In a short, but busy Saturday, Utah State football went from having Kevin McGiven as its offensive coordinator to hiring Robert Anae to that same position when the former left for the University of Utah.
McGiven served as the Aggies’ OC for the 2025 season, crafting an offense that finished second in the Mountain West in points per game It developed and showcased players like quarterback Bryson Barnes, who earned Second Team All-Mountain West honors and even get some mid-season player of the year hype, along with First Team All-MW wide receiver Braden Pegan.
With those accomplishments came recognition, some good and some bad for Utah State. The good was that McGiven received a nomination for the Broyles Award which is given to the top assistant coach in college football. The bad is that the University of Utah saw that success and said “mine.” The Utes’ new head coach Morgan Scalley, scooped up McGiven.
The move is part of the domino effect caused by the departure of longtime Utah head coach Kyle Whittingham. The Utes’ winningest coach in program history stepped down and then was hired by Michigan. Whittingham then pilfered the coaching cupboards of both BYU and Utah, one of which was Utes offensive coordinator Jason Beck. That left the job open at Utah, allowing for McGiven to take that job.
Less than four hours after the University of Utah announced the hiring of McGiven, Utah State announced Anae as its new offensive coordinator.
The hire is not too surprising as Anae has spent 15 seasons as an offensive coordinator for Utah State head coach Bronco Mendenhall, who has retained other longtime coordinators such as Defensive Coordinator Nick Howell (17 seasons under Mendenhall). Anae was with Mendenhall in two different stints at BYU (from 2005-10 and then 2013-15) and followed him to Virginia where he was Mendenhall’s OC for all six years in which the latter was the head coach of the Cavaliers.
Overall, Anae has 36 years of coaching experiences — 18 as an offensive coordinator — with his other stops as a full-time coach including Boise State (1996), UNLV (1997-98), Texas Tech (2000-04), Arizona (2011-12), Syracuse (2022) and NC State (2023-24). His roles at those schools progressed from being a position coach over the offensive line, then to wide receivers coach, then offensive coordinator.
Anae’s coaching history has brought him into contact with multiple styles of offense and he has swung his offenses to different extremes depending on his team’s personnel. For five season, Anae was the offensive line coach under soon-to-be Hall of Fame head coach Mike Leach who was well-known for his use of the “Air Raid” pass-heavy offense. Anae incorporated this style into his first job as an offensive coordinator at BYU. From 2005 to 2009, the Cougars saw quarterbacks John Beck and Max Hall average at or above 300 passing multiple times. Anae’s offenses at Virginia also had seasons of high-volume passing, like the 2017 and 2019 seasons, the latter of which helped the Cavaliers reach the Orange Bowl.
However, Anae also pivoted to heavy rushing offense at times. Most notable was in 2013 at the start of his second stint as BYU’s offensive coordinator. With Taysom Hill at quarterback and Jamaal Williams at running back, the Cougars set a program record for both rush attempts (664) and rushing yards (3,475).
