Everything is wrong with Gary Andersen's decision to leave Utah State

Good salaries for the coaches, improved scheduling, a bigger budget, first-rate facilities, a contract extension for himself — Andersen got it all and left anyway. Well, it's not the first time he bailed out on a job. He left Utah to take the head coaching job at Southern Utah in 2003, and a year later he returned to Utah as an assistant.

No. 3: This is a familiar story, but why do schools bother to sign coaches to contract extensions — or to contracts, period? Earlier this season, the Aggies offered Andersen a contract extension and he accepted it. It meant nothing. The entire purpose of the contract was to keep Andersen happy and keep him in Logan. He left anyway.

Contracts between schools and coaches serve only one of the two parties — the coach. The school doesn't hold the coach to the contract. Yes, the coach's new employer usually buys out the rest of his contract, but USU is still out of a coach. They were paying him to coach their team, not another school's team. Just once, wouldn't you like to see a school stand its ground and refuse to let a coach out of his contract?

The only people who are bound by contracts in college football are the players. Under that contract — the letter of intent — they are not allowed to participate in the free enterprise system and they can't change schools without sitting out a year of athletics. They're punished if they change their minds about a decision they made as an 18-year-old. Meanwhile, coaches, who are among the leading reasons a recruit chooses a school, are free to come and go as they please and take whatever money is offered to them.

There's much to dislike about Andersen's abrupt departure.

email: drob@desnews.com