LSU’s Defensive Coaches Got Start At Utah State

LOGAN, Utah – When the Utah State Aggies face the fifth ranked LSU Tigers in Baton Rouge on Saturday, they will see four familiar faces on the opposing coaching staff.

Four coaches on the LSU staff have had stints on the Utah State staff, three of them were under current Aggies head coach Gary Andersen, including Dave Aranda, Bill Busch, Corey Raymond and Tommie Robinson.

“Three of those guys on their defensive staff at LSU have been here at Utah State, and really got a good, fresh start here that catapulted them to where they are today which is awesome to see,” Andersen said at his weekly press conference. “Corey’s been there for a long time at LSU. Now, all three of those guys are together. Dave’s a great coach and a very good person, and a family man. I’m happy for him. I’m glad we were able to give him that opportunity, but he took advantage of that opportunity at the end of the day. He had some great defensive series, had some great defenses at Wisconsin. And, obviously, at LSU, he’s had some great defenses. He’s a great person and a great coach, and I’m happy for him and his family for what’s going on.”

Dave Aranda

Aranda is listed as one of the top defensive coordinators in the country and is the highest paid assistant coach in college football. He started his coaching career in 1996 as the linebackers coach at California Lutheran and was there for three seasons. Aranda was the defensive coordinator under Gary Andersen at Utah State for one season in 2012 before leaving Logan to be the defensive coordinator for Andersen at Wisconsin from 2013-15. He has also been defensive coordinator at five other schools, which include California Lutheran (2005-06), Delta State (2007), Hawaii (2010-11), LSU (2016-present).

He was the defensive coordinator when Utah State beat Toledo 41-15 in the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl in 2012.

Here is what Andersen said about Aranda:

“Dave was at Hawai’i and we, obviously, coached against Hawai’i that year,” Andersen said. “Coach (Greg) McMackin, who I’d known a long time, was the head coach at Hawai’i. When we had the opportunity to hire a defensive coordinator, I was looking around and asking people about defensive coordinators. I had met Dave at a camp in Hawaii, a high school camp, and we spent three or four days together at the camp coaching the D-line and talking back and forth, but I didn’t know him at all other than that.”

Andersen went on to talk about the impact Aranda had on the defense while at Utah State.

“Those three days were big, though. Coach McMackin said, ‘Gary, there is one guy you need to hire and it’s Dave Aranda.’ So, I got talking to Dave and got to spend some time with him,” Andersen mentioned. “At that point, we were in a transition. We were in a transition from a four-down front moving to a three-down front. It’s the same deal you do every year. You get your best level players, and we had Kyler (Fackrell) and Zach and Nick Vigil, and had a lot of outside linebacker and linebacker-type guys, so we wanted to get into the odd front. He hadn’t really done it, but we wanted to develop it. Dave’s done a tremendous job from that point on of just evolving the odd front, the even front and using his guys. He does it all now. He was awesome for me at Wisconsin. He’s had his opportunities and he’s taken advantage of those opportunities.”

Bill Busch

Busch is currently the safeties coach for LSU and was an assistant coach at Utah State on two different occasions. He coached the safeties from 2001-03 and was the defensive coordinator from 2009-10 before being the associate head coach, safeties and special teams coordinator from 2011-12.

He has also had other stops with Northern Arizona, New Mexico State, Nebraska, Wisconsin (with Andersen), Ohio State and Rutgers.

Corey Raymond

Raymond’s first full-time college coach job was at Utah State when he was the cornerbacks coach from 2009-10. He went on to coach the secondary at Nebraska in 2011 before joining LSU from 2012 to now as the cornerbacks coach.

Tommie Robinson

Robinson is the assistant head coach, running backs coach and recruiting coordinator at LSU. His first full-time job at the college level was in 1992 as the running backs coach for Utah State. He stayed in Logan for two seasons before having stops with TCU, the Dallas Cowboys, Oklahoma State, Georgia Tech, Memphis, Miami, Arizona Cardinals, USC and Texas. Robinson joined LSU in 2017.

Utah State will travel to No. 5 LSU on Saturday at 11 a.m. on the SEC Network.