Your Reaction to Ash Hiring

[OhHeSteal]

Just curious...what was your reaction when it was announced that Chris Ash had been hired as the new football coach at RU?

Were you optimistic after hiring a well regarded assistant at a powerhouse program?
Were you disappointed and thought RU could have done better at that time?
Somewhere in between?

Today, it seems to be unanimous among the RU faithful that Ash is not the right guy for the job. But what did you think of him on Day 1?

 

[DirtyRU]

Hi Mr. Hobbs, welcome to TKR and thanks for your initial post!

 

[Section124]

I’ll play. Was underwhelmed when announced. I wanted a person that was previously a head coach. And an offensive one at that.

That being said, Ash did say a lot of good things at the initial press conference and came off like Tom Coughlin when he took the Giants job. I was then sort of onboard when Hobbs gushed about how he interviewed. Then Ash hired wonder boy and he lost me. My thought was no way it was going to work with pro style recruits. I was right. Wanted Ash gone early last year.

 

[Dpgru]

I thought it was a good hire because of his background. The coaches with whom he worked and the BIG schools at which he worked led me to believe he would have a plan that would prepare us for that level. I was disappointed that there was no HC experience but thought his background at the p5 level might compensate. I was terribly wrong. We needed someone like coach Pike, assistant experience at a high level school with an elite HC plus head coaching experience at a mid major. Pike seems to have the mbb program going in the right direction. There has been palpable improvement. Ash has not

 

[MADHAT1]

I wasn't overjoyed or depressed about it.
Didn't know enough about him to be either.
But felt he might be a good hire and better than Flood for the football program.

Disclaimer: anyone who trusts my judgement on who makes a good RU HC better have their head examined.
I was one of Flood's defenders up till his last year.
Think that's bad : asked for Fred Hill Jr to be given more time ( when everyone else wanted him gone) to turn the MBB program around.

Was one of the last to give up on Eddie Jordan being able to make RU MBB a winner.

In 2004 when most felt Schiano was turning the FB program around, I was starting to think the opposite

 

[koleszar]

Just curious...what was your reaction when it was announced that Chris Ash had been hired as the new football coach at RU?

Were you optimistic after hiring a well regarded assistant at a powerhouse program?
Were you disappointed and thought RU could have done better at that time?
Somewhere in between?

Today, it seems to be unanimous among the RU faithful that Ash is not the right guy for the job. But what did you think of him on Day 1?

Was meh. Knew he was the DC at OSU and Arkansas(not happy about that) but had to wiki his previous stops. I was looking for a head coach with previous head coaching experience and thought Rutgers cheaped out once again. Then kind of rationalized how it could work. So was on board but not wholeheartedly.

Once he hired Niemann was adamant that he sucked as a DC from his past history. That was then rationalized by others that this will be Ash's D. Was willing to give it a shot. But after that 1st year with some talent left from the last of Schiano's years really became suspect of the direction we were going. The year before with an imbecile as a coach we went 4-8. With 3 close losses to WSU 34-37, #4 MSU 24-31, Maryland 41-46. It seemed in 2016 the more this became Ash's team the worse we got.

 

[LC-88]

Was fairly happy at first. Then the OSU bowl bs thing turned me sour. Off on the wrong foot. Never recovered.

 

[Caliknight]

The OSU thing didn't bother me. As a former athlete, I think a coach who leaves the guys he asked to run through fires before the job is done is a fraud. I respect people that finish.

I was optimistic at first. OSU DC, was being courted by some other peer type schools, and was seemingly ready to lead.

Then I saw him at the podium tearing essentially everything down that was built before him. That would work if he came in and started making immediate waves but it was obvious this guy was a midwest buffoon pretty early.

Then we saw his gutless coaching decisions. Punting on 4-1 on the other teams 38 when we are going nowhere is all I needed to see.

The man is waaaay over his head for what Rutgers needs.

 

[redking]

First reaction was: Great hire because he worked at top programs like Arkansas, Wisconsin & Ohio State and will bring all he learned from those respective head coaches especially Urban Meyer.

Ash staying to coach Ohio State in a lame bowl game: Terry Shea Part 2.

After Ohio State 2016: Why the **** is he hugging all the Ohio State players, does this guy know which team he is coaching??

Now: Urban Meyer is a genius. He sent Rutgers a Manchurian candidate and set the program back a decade.

 

[sunsetregret]

I was disappointed. I wanted someone with a name. However, if we were going to go the P5 assistant route, he was as good as anyone else (except for Orgeron - I always loved Orgeron because he's the best recruiter in the country).

 

[RUNVA]

Dead Fish

 

[Eaton Beaver]

Had never heard of him. So basically no reaction.

