Logan • Down the hall from the head coach’s office overlooking Maverik Stadium, Utah State defensive coordinator Joe Cauthen glances down at a desk littered with play sheets, depth charts and assorted notes.
On the wall next to him is a photo of Merlin Olsen Field. Below that is an empty picture frame, still waiting to be filled.
An apt metaphor for these Aggies.
Cauthen arrived in Logan in March. Since then, he’s been trying to figure out how to replace a defense that lost two-thirds of its starters to the transfer portal.
Cauthen knew the problem when he took the job. USU is at the crossroads of college football. It is a productive Group of Five school that has talent Power Five programs covet. But it doesn’t have the name, image and likeness (NIL) cash to keep the poachers away. It leads to this: a revolving door of a roster and offseasons that resemble full-scale rebuilds.
At USU this year, there are 39 new scholarship players and around 30 transfers. It is the program’s largest roster turnover in recent memory — almost entirely fueled by players leaving for more NIL money.
“It’s kind of nerve-racking,” Cauthen said of the transfer portal. “I mean, the head coach’s seat is not a great seat to be in right now. Yeah, it’s tough.”
A coordinator’s seat can feel plenty kicked, too.
Cauthen saw it as soon as he arrived in Cache Valley. On one of his first days, he had a 30-minute conversation with a starting linebacker. The player was in the transfer portal soon after. Cauthen then met with another starter who said he, too, was out the door.
“Probably talked to him less than 30 minutes,” Cauthen said. “They had in their mind they wanted to go do something else, which is fine.”
Two weeks later, two of the team’s defensive backs entered the transfer portal. By the time spring camp ended, Cauthen had 12 scholarship spots open on the defense.
Cauthen didn’t see the exact amounts each player was offered, but he heard what USU was up against. Some deals were above $100,000, he said. He lost players to Cincinnati, Baylor, BYU and a few other Power Five programs.
“I would say, you know, above $50,000 and you’re competing against that,” Cauthen said. “And then you get a few [deals] that are six-figures.”
Utah State’s war chest, while growing with a newly created collective, is not on that level.
“We weren’t in that [NIL] space yet,” head coach Blake Anderson said. “We weren’t prepared yet. We are grateful people have stepped up and we are progressing forward. I’m hoping we will see less and less attrition. Because even the guys that left, even the guys that put their name on the open market and felt like they could better their situation financially, every one of those guys said, ‘Coach I love it here. I feel like this is something I have to do for my family, but I would really rather be here.’”
So what is the strategy to build a roster when you can’t compete fully in the space? Cauthen brought a plan with him.
He directed his defensive staff to focus on two groups: junior college players who had the potential to play up a level, and Power Five players who were over recruited and weren’t getting on the field.
He didn’t want to take fellow Group of Five players. The best ones, he thought, were moving up to the Power Five and getting a payday that Utah State couldn’t match. And the other ones just weren’t getting time at the same level.
“To be honest with you, I’ve told our guys like, let’s not recruit a Group of Five guy unless we have a connection to the kid,” he said. “… Let’s look at the lower levels. For the guy that’s FCS Division II, that is a really good player and can play at our level. But the Group of Five guy, I mean, we’re just basically trading cards. And there’s probably a good reason why he’s leaving a Group of Five and coming to your place. And so that’s kind of my philosophy on it.”
He also directed his staff to look into recruits with Power Five offers. If they had a real, committable offer, he wanted them to back off and focus on other guys. USU, generally, didn’t have the money to compete with those schools. And there are only so many resources.
“You got to do your homework and do your research and find out, ‘Are those [offers] legit?’” Cauthen said. “Yeah. So you’re gonna have to spend some time with it. But once you find out that they are legit, you don’t need to practice. You need to move on to somebody else.”
And with that strategy, Clausen reloaded his defense. From the Power Five ranks, he got corner Simeon Harris (Colorado), linebacker Logan Pili (BYU) and cornerback Al Ashford (Wisconsin) to name a few. None of those players had played significant snaps at their previous school.
Cauthen added to areas of need, particularly in the secondary and defensive line. It was the right play using the niche in the portal he could find.
But there is this looming thought of how much longer can this last? When will Utah State, and many more Group of Fives like it, be able to be competitive and keep their best players for multiple years?
Cauthen doesn’t know the answer. Anderson said he hopes the roster attrition will stop as USU gets more money. But for now?
“I think things are getting better here at Utah State,” Cauthen said. “They just started the collective. I’m still in the learning phases of it. But it’s gonna get better here in Utah State from where it was this time last year. And I don’t know what that money is, or what it looks like. But it is better and it’s going to help us. It should help us get guys.”
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