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Until the Syracuse Orange have a new football coach, we'll be previewing candidates that may be up for the job. One of these individuals might be leading the program. Or maybe it's someone else entirely. Sometimes we're wrong. Sorry.
Who's this guy?
Where is he right now?
He's with the Ohio State Buckeyes where he's the co-defensive coordinator and safeties coach.
Where else has he been?
The Drake graduate (we'll come back to that) worked his way up to DC there and then started over again at Iowa State, parlaying that to assistant gigs at San Diego State, back to Iowa State, Wisconsin and Arkansas before coming to OSU two years ago.
What do current fans think of him?
Right now the Buckeyes have concerns about how their defense, namely the secondary, played in recent games, which is basically all Ash. However they still recognize that he's done a good job overall and he's considered OSU's most likely assistant to be hired away as a head coach.
Random fun fact:
He's got a line of DVDs outlining his defensive schemes if you want to bone up.
Six degrees of Syracuse:
Ash went to Drake. Mark Coyle went to Drake. They both played football there. They missed one another by one year. Interesting.
Advantages to hiring him?
His calling card is that he took a bad secondary and made it pretty good. Where do I sign up? He's also got great coaching pedigree and he's done a fine job recruiting at big-time programs.
Drawbacks to hiring him?
Lack of head coaching experience. Most of his experience is in the Midwest. He's only been at the DC level for two years, is he ready for this? Are we just considering him because he's a Drake-y?
Odds it happens?
I suppose it's within the realm of possibility. You could do worse than to hire one of the guys who coached Ohio State's National Championship defense. There will be questions and unknowns but then again there would be with anyone. I'll give it a 20% chance right now. There are a lot of rumors swirling and sources saying that Ash is moving up the chart in terms of interest but all signs seem to point to Coyle playing things closer to the chest than some are giving him credit for.
Previous Profiles: Scott Frost, Ed Orgeron, Dino Babers