 

[RUHouston]

Figured he couldn’t be that bad if he worked for Urban....

 

[rutgersguy1_rivals]

Not on my radar at all but fine with it as he had a resume worthy of an opportunity but wanted to know who is OC would be....4 years later never enthused about any of his choices.

 

[DHajekRC84]

Very good.
Then wtf bowl game.
Then Wtf NFL draft at osu table.
Then fu with the codecending approach and trashing of whatever we had that was important to us and the foundation built prior.
Then his staff development and choices.
Then on field results and head scratching decisions.

Cheap stock that didn't pay off early and quickly went underwater..leaving buyers remorse and hand ringing over when to sell.

 

[RUSK97]

First reaction: who?

After I looked him up, I was perfectly fine with him. The whole OSU national championship thing was pretty fresh, but what was more interesting to me was what he did at Wisconsin (with ‘step-below top flight talent’). Was optimistic.

Didn’t particularly like the OSU bowl game thing, but I didn’t complain. My first red flag was his hiring of Drew Mehringer. While three quarters of the board had a collective erection for ‘the next Lincoln Riley’, I was seriously skeptical.

Even then I thought, okay if this isn’t the right guy, the very least he will do is restock the cupboard for the next coach. Not every hire has to be a home run as long as we load the bases. I thought he’s following the dreaded Flood. How bad could he possibly be?

Then we saw him coach games. And it was all over.

 

[buffalochicken21]

When I saw Youtube videos of him explaining that he was a student of the game and a 'student of defense' I thought he could be good. We needed that, without Schiano Rutgers sorely needed a smart, innovative mind on at least one side of the ball that would build an identity for the team.

When he came up to the podium in that lifeless press conference and said, "we need to get some excitement going around Rutgers," I could tell he was either uninformed or misinformed about the culture (and local media culture) he was walking into.

When he didn't have much of an answer for what type of offense he wanted to run I got nervous.

I will say this, the second he said that he didn't watch any tapes of the 2015 team was the day he was done. I told my Dad this a while back. I get what Ash was trying to do with giving all the players a clean slate, but that was overboard to the point of stupidity. The guy had no idea what kind of talent he was working with (not there was much) and he was never going to learn how to play to the advantage of the talent he had. He has been fitting square pegs into round holes since and he seemingly cannot understand why it doesn't work.

 

[Retired711]

I have to confess I was pretty enthusiastic at first given his experience at OSU, Wisconsin and Arkansas. I thought, "this is a guy who knows what it takes to win." Boy, was I wrong.

 

[chrisru99]

When I met him at Newark Airport shortly after he was hired I had a real bad feeling. I told him basically congratulations and good luck and he had no time for me. It was like I was bothering him. I walked away saying to myself wow I just introduced myself as a long time season ticket holder and graduate and this guy had nothing to say to me. No charisma or charm so 180 from Schiano who made you feel important when he spoke to you. Gary Waters also made you feel like you were important and always had time for me when at EWR.

 

[RU85inFla]

Underwhelmed and it’s gone down hill since. I thought the initial press conference was built with excuses and he shared no vision. His excuse to stay at OSU for the bowl game showed me he didn’t believe this opportunity was the most important thing in his life. And last the staff he hired was a joke.

 

[DHajekRC84]

When I met him at Newark Airport shortly after he was hired I had a real bad feeling. I told him basically congratulations and good luck and he had no time for me. It was like I was bothering him. I walked away saying to myself wow I just introduced myself as a long time season ticket holder and graduate and this guy had nothing to say to me. No charisma or charm so 180 from Schiano who made you feel important when he spoke to you. Gary Waters also made you feel like you were important and always had time for me when at EWR.

Lol. My wife and I met Gary at a Rutgers football game sitting all by himself in sec. 108 weeks before bball started. Spent 10mins chatting with him. Best first impression ever. Instant life fan good or bad cause he was genuine and super humble (like Pike).

 

[Scarlet_Monster]

I wasn't impressed at all.

He fielded a defense filled with 4 and 5 star players. He might be a decent coach, but how much does he get helped out by the caliber of player he has at his disposal?

At Wisky he did more with less which could show you something. His stop at Arky was abysmal, when Kyle Flood is able to orchestrate a gameplan to make your defense look absolutely lost out there, it says a lot about your coaching acumen.

I would've preferred an offensive mind as our HC versus another diehard defensive mind, but I gave him a chance.

He completely lost me the minute he fired Mehringer to replace him with Jerry Kill. Don't tell me about a fast pace, explosive offense at your first presser, and then do a complete 180 when you have one bad year. I'm not saying Mehringer should've stayed on board, but he should've found someone with a similar philosophy offense wise.

