Blake Anderson Named Offensive Coordinator/Quarterbacks Coach at USM

Story from USM Athletics:
HATTIESBURG, Miss. – Southern Miss first-year coach Charles Huff announced Wednesday the hiring of offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach Blake Anderson for the 2025 season.

Anderson returns to Southern Miss after working for Larry Fedora from 2008-11, before going on to enjoy 10 successful seasons as a Division I head coach with stops at Arkansas State (2014-20) and Utah State (2021-23). He registered a 74-54 (.578) overall head coaching record, including a 53-27 (.663) conference mark in 10 seasons as a head coach, which included nine bowl games and three conference titles.

Anderson has 30 years of coaching experience and has been part of six conference championships. He has coached in 14 bowl games and won a national championship at the junior college level.

Under Anderson, Utah State tied for the best turnaround in the nation in 2021, as the Aggies became the first Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) program ever to go from zero or one win to 11 wins the following season. USU also became the first FBS team in eight years to post a 7-0 road record.

Anderson went on to win the 2021 AFCA Region 5 Coach of the Year and a finalist for the Eddie Robinson National Coach of the Year Award as he was the only first-year head coach in the nation to lead his team to nine or more wins.

Anderson joined Utah State after spending seven years as the head coach at Arkansas State, leading the Red Wolves to six-consecutive winning seasons and six-straight bowl games from 2014-19, including a 31-13 win against UCF in the 2016 Cure Bowl and a 34-26 win against FIU in the 2019 Camellia Bowl. Arkansas State also won back-to-back Sun Belt Conference Championships under Anderson in 2015 and 2016, and competed for another in 2017 in A-State’s regular-season finale that was a de facto championship game.

During that six-year stretch, the Red Wolves broke 12 school records, including 494.8 yards of total offense per game, 4,106 passing yards and 38 touchdown passes in 2017, 520 points scored and 69 total touchdowns in 2015, and 6,174 yards of total offense and 1,024 total plays in 2014.

Entering the 2020 COVID season, the Red Wolves had won at least seven games, including at least five league games, every year under Anderson, including a nine-victory campaign in 2015 and eight-win seasons in 2016, 2018 and 2019. In all, Anderson posted a 51-37 (.580) record during his seven seasons at Arkansas State, including a 38-18 (.679) mark in the Sun Belt Conference. Those 51 wins, 40 of which were by double digits, are tied for the third-most in school history. Furthermore, the Anderson-led Red Wolves were one of just 20 Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) programs, including six from the Group of Five, to post a winning record in six-consecutive seasons from 2014-19.

The native of Hubbard, Texas, went to Arkansas State after spending the previous two seasons as the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at North Carolina, where he helped lead the Tar Heels to an Atlantic Coast Conference Coastal Division title in 2012 and the Belk Bowl in 2013.

Anderson went to Chapel Hill after a record-setting run as Southern Mississippi’s offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. The Golden Eagles set school records for total offense in each of Anderson’s last two years. He was part of a Southern Miss staff that won a school-record 12 games in 2011, including the Conference USA championship over previously-unbeaten Houston, and the Hawai’i Bowl over Nevada.

Under the eye of Anderson, the Golden Eagles were one of 14 teams in the country that averaged more than 200 yards per game in both rushing and passing in 2011. The Golden Eagles had nearly 6,500 yards of total offense and set a school record with 461.4 yards per game. In addition, USM was 15th nationally in scoring offense, 16th in total offense and 21st in rushing offense. Anderson’s offense posted 30-or-more points in 10 of 14 games in 2011, including a season-high 63 in a win over Navy.

In 2010, Southern Miss was 18th in total offense, 20th in rushing offense and 35th in passing offense. The Golden Eagles also averaged 36.9 points per game to rank 15th in the nation. That season, Anderson’s quarterbacks were among the most efficient in the nation with only eight interceptions thrown – including one by a wide receiver – to 24 touchdowns.

Anderson came to Southern Miss after spending the 2007 campaign at Louisiana-Lafayette as the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. Anderson, who was in private business from 2004-06, previously worked at Middle Tennessee, where he helped direct an offensive unit as co-offensive coordinator and wide receivers coach from 2002-04.

Anderson also spent three seasons at New Mexico, serving as the wide receivers coach in 2001 and running backs coach from 1999-2000. The UNM rushing attack was responsible for a major share of the Lobo offense in 2000. The Lobos averaged 148 yards per game on the ground, which accounted for 56 percent of the team’s total offense.

Before joining the FBS ranks, Anderson worked at Trinity Valley Community College (1995-98) in Athens, Texas, where he helped lead the Cardinals to the 1997 NJCAA National Championship.

Anderson began his coaching career at Eastern New Mexico in 1992 (graduate assistant) and 1993 (full-time), where he tutored the wide receivers. He then moved on to Howard Payne University in Brownwood, Texas, to coach the wide receivers as HPU won the Texas IAA conference title in 1994.

A two-year letterwinner at wide receiver for Sam Houston State from 1990-91, Anderson was named Southland Conference all-academic as a senior. He also played for two years as a quarterback and receiver at Baylor (1988-89) before transferring. Anderson graduated with his bachelor’s degree in kinesiology from Sam Houston State in 1992. He also attained his master’s degree in sports administration from Eastern New Mexico in 1994.

Anderson and his late wife, Wendy, who passed away after a three-year battle with cancer, were married for 27 years and had three children together in daughter, Callie, and sons, Coleton and Cason. Anderson was remarried to his wife Brittany in 2021 and they have three children together in daughters Collins and Ellison, and son Cannon. Tragically in February of 2022, Cason was also lost and laid to rest alongside his mother in Anderson’s hometown of Hubbard, Texas.