Badgers Wire revisits the annual salaries of Wisconsin’s head football coaches over the past decade.
The salaries of college football head coaches have skyrocketed in recent years, owing to the increasingly aggressive arms race among the nation’s top programs.
To get an idea of how rapidly coaching salaries are rising, Badgers Wire lists the annual compensation paid out to University of Wisconsin head football coaches over the past decade below.
The matchup between the two schools is the first since 2013. The two have met four times overall, twice in the 1960s and twice in the 2010s. The 2013 matchup is by far the most memorable, though, as it ended on one of the worst officiating jobs in NCAA history.
The Joel Stave-led Badgers were driving on the Sun Devils after getting the ball down 32-30 on their own 17 yard-line with 1:31 left in the game. Stave hit Jordan Fredrick for a 6-yard gain, Jeff Duckworth for 51 yards, Jacob Pedersen for 7 and Jared Abbrederis for 6 yards to get Wisconsin down to the Arizona State 13 yard line.
What happened next was chaos (if you remember this vividly, sorry for making you re-live it):
Joel Stave centered the football for the kicking unit, a Sun Devil dove on the football and the refs did absolutely nothing about it while the clock ticked down.
Wisconsin will now get a chance for revenge when the two schools face off in Las Vegas on December 30. Hopefully, it isn’t the same Pac 12 referee crew this time around.
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For the Green Bay Packer fans out there that also are big followers of Wisconsin football, you probably know the current saga that is Aaron
For the Green Bay Packer fans out there that are also big followers of Wisconsin football, you probably know the current saga that is Aaron Rodgers reportedly wanting out of Green Bay.
An igniting force behind the current situation is the Packers’ selection of quarterback Jordan Love in the first round of last year’s NFL draft.
This is a Wisconsin sports website, so I’m not here to lay down a take about what the Packers should do. What I can do, though, is tell everyone about Love’s Wisconsin Badger connection that is flying largely under the radar.
So Love played for the Utah State Aggies from 2017-2019. During his time at the school, the Aggies actually visited Camp Randall and lost during the famous Jonathan Taylor debut game in 2017.
But that isn’t the connection at hand, as Love didn’t play in that contest. But he did end up starting the rest of that season and put up average numbers for a freshman.
Now fast forward to 2018, Love’s breakout year. The quarterback started all 13 games, completed 64 percent of his passes and threw for 3567 yards, 32 touchdowns and only 6 interceptions.
That was Matt Wells’ last year at Utah State before moving on to Texas Tech.
His replacement in 2019? Former Wisconsin football coach Gary Andersen. Yes, Andersen coached Jordan Love during his third and final year of college football.
After Wisconsin’s disappointing loss to the undefeated Northwestern Wildcats, the Badgers have surprisingly, not fallen in the latest USA…
After Wisconsin’s disappointing loss to the undefeated Northwestern Wildcats, the Badgers have surprisingly, not fallen in the latest USA TODAY bowl projections. Wisconsin is projected by USA TODAY to play the Auburn Tigers in the Outback Bowl. The Tigers are a change from last week’s projections when the Badgers were projected to play the Ole Miss Rebels in the Outback Bowl.
Auburn may be a familiar team for many Wisconsin fans, as the teams played against each other most recently in the 2015 Outback Bowl under head coach Barry Alvarez where the Badgers won 34-31 in overtime. This was following the resignation of former head coach Gary Andersen after Wisconsin’s 59-0 loss to Ohio State in the Big Ten Championship game.
Jan 1, 2015; Tampa, FL, USA; Wisconsin Badgers running back Melvin Gordon (25) loses control of the ball in the second half of the 2015 Outback Bowl at Raymond James Stadium. The Badgers defeated the Tigers 34-31 in overtime. Mandatory Credit: Jonathan Dyer-USA TODAY Sports
Auburn and Wisconsin have played each other three other times in their history with Wisconsin leading the series at 2-1-1. The first game between the sides happened on Oct. 10, 1931, where they tied 7-7 at Camp Randall.
The College Football Playoff teams remain the same for this week with Notre Dame, Ohio State, Alabama, and Clemson keeping their projections.
Andersen was the head coach for Wisconsin for two seasons in 2013 and 2014 and led the team to a 19-6 regular-season record. He is most well known among Badger fans for leaving Wisconsin four days after their 59-0 loss to Ohio State in the 2014 Big Ten Championship game.
