Utah State is settling a five-year offer to work with Youngstown State’s Jerrod Calhoun as the school’s next head coach, sources informed ESPN.Calhoun led Youngstown State to back-to-back 20-win seasons for the first time in school history. He went 118-106 in seven seasons there, winning a Horizon League regular-season title in 2022-23 and the only NIT bid in school history.Utah State moved quickly to replace Danny Sprinkle, who left the program Monday for Washington after one season in Logan. First-year athletic director Diana Sabau ran an efficient and targeted search that prioritized head-coaching experience.Editor’s Picks 2 Associated According to sources, Utah State prepares
to provide Calhoun a strong dedication to a staff wage swimming pool. In the wake of the Aggies ‘regular-season Mountain West title and first-round NCAA win over TCU, the school is intending to keep the lineup intact and the momentum going to stay atop the conference.At 42, Calhoun has experience beyond his age. He led Youngstown State to the school’s only conference title as a Division I program. His gaining portion(52 %) is more than 10 percent greater than the school’s all-time win percentage, an indication of how he defied historical norms during his time there.Before Youngstown, he spent five seasons as the head coach at Division II Fairmont State, which consisted of 4 NCAA competition appearances in 5 seasons and a 124-38 record. In his last season there, Fairmont State went 34-3 and ended up as the NCAA D-II runner-up. Perhaps the most widely known part of that effective run at Fairmont State was that Joe Mazzulla, now the coach at the Celtics, worked for him for 3 seasons as an assistant. Mazzulla later took over at Fairmont, and he has actually long maintained that Calhoun played an important function in his development as a coach.Calhoun also operated at West Virginia as an assistant coach in 2011-12 and likewise had a stint as WVU’s director of basketball operations. He belonged to the WVU staff that reached the 2010 Last 4 and 2008 Sweet 16 with Mazzulla as a player.Calhoun will take control of a job at Utah State with a proud custom, as USU has reached 5 of the last 6 tournaments that have actually been played.(They were 26-8 in 2020 before that competition was cancelled.)
