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blank Mark Johnson
Mark Johnson is entering his fourth season in Logan once again coordinating the Aggie defense and coaching the linebackers positions. Utah State returns nine defensive starters from last season as well as its most experienced group under Johnson. In his first year of serving as the defensive coordinator at Utah State in 2005, Johnson was charged with improving the Aggies' rushing defense. That year USU allowed an average of 144 yards per game, an improvement of 48 yards per contest from the previous season. During that 2005 season, Utah State ranked among the top half of the Western Athletic Conference in rushing defense, passing defense and total defense. Johnson oversaw a linebacking corps in 2005 that included walk-on Jake Hutton, who led the team with 87 tackles, marking the first time in school history a freshman led the team in that category and Matt Wiser, who recorded 85 stops in his senior year. In 2006, Johnson coached WAC Freshman of the Year Paul Igboeli, who was second on the team with 69 tackles, a mark that led all WAC freshmen as well as ranking 15th overall. Igboeli also tallied eight tackles for loss, which was eighth in the WAC. That season under Johnson, defensive lineman Ben Calderwood also earned all-WAC accolades. During the 2007 season under Johnson's tutelage, Hutton earned second-team all-WAC honors and is the only returning all-conference honoree for USU this season. Hutton led the Aggies and ranked eighth in the WAC in tackles, as well as 71st in the NCAA. Hutton's 102 tackles were the most for a USU individual since Robert Watts had 118 in 2004. Last season's Aggie defense had at least one interception in nine of the 12 games, the most since at least 1992. This season, Johnson returns eight of the nine players who snared an interception a season ago, including the top four. Among the returners this season, are the top four players with interceptions in safeties James Brindley and Roy Hurst with three apiece last year, as well as cornerback Caleb Taylor and safety Marquise Charles with two each. Overall, Johnson and the Aggie defense return nine defensive starters, as well as the top four tacklers from last year, and all four posted at least 80 stops. In all, the top eight tacklers from last season return, led by Hutton with 102, followed by Igboeli with 95 stops. Brindley and Taylor had 84 and 81 tackles, respectively. Johnson, who coached with Aggie head coach Brent Guy at Boise State in 1998 and 1999, has a number of years of experience coaching in the WAC as Utah State is his fourth different WAC school after he was at San Jose State, Boise State and Nevada. He started his coaching career at his alma mater of UC Davis serving as the junior varsity head coach from 1990-94. He then spent the 1995 season as a graduate assistant at Oregon, where the Ducks went 9-2 and were ranked 12th in the country. Johnson then coached running backs at San Jose State in 1996 before returning to UC Davis to work with the defensive line and linebackers for a season. He then met Guy at Boise State where he coached the defensive line in 1998 and 1999. "Mark was instrumental in the first of our two conference championships at Boise State and he has great experience coaching in the Western Athletic Conference," Guy said. "He constantly provides great energy for our defense as our coordinator." After his stint at Boise State, Johnson coached linebackers at Nevada for two seasons before returning to UC Davis to coach linebackers for the next three seasons. Johnson was a middle linebacker at UC Davis, where he graduated in 1990. He earned a master's degree from Cal State Sacramento in 1994. He and his wife, the former Amy Mohrlang, have two children, Cooper and Olivia. Coaching Experience 1990-94 UC Davis Head JV Coach 1995 Oregon Grad. Assistant 1996 San Jose State Running Backs 1997 UC Davis DL and LB 1998-99 Boise State Defensive Line 2000-01 Nevada Linebackers 2002-04 UC Davis Linebackers 2005- Utah State Def. Coord./LB |
