LOGAN — In the days following his re-commitment to Utah State, which featured signing a restructured contract that will pay him $7.55 million over the next four years, Aggie men’s basketball head coach Jerrod Calhoun is as busy as he was prior to the end of his team’s season. But instead of film sessions, practice and games, the second-year coach is spending his time with recruiting visits and NIL fundraising efforts.
Earlier this week, Calhoun went on the Full Court Press (106.9 FM/1390 AM The FAN) for an exclusive interview to discuss the offseason and all of the tasks he needs to get through in preparation for the 2025-26 season.
That Calhoun is sticking around in Logan at all was a huge relief to Aggie Nation, which had to endure a week of rumors that Calhoun was the frontrunner to accept the head coaching job at West Virginia (the Mountaineers have since filled their vacancy by hiring North Texas’ Ross Hodge). Had Calhoun left Utah State after the one season, it would have led the Aggies to their fourth coach in four seasons. The early departures of Craig Smith, Ryan Odom and Danny Sprinkle have left the fan base with ever-present concerns regarding the program’s ability to retain a head coach. Calhoun departed from the trend set by his three predecessors by sticking around in the face of rampant rumors that he would leave.
Calhoun acknowledged that there very much is a “fear at Utah State of coaches leaving for other jobs” and he offered his restructured contract as proof of his commitment to stay. The two key aspects being the raise in his salary and the buyout. His salary will be the second-highest in the Mountain West next year and be in the top four of the new Pac-12.
“Number one, it shows great commitment by Utah State to be in the top four in coach’s salary, not only for the Mountain West, but moving forward in the new Pac-12,” Calhoun said. “Then I think the other thing is you look at the buyout. The buyout is $5 million in year one, it’s 4 million in year two. I’m not even sure after that. So that to me is reassurance.”
With the matter of Calhoun’s status as head coach of Utah State settled, he, his staff, and the fans can turn toward the business of the offseason. First up is the retainment of the current roster. Dexter Akanno, Aubin Gateretse and Ian Martinez are the only players who cannot return for 2025-26 as their eligibility has run out. Deyton Albury and Drake Allen originally signed on at USU with the expectation that this past season would be their last. However, with the blanket one-year extension of eligibility given to all players who spent time at a junior college (Albury played two years at Chipola College while Allen spent two seasons at Snow College), Albury and Allen have the opportunity to return. Back in February, Albury said he “definitely plan(s) on coming back to Utah State” for his final season. In early March, Allen gave a similar answer, saying “As of right now, everything’s looking good. I love it here. I don’t want to be anywhere else.”
The rest of the players on roster weren’t asked directly, nor have they made any public statements emphasizing that they’re staying. But no news is good news for this part of the calendar, and so far only two Aggies have been confirmed to be in the transfer portal: Isaac Johnson and Pavle Stosic. It means that, as things stand right now, Utah State appears to be on the inside track to having the most returning production of any team in the Mountain West. The two teams that finished above the Aggies in this year’s standings, New Mexico and Colorado State, have both been pummeled by attrition, both graduations and the transfer portal. Both teams also lost their respective head coaches. USU, meanwhile, has so far retained at least one star player, Mason Falslev, and several other key rotation players like Albury, Allen, Tucker Anderson and Karson Templin.
Falslev is perhaps the most important returner, being potentially the only All-Mountain West selection to return to their team (if Miles Byrd pulls out of the NBA Draft he’d be another). Through his redshirt freshman and sophomore campaigns, he’s been an impactful player, though there’s room for another big jump into true stardom. All-time Aggie greats like Jaycee Carroll and Sam Merrill had similar trajectories as impactful underclassmen before becoming star-level upperclassmen and Falslev has the chance to join the ranks of players whose names hang from the rafters of the Dee Glen Smith Spectrum. It will require loads of work and effort, but as Calhoun has said many times before, that’s not much of a barrier to Falslev.
“The best thing about Mason Falslev, he’s not scared of work,” Calhoun said. “So whether it’s playing out a pick-and-rolls. Whether it’s developing his left hand. Whether it’s developing a mid-range shot. I think his decision-making really, really took off this year. His usage rate really took off. His shooting numbers really took off. And he’s one of the best, well-rounded players. Not only does he score, he rebounds, he passes the ball. So, for what he’s done from freshman to sophomore year, I think it’s tremendous. I think that’s the exciting thing is how much better he can get in all areas of basketball.”
But the key words in all of this talk about keeping players and seeing them improve is that “so far” they’ve been retained. The transfer portal will remain open until April 22, giving plenty of time for players to change their minds, or other teams from tampering and inducing current Aggies to transfer away. Thinking about internal improvement is nice, but Calhoun said he “(doesn’t) think anybody’s thinking about that” at the moment.
“That’s you know the nature of the beast with the transfer portal and revenue share and NIL,” Calhoun said. “I think every coach in America is just scrambling to raise money to figure out how much money they have to, not only retain their current guys, but also go out and get some other guys.”
Of all the factors that lead to players coming and going, money has become the most important. NIL is the name of the game during the offseason as it ends up being the driving force behind whether a coach can build a competitive roster. Calhoun is more than aware of this, and raising funds has become the top item on his to-do list since everything else will derive from the NIL number he reaches.
“I’ve probably spent most of my time in the last four or five days just trying to generate some revenue for our team,” Calhoun said. “So much of this has become NIL and what the market looks like for players. So I’ve went out and we’ve done a couple different events, met with eight or nine guys in Salt Lake. I’ve done some personal visits. Probably made 20 to 25 phone calls in the last five days”
To get an idea of how important NIL funds are in constructing the roster, Calhoun brought up raising money no less than five times in the 17-minute interview, with several other occasions where he mentioned NIL money in other contexts. It’s kind of important.
One thing that is in question, though, is what Utah State’s relationship with the House Settlement will be and how it will impact the player salaries (since that’s really what they are). The Aggies are supposedly going to opt in, which will mean revenue sharing. Though Calhoun indicated that will be more of a concern to deal with down the road.
“We will operate strictly on NIL for this year, and then moving forward in ’25-26 we will have revenue sharing, which the school will provide to each sport,” Calhoun said. “That’ll be at the discretion of Diana [Sabau], how she’ll divvy up that money,” Calhoun said, later adding “This is kind of a gap year for us. We’re not taking any money from the school. So our roster will be based on what our fans and what our donors decide to put in this team.