Nov 22, 2014; Iowa City, IA, USA; Wisconsin Badgers head coach Gary Andersen talks to linebacker Vince Biegel (47) during a timeout against the Iowa Hawkeyes at Kinnick Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Reese Strickland-USA TODAY Sports
The Badgers then chose to play the 2014 Rose Bowl with Wisconsin AD Barry Alvarez as interim head coach. Andersen cited family reasons and frustration with Wisconsin’s high admission standards for his early exit and move to Oregon State.
Andersen coached for two and a half seasons with the Oregon State Beavers as their head coach but was fired midseason of 2017. He then coached for Utah State as an assistant head coach for the 2018 season before being named the head coach at the end year.
Oct 5, 2019; Baton Rouge, LA, USA; Utah State Aggies head coach Gary Andersen looks on during the first half against the LSU Tigers at Tiger Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Derick E. Hingle-USA TODAY Sports
In Andersen’s first season as head coach in 2019, the Aggies finished 7-6 overall and third in the Mountain Division of the Mountain West Conference. Utah State started this season at a disappointing 0-3 and has chosen to part ways with Gary Andersen because of it.
Gary Andersen has had a difficult time finding a home as an FBS head coach since he left Wisconsin, and it will be interesting to see where he goes after his second firing in four seasons.
The former Badger coach is not a fan of opting out
One question that has surfaced since the Big Ten return (again) has been centered around whether or not players can opt back in to the season. We have seen stars around the league, such as Purdue WR Rondale Moore and Ohio State OL Wyatt Davis, decide to opt back in to the new Big Ten season, although if they played for Gary Andersen at Utah State that would not be an option.
The former Wisconsin coach, who surprisingly left the Badgers before the conclusion of the 2014 season, does not feel that his players should have the choice to opt out.
.@USUFootball coach Gary Andersen said there is no opt out policy at their program. “If you opt out, you’re not with us," he said.https://t.co/4dSOby3uKC
In a year this strange, almost all programs have gone against this way of thinking and allowed players to opt in and out of seasons that, even when they are being played, are always in flux.
Last night saw the airing of the final episodes of ESPN’s The Last Dance, a 10-part documentary series about Michael Jordan’s career…
Last night saw the airing of the final episodes of ESPN’s The Last Dance, a 10-part documentary series about Michael Jordan‘s career and the 1998 Chicago Bulls.
This documentary has sparked conversation around the sporting world about what teams we would like to see a similar piece made about, and who we wish was followed everywhere by cameras during their run of success, or lack thereof.
So, because not much else is going on in the sporting world, which Wisconsin sports team would we like to see a Last Dance-type documentary made about?
The first team that comes to mind is the 2014-15 Badger basketball team during what was literally Bo Ryan‘s last dance as a head coach.
I don’t want to down that route, though, as that seems like the obvious answer and wouldn’t be as captivating as the option I am about to bring up.
That option is Gary Andersen and the 2014 Wisconsin football team.
And I would want this team to be the selection for two reasons.
First, chaos and drama often make the best documentary television and this team had it all.
An opening week loss to No. 13 LSU, a Week 5 loss to unranked Northwestern, seven straight victories including a 59-24 throttling of Nebraska during which Melvin Gordon broke the single-game NCAA rushing yard record, the infamous 59-0 Big Ten Championship defeat to Cardale Jones and Ohio State, Andersen leaving the program to coach at Oregon State four days later and, finally a bowl victory against No. 19 Auburn.
This team had ups, it definitely had downs, and it was capped off in the end with an impressive Outback Bowl victory after the head coach reportedly left because the school had high admission standards for their athletes. The rollercoaster of record-breaking performances in both directions–Gordon’s rushing yard record and the 59-0 loss in the conference championship–would make for captivating television, especially if there had been cameras following the team behind the scenes.
The second reason this would be the pick for which team to feature are the big-name players that were on the team and the intrigue that would come with watching them play and prepare from a different perspective.
Gordon, Corey Clement, Michael Caputo, Joe Schobert and a quarterback room of Joel Stave, Tanner McEvoy and four-star recruit Bart Houston would have made for a great dynamic to watch. No, they obviously don’t come close to the intrigue of the 1990s Chicago Bulls. But in recent program history I can’t think of a better option that this team.
And to cap it all off, as was seen in The Last Dance, the season ends on a high note but a controversial one, as I wonder what the Andersen situation was like behind the scenes and out of the public eye.
A few honorable mentions to throw out as other Wisconsin sports teams that would make for an interesting Last Dance documentary: Russell Wilson and the 2011 football team, the 2014-15 basketball team and the basketball team from this past season–even though the NCAA tournament was never played.
