There’s still more than a month until the first regular season of the 2024 college football season, but there’s already been one major coaching change.
Utah State University has officially fired head coach Blake Anderson after notifying him in early July that he would be fired due to allegations that he was not following Title IX regulations and upholding the university’s “academic values.” said in a statement on Thursday..
Thursday night, The Athletic reported. The investigation into Anderson follows an alleged domestic violence incident that occurred in April 2023.
“This action is based on a significant breach of USU’s contractual obligations regarding employee reporting obligations,” the university said in a statement. “These reporting obligations include prohibiting any employee outside of USU’s Office of Equality from investigating matters of sexual misconduct, including domestic violence.”
“Furthermore, Mr. Anderson failed to manage the team in a manner that reflected USU’s academic values.”
The formal firings come after the university announced its intention to take this action on July 2. On the same day, the university announced the firings of Jerry Boaby, assistant vice president and associate athletic director for external relations, and Austin Albrecht, the football team’s director of player development and community affairs, for “violating university policy regarding reporting sexual assault and domestic violence, and dereliction of duty.”
The team’s defensive coordinator, Nate Dreiling, will take over as interim head coach in 2024.
Anderson and They reportedly sent a 70-page document to the school. Earlier this week, following his expected firing, he posted a statement on X saying his former coach and his legal team intend to pursue all avenues to get him fired.
“Coach Anderson’s legal team believes that this decision, and USU’s purposefully inflammatory July 2nd press release, violates the terms of Coach Anderson’s employment agreement and the implied covenant of good faith,” Marrs said in a statement to X.
Anderson coached at Arkansas State from 2014-20 before joining Utah State in 2021.
He went 11-3 in his first year as coach and won the Mountain West title, but finished 6-7 in each of his final two seasons.
The Aggies open the season on Aug. 31 against Robert Morris.
