rush yards, something Wisconsin also likes to do.
Wisconsin was just 7-5 this season, but made it to the Big Ten championship game since the two teams ahead of it in the division standings, Ohio State and Penn State, are both on college postseason probation.
The Badgers dismantled the Nebraska Cornhuskers 70-31 in the title game and racked up a staggering 640 total yards, including 539 on the ground.
Andersen ran a spread offense at Utah State, which is something that Alvarez has said the Badgers will not do. Andersen will have to deal with the departure of 2011 Heisman finalist and record-setting running back Montee Ball and will also have to find an answer at quarterback after the Badgers used three different players at the position in 2012.
Many other names have been linked to the Wisconsin job, including former Western Kentucky coach Willie Taggart, Miami's Al Golden, Oregon State's Mike Riley and ESPN commentator Jon Gruden.
The move is just the latest coaching change in major college programs in the past two months.
NC State fired coach Tom O'Brien and hired Northern Illinois coach Dave Doeren to take his place, while Tommy Tuberville moved from Texas Tech to Cincinnati. Butch Jones moved from Cincinnati to Tennessee, while Kliff Kinsbury was named head coach at Texas Tech after playing quarterback for the school in college.
Bret Bielema left Wisconsin for Arkansas, while Bobby Petrino, who used to be at Arkansas, was hired at Western Kentucky. Also, Gus Malzahn was named head coach at Auburn after working at the school as offensive coordinator under Cam Newton in the championship season 2010.
The Wisconsin job is considered to be one of the best in the nation, but with teams like Ohio State and Michigan improving this year, winning the Big Ten next season will be a challenge for Andersen.