We figured he would have inroads with Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, and Iowa, but Ash has pretty much brought nothing from the area he should have connections with. He ignored the effort Rutgers made to getting into Florida, and didn't change that until recently.

As much as we made fun of Flood for going 1-0 each week. Ash's slogans are trash tier. Fence the Garden, the dude isn't constructing a 40 foot tall borderwall, it's more or less a trip wire that anyone with half a brain can walk over.

Ash completely trashed any tradition we might have, and pretty much belittled our "less than stellar" history. I get it, we aren't OSU, we aren't Texas, we aren't Alabama, but that's no excuse to take what we accomplished and minimize it to nothing.

 

[RUbot]

Didn't have much of a reaction because I too had not heard much about him.

But he sure wasn't helped by the negative recruiting due to the uncertainty surrounding the potential NCAA probation and sanctions that was clouding his ability to recruit early on. Then it all snowballs and compounds the issue as less than stellar results on the field come along partially as a result of the poor recruiting and loss of players due to off field problems. Almost all FLOOD's problems. Waaaay to much of the current situation is put on Ash's shoulders and Hobbs realizes this. Hey the bright side .... is the NCAA probation ends on the day of the BC game in two weeks.

 

[NickRU714]

Was all on board after reading that he wanted to modernize the offense finally and emphasize scoring points instead of “keeping it close and let the defense win it”.

https://www.app.com/story/sports/co...l-offense-look-like-under-chris-ash/76951520/

I was still fine after Year 1.
Changing over the offense and the roster takes time.

But then hired Kill to “kill” the offense.
Back to meat-head slow outdated offense - “have to protect the defense”.

He should have been fired the moment he proposed hiring Kill as OC.

 

[RUChoppin]

Here's what I said not immediately at the time, but the week afterward.

"There was a realistic window that we were going to hire in, and I think we hit the very top of that window (if not just above it). We were either going to bring in a G5 HC or a P5 coordinator... and we got a great, successful, national championship coordinator with several years of coordinator experience in the Big Ten. Given the size of the ballpark we were playing in (we weren't about to drop $4.5M on a proven coach), that's a home run.

That doesn't mean, though, that Ash is going to be 100% perfect and right about everything all the time, and that any questioning of his moves is forbidden and means you are trying to tear down the program. He's a new HC with great resume/pedigree, and he's got big plans - but not all of them will work, and he'll learn as he goes.

This isn't an all-or-nothing thing. You can be very happy with Ash, but question the Mehringer hire. You can be very happy with Ash and Mehringer, but wonder what's going on with recruiting right now. You can love Ash, but not be sold on Hobbs yet (or vice versa). There's lots of "new" right now, and it's all speculation/conjecture until we start seeing something on the field - and while this is a bit of a honeymoon period and time to be optimistic, people have gotten their hopes up before and been frustrated, too."

That last paragraph was pretty much where I was at that point - happy with Ash (best I felt we were going to get, given our circumstances), but questioning the Mehringer hire. Still trying to remain optimistic, though, that it would all work out.

Then Niemann was hired a couple of weeks later, and the optimism started fade. I could rationalize Mehringer a bit, but was having a much harder time with Niemann. That's probably when I started to doubt Ash... just about three weeks after he was hired. Was still waiting to see the product on the field, though - and the early recruiting returns were good over the summer.

Then the season came... and by October I felt he blew the very small window he had and likely would never be successful here.

 

[Knightmoves]

Good question.

Like Hobbs I was pretty happy with the hire of Ash.

I believed at his hiring that Ash and his staff would build a B1G caliber FB infrastructure at RU that would serve us well over time. Improving strength and conditioning as well as elevating the rest of the FB program to current B1G standards in other areas seemed like something that Ash could accomplish.

But it doesn’t seem like we have a B1G FB infrastructure built at this point. Not sure if RU FB is a house of cards, but I wouldn’t bet against it right now.

 

[Plum Street]

I am surprised no one bumped this legendary thread . I hated the hire from day one and was blasted because many here never thought it could be bad .

https://rutgers.forums.rivals.com/threads/ash-will-get-us-smashed.57686/

 

[ElmiraExpress]

Just curious...what was your reaction when it was announced that Chris Ash had been hired as the new football coach at RU?

Were you optimistic after hiring a well regarded assistant at a powerhouse program?
Were you disappointed and thought RU could have done better at that time?
Somewhere in between?

Today, it seems to be unanimous among the RU faithful that Ash is not the right guy for the job. But what did you think of him on Day 1?

Almost everyone said the same thing ... who???
Most of this board sees the world through scarlet-colored glasses, so after a few days, everyone tried to convince themselves and each other, it was a great hire, but everyone actually preferred someone better.

