Might be a good/great hire but has all the splash value of dropping a .BB in an olympic-sized swimming pool Would have preferred the guy from Oregon.
Name is Andy Avalos. Got a lot of credit for changing the perception of the ducks defense from finesse to physical. Anyone who follows college football outside of longhorns should be aware.
I wish that Ash or, for that matter, any available candidate would be a sure thing, but I wonder if that exists outside of a select few DCs.
He's a coach I prefer due to his job performance. And you can count the number of assistant coaches who aren't looking to advance their station on your fingers.
Still worries me that Herman hires a friend/ex co-worker that he obviously feels comfortable with. Doesn't mean he's not the right choice. But sometimes you need to get out of your comfort zone.
These OC & DC hires could well be the determining factor in whether Tom Herman has any longevity as the Texas HC. I think they are literally career-defining decisions at this point.
I still think Morgan Scalley was the hire to make. Utah amended his contract last week. They now have 7 recruits from Texas getting ready to sign. They have 7 players from Texas on their roster. I hope we don’t find out on the 31st what we missed out on.
A lot of Ohio State fans out there saying "We tried to warn you about Tim Beck, but Ash is the real deal."
Hope he's ready for Big 12 offenses... Don't think his scheme in Big 10 works in Big 12, especially with no where close to the talent in the front 7 he had at Ohio St.
He was a National Champ DC in 14' and the Defense was top 5 in 15'. But he had major talent. IMHO, you cannot count his failure as HC at Rutgers compared to DC at Texas. Totally different positions. So his time at OSU and before is what to compare. He was Dan Carney and Paul Rhodes DC at ISU in the mid 2000's. He is a good 4-3 DC. Different than Orlando. I wonder how pressing CB's and quarters from an inverted tampa 2 look will work in the Big 12? Baylor and ISU run similar defenses with less talent and are two of the top defenses in the conference. I think and hope that we will be ok. We have talent. If we can avoid injuries like we had in 19', then I look for a significant upgrade to our defensive rankings. We ran press corners and shaded our DE's outside against TTU for the first time this season in large measure. Obviously, it worked. I know TTU is not Utah, so the jury is still out. As far as TH's familiarity with him. If I was staking my coaching career on a DC hire I would not hire someone I did not know. I understand the comfort of an Ash hire over a Barry Odom hire. If that was the reason. Maybe it wasn't. I think both would be good at Texas. Scalley was never going to happen.
This ^^^ is a valid point. However, he has been here awhile, and should be familiar enough with B12 offenses to have formulated some schematic adjustments from what he implemented at tOSU and Rutgers, into what works in this conference, and their pass oriented offenses.
I like this hire. Our inability to stop 3rd downs is what started the seasons decline and carried over to the offense. We were 1 defensive stop away in the lsu game. With Ash we should at least make more critical stops, more consistency, and have a much better overall ranked defense.
Absolutely 100% agree. Either this is the right move for TH or we are looking at 5 years of more mediocrity. Unlike some of you younger guys, I'm running out of time.
Ash was well-respected in the Big Ten. His Rutgers teams were ****, and there wasn't much he could do to stop the bleeding. Defensively, we need more of that "Midwest" mindset of just going full speed and hitting. I saw a bunch of posters criticize him for not coaching in a conference that focuses on offense, but the Big Ten always seems to fare well against the other conferences.
I don't care where he came from but rather: 1) Does he teach fundamentals? 2) Does he teach wrapping up and tackling? 3) Does he teach staying at home and doing your assignment? 4) Can he get kids to buy into his system and walk through a brick wall for him?