The “where are they now” series continues today with a shift in focus from the field to the sidelines as we catchup on former Wisconsin…
The “where are they now” series continues today with a shift in focus from the field to the sidelines as we catchup on former Wisconsin head coach Gary Andersen‘s career after spending two unforgettable seasons in Madison in 2013 and 2014.
The first of the two, the 2013 season, was understandably a tough one as Andersen was taking over from the successful Brett Bielema era after Bielema left to take a job at Arkansas. The team finished 9-4 that year, losing to No. 8 South Carolina in the Capital One Bowl, but showed promise with an improving quarterback in Joel Stave, a backfield of Melvin Gordon and Corey Clement and a defense headlined by Chris Borland, Michael Caputo and Sojourn Shelton.
What followed in 2014 was an absolute rollercoaster of a season, one which ended in turmoil and set the stage for Paul Chryst to step into the head coaching job going forward.
The 2014 campaign began with Andersen’s Badgers ranked No. 14 in the nation as they prepared to face the No. 13 LSU Tigers Week 1. The Badgers led 24-7 as one point in that game but ended up falling 28-24 and starting the season 0-1. In only one game there was already a peak and a valley, what seemed to be the theme during Andersen’s tenure.
The team then peeled off three out-of-conference victories, returning to No. 17 in the polls, but followed it up in Week 5 with a loss at unranked Northwestern that put them 3-2 on the season and out of the top-25. Valley number two.
Andersen’s unit then went on a seven game winning streak, all in-conference, with ranked victories against No. 11 Nebraska and No. 22 Minnesota. The most notable of the seven contests was the victory at Camp Randall against the Cornhuskers as Gordon broke the NCAA single-game rushing record with a 408 yard, four touchdown performance. Peak number three.
The team was riding high with 10-2 record entering the Big Ten Championship against No. 6 Ohio State who saw their starting quarterback J.T. Barrett break his leg the week prior, opening the door for sophomore quarterback Cardale Jones to start his first collegiate game.
As Badger fans know too well, Ohio State beat Wisconsin 59-0 that day, handing the Badgers their worst loss since 1972 and punching their ticket to the College Football Playoff in its inaugural year. Valley number three.
Andersen left the program four days later to take the head coaching job at Oregon State, giving way to Barry Alvarez to take over as interim head coach for the team’s 34-31 Outback Bowl victory against No. 19 Auburn.
It later surfaced that Andersen was unhappy with Wisconsin’s academic standards for athletes, something that was a driving force for him to leave the program in search of head coaching jobs elsewhere.
Gary Andersen’s tenure in Madison came to an end with a record of 19-7 (13-3 in the Big Ten) and the infamous 59-0 defeat in the 2014 conference championship game.
That became the coach’s best two seasons record wise during his coaching career as his team at Oregon State from 2015-17 held an abysmal record of 7-23 and he and the school parted ways after a 1-5 start to the 2017 season.
2018 saw Andersen return to The University of Utah, his alma mater and the place where he began his coaching career, as a defensive assistant and the assistant head coach.
Now on to last season, the coach returned to Utah State, the place he coached for four years before coming to Madison, and had a 7-6 record including a 51-41 Frisco Bowl loss to Kent State.
His quarterback was now-Green Bay Packer Jordan Love, a player who excelled in 2018 during the old coaching regime and struggled for the most part in 2019. Much was said during his draft process about the talent that graduated after 2018, but also about the coaching difference between Matt Wells, his coach for his first two years, and Andersen who led him last season.
Looking forward to 2020 the former Badger head coach is still at the helm at Utah State as he looks to improve upon the team’s 7-6 record from 2019 and reach his first conference championship game since the infamous 2014 defeat at the hands of Jones and the Buckeyes.
Corey Clement came to Wisconsin in 2013 as a four-star running back and the fifth-highest recruit from his home state of New Jersey…
[lawrence-newsletter]
Corey Clement came to Wisconsin in 2013 as a four-star running back and the fifth-highest recruit from his home state of New Jersey.
The Glassboro, N.J. product took no time finding a role for coach Gary Andersen’s team and he finished his freshman season with 547 rushing yards, good for third-highest on the team, a clip of 8.2 yards-per-carry and seven touchdowns in only eight games.
Clement then saw his role increase his sophomore season, still under Andersen, as he went on to play in all 14 games and carry the ball 147 times for 949 yards, 6.5 yards-per-carry and nine touchdowns in addition to catching 14 passes for 119 yards and two touchdowns.
The running back’s development and upward trajectory pointed towards an extremely productive year entering his junior season in 2015. Unfortunately, due to injuries Clement only saw the field during four games during the campaign and finished with just 48 carries for 221 yards.
