In the middle of 2017’s season, Oregon State and head coach Gary Andersen announced a mutual parting. The pair took the unusual step of voiding the remainder of his guaranteed contract, leaving at least $12 million of Andersen’s money in OSU’s hands.
Gary Andersen’s Oregon State exit is the 2nd time in 3 years he’s surprisingly left a Power 5 job
He took a step down from Wisconsin to Oregon State, and then he stepped out.
Photo by William Mancebo/Getty Images
His final record in Corvallis was 7-23 and 3-18 in the Pac-12, but considering the perpetual difficulty of winning at OSU and the anticipated challenge of 2017, it didn’t exactly feel like he was on the hot seat heading into the year.
So his exit is pretty surprising, as is his decision to forego all that cash.
Many people heard the latter part and assumed there has to be more to the story. I know that was my initial reaction. From Building the Dam:
This decision will allow Oregon State to approach their national coaching search without worrying about paying two head coaches at the same time.
The Beavers have had a nightmarish start to the season. Their lone win was a come-from-behind victory against Portland State and they haven’t been particularly competitive in their five losses. There has been a mysterious lack of communication between Gary Andersen and his assistants as certain players have missed games despite not showing up on the injury report.
Many Oregon State fans thought a change might be in the works, but many expected one of the coordinators or position coaches to leave the program; not Gary Andersen.
But in their parting statement, OSU AD Scott Barnes praised Andersen without caveat, which would seem to indicate the Beavers don’t expect any shocking dirt to come out.
And apparently he warned some folks about the potential exit ahead of time. From The Oregonian:
Gary Andersen confided weeks ago that he wasn’t going to hold Oregon State hostage if he didn’t think he could win in Corvallis.
I rolled my eyes. Didn’t believe him.
It’s also the second time since the 2014 season that he’s left a job out of nowhere.
In mid-December 2014, Andersen was 19-7 at Wisconsin, coming off a Big Ten West championship. He then left the money-printing Badgers for Oregon State, a far more challenging job at a place with no real advantages over any of its annual competition.
Speculation about why he’d take on a tougher task included a return to his West Coast roots, difficulty working with UW AD Barry Alvarez, and so forth. He frequently claimed it was due to recruiting difficulty brought on by UW’s strict academic standards, but a closer look revealed OSU’s standards weren’t really that much more lenient.
Him leaving Utah State for Wisconsin made sense, at least!
So now we have two recent Gary Andersen job change mysteries to ponder.
Also from The Oregonian:
Andersen worked under three athletic directors in less than three seasons at OSU. Bob DeCarolis hired him, but left months later. Then Todd Stansbury was forced on him. The hire of Barnes was viewed as university president Dr. Ed Ray lining up the football program for success.
That never materialized.
Andersen ran off Mike Riley’s recruits. He expressed open frustration with his assistant-coach hires. And he grew increasingly discouraged as the results just didn’t materialize.
We’ll wait to learn more, but for now, your guess is probably as good as mine.
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