 

[cicero grimes]

I did not know much about him but liked his pedigree so I was happy with the hire. The loss to Flood bothered me but I not so much to get me off the hire. The assistants bothered me. I did not like DM or JN. The bowl game thing was off putting as was the press conference but he is in charge now and we have to let him run the show his way. The problem which did not become evident right away was he had no idea how to run the show.

 

[rutgersguy1_rivals]

Was all on board after reading that he wanted to modernize the offense finally and emphasize scoring points instead of “keeping it close and let the defense win it”.

https://www.app.com/story/sports/co...l-offense-look-like-under-chris-ash/76951520/

I was still fine after Year 1.
Changing over the offense and the roster takes time.

But then hired Kill to “kill” the offense.
Back to meat-head slow outdated offense - “have to protect the defense”.

He should have been fired the moment he proposed hiring Kill as OC.

Read the Q&A with a UNT beat writer I posted in the other thread (Rhule/Heupel....) about Littrell/Harrell's transition from pro style to spread and the adjustment that first year. Numbers I've posted here before year 1 in the 100s...years 2 and 3 down to the 20s.

 

[knight82]

Didn't know anything about him but wanted to give him a chance. The OSU bowl game didn't bother me because it showed loyalty to players he coached all year. But then he publicly was condescending to Rutgers. He might as well have said he couldn't understand why the Big Ten took us. Got rid of many of our awards and traditions and basically showed no respect for the university. Then he coached his first game vs Washington, a top five team. I expected a loss but I didn't expectt a team that looked completely lost on the field. Showed improvement the following year. But then completely lost me with the Kansas game last year.

 

[JoeRU0304]

Cautiously optimistic, a bit more hopeful after 2017, and then the 2018 disaster at Kansas pulverized any/all support I had for him. I've wanted him out since that day. It's nearly impossible to come back from that and he's demonstrated that every week since.


Joe P.

 

[cicero grimes]

I am surprised no one bumped this legendary thread . I hated the hire from day one and was blasted because many here never thought it could be bad .

https://rutgers.forums.rivals.com/threads/ash-will-get-us-smashed.57686/

I give you credit for seeing this from day one. Looking back on that thread its interesting to see how many long time posters from then are no longer here. Looks like Ash can take some credit for that as well.

 

[R1776U]

yea.. i hated the hire from day one.. why hire a guy that Coach Flood kicked his *** in when he was at arky.. a stupid ******** flyover country idiot that doesn't know **** about eastern football.. hey ashole, if your reading this GO AWAY NOW YOU PRICK

 

[RU05]

DC of a National Championship squad, heck yeah I was in favor of that.

Now? I think he has provided a good list of potential pitfalls when hiring a first time HC. Still think he can be a good HC though.

 

[BillyC80]

I was neutral on him at first for many of the reasons already stated.

He lost me the first time we punted on the opponent’s 39 yard line.

I remember thinking, who does that?

And many times since I’ve thought he was playing to keep the score respectable as opposed to winning the game.

 

[koleszar]

I give you credit for seeing this from day one. Looking back on that thread its interesting to see how many long time posters from then are no longer here. Looks like Ash can take some credit for that as well.

I think you give him too much credit. If I wrote a thread for every head coach we've had since Rutgers declared their entrance into big time college athletics saying "...…..... will get us Smashed". I'd be the next coming of Nostradamus.

Dick Anderson- right
Doug Graber- right
Terry Shea- right
Greg Schiano- wrong
Kyle Flood- right
Chris Ash- right

 

[Plum Street]

I think you give him too much credit. If I wrote a thread for every head coach we've had since Rutgers declared their entrance into big time college athletics saying "...…..... will get us Smashed". I'd be the next coming of Nostradamus.
Dick Anderson- right
Doug Graber- right
Terry Shea- right
Greg Schiano- wrong
Kyle Flood- right
Chris Ash- right

Yes, you would be. The problem is how some people believed it was a great hire and ripped me because I didn’t drink the Hobbs kool
Aid on that December day in 2015.

 

[DHajekRC84]

I am surprised no one bumped this legendary thread . I hated the hire from day one and was blasted because many here never thought it could be bad .

https://rutgers.forums.rivals.com/threads/ash-will-get-us-smashed.57686/

I'm used to crappy coaching at Rutgers....just tell me how the market's gonna do next 90 days! (btw, you did nail it)...

 

[Plum Street]

I will say for a brief moment in 2017, I thought and was hoping I could have been wrong . We just picked up our third big ten win after beating Maryland and were sitting at 4-5 . But always stick with your first instinct. We mailed in rest of the 2017 season and ash is 0-14 in p5 games since.