Then along came 2016, the season that got Clement’s foot in the door at the next level.
Clement carried the ball 314 times during the impressive 11-3 season for the Badgers and finished the year with 1375 rushing yards and 15 touchdowns on the ground in addition to 12 catches for 132 receiving yards, good all together for over 1500 yards from scrimmage on 326 touches.
While Clement’s impressive career totals of 3092 yards and 36 touchdowns do not compare to those of former Badger greats at the position including Melvin Gordon III, Montee Ball, James White and Jonathan Taylor, his senior year performance caught the eyes of the NFL scouts and helped to get him signed by the Philadelphia Eagles as an undrafted free agent.
Despite Philadelphia having a plethora of running backs in their preseason training camp, the former Badger made the team as the fifth running back and special teamer. Then, thanks to some breaks and a few highlight plays, Clement found his way into the starting rotation and capitalized on his opportunity.
These breaks included a season-ending injury to veteran Darren Sproles and overall poor play from other running backs Donnel Pumphrey and Wendell Smallwood. And the highlight play, seen at the end of the drive in the video below, became Clement’s breakthrough moment as he became the go-to third down back for coach Doug Pederson’s offense.
Foreseen by nobody as the season approached, Clement landing in Philadelphia created a perfect storm for the former Badger as the Eagles went on to win the Super Bowl and he received the opportunity to produce on the world’s biggest stage, production which came via a different method than that from his college career.
Everybody knows that Clement was the guy who took the direct snap during Pederson’s famous “Philly Special” and set the play in motion. What isn’t as recognized from the game is his four catches for a team-leading 100 receiving yards and an incredible receiving touchdown midway through the third quarter, numbers which made him the runner-up in the Super Bowl MVP award race behind quarterback Nick Foles.
Unlike in college when he was utilized mostly in the ground game, Philadelphia’s Super Bowl game plan saw Clement receive five targets for, again, four catches, 100 yards and an impressive touchdown.
This performance was more than enough to solidify the former Badger’s roster spot on the team the following year as the Eagles looked to return to Super Bowl glory.
After his rookie year success, the 2018 and 2019 campaigns became a completely different story for Clement.
In addition to finding himself third on the running back depth chart to start the 2018 season, Clement’s production and efficiency dropped significantly during the playing time he did receive before he experienced a season-ending knee injury in Week 12.
Clement’s final touch during the Week 12 contest in Dallas, a four yard loss, became the final rush he would receive with the Eagles as he proceeded to miss the rest of the 2018 season and find himself on the injured reserve again in 2019 after he suffered a shoulder in Week 2.
After a promising start to his Eagle career as a rookie, Clement quickly lost footing with the team and after the 2019 season became an unrestricted free agent.
As of today the former Badger remains unsigned, though I will not be surprised if he receives another shot in the league with a training camp invite come August.
The next part of Badgers Wire’s series on Wisconsin football at the end of the 2010s focuses on the very brief Gary Andersen tenure that eventually gave way to the current Paul Chryst years.
Bret Bielema decided the best thing for him and his family was to chase a job in the SEC at Arkansas. That left Wisconsin with the need to find a coach who not only understood the culture of Wisconsin football, but one who also had the pedigree to replicate the success the Badgers had created under Bielema and, before him, the godfather of modern Wisconsin football, Barry Alvarez. The man chosen to take on the task of carrying the torch for UW was Utah State coach Gary Andersen.
While Andersen was only there for two years, and then left because of complicated and intertwined issues involving Wisconsin’s academic standards and how that affected Andersen’s ability to recruit, he won 19 games and lost seven. Perhaps more importantly, he went 13-3 in Big Ten play and won the Big Ten West in his second and final season in Madison. Andersen took the Badgers to the Capital One Bowl and the Outback Bowl, winning the Outback and losing the Capital One. Both seasons ended with the Badgers being ranked in the final AP Top 25 poll.
It’s interesting to speculate on how much farther Andersen could have taken the Badgers if not for his departure. He certainly understood the priority of winning Big Ten Conference games. His teams were almost always prepared. While the 59-0 loss in the 2014 Big Ten Championship Game to the eventual College Football Playoff national champion Ohio State Buckeyes was the exception to the rule in terms of gameday preparation, Andersen was a competent coach with an ability to win and recruit.
Despite his departure, the Badgers didn’t miss a beat and hired Paul Chryst to lead the program in the future. All Chryst has done since taking over is go 52-15 overall with a 34-10 record in Big Ten regular-season games (0-3 in Big Ten title games) and two Big Ten Coach of the Year Awards. More on Chryst as our series continues.
