After calling plays last fall, Rob Ash will coordinate MSU's special teams in 2010
Photo by: Kelly Gorham
Ash Takes Lead Special Teams Role
8/12/2010 1:38:07 PM | Football
MSU's fourth-year head coach will be coordinating Bobcat kick teams this fall
Rob Ash knows that the difference between eight wins and a potential playoff berth and the quiet Thanksgiving weekend that usually accompanies a seven-win season for NCAA Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) teams is slim. Over the summer he found a role for himself that he hopes eliminates that margin.
“I'll be coordinating special teams this year,” Ash said Wednesday. “I'll have more of a presence, I'll be more involved, in the return and cover teams than before. I'll be involved in scouting and preparation, I'll be involved in personnel, I'll be more involved in motivation of the players on the sideline during games. Our coaches who have taken the lead (on the individual kick team units) have done a fantastic job, and I think this is a way for me to help this football team.”
The early returns, Ash said, are positive. “It's kind of invigorating,” said MSU's fourth-year head coach who has been involved in all aspects of special teams coaching at points of his 36-year coaching career. “The key to me is that we were ranked fifth or lower in the Big Sky on all four of our kick (return or coverage) teams last year, and we need to get better.”
Montana State's special teams produced some big individual performances in 2009. Jason Cunningham stood as one of the FCS' most productive and consistent place kickers, converting 14 of 18 field goal attempts and 25 of his 26 point after tries, and special teams managed some big plays, such as the fumbled kickoff recovered by Caleb Schreibeis against South Dakota. However, MSU was fifth in kickoff coverage, seventh in punting and punt returns, eighth in kickoff returns, and ninth in PAT kicking, largely due to two misses against Eastern Washington with Cunningham at home with the flu.
While focus naturally drifts to specialists when watching special teams play, Ash's will be elsewhere. “Everyone wants to focus on the guys who touch or kick the ball, the kicker and punter and return guys,” Ash said. “My focus is on what I call the core guys of the kick teams, the coverage guys and protection guys. They make things work.”
Tanner Ripley is a fifth-year senior who has made his name on Bobcat special teams, earning all-conference honors last fall. In addition to challenging for starting honors at linebacker as a senior, he embraces the idea that games can be won and lost during the handful of plays each game when a team purposely gives the ball to the opponent. “Coach (Ash) has challenged the older kids to make a commitment to playing on special teams this fall as a strong core, and a lot of older guys have stepped up and made that commitment,” Ripley said.
While young players typically embrace special teams roles to get on the field, Ripley said the importance of the kicking game in college football is driven home early. “In high school, there's not that much focus on special teams because you're game planning on offense and defense,” the Highwood native said. “It's different here, and you learn that right away, with the massive amount of times we spend in special teams meetings, sometimes multiple meetings in a day. (Special teams) definitely climbs up the priority list as you spend so much time on it.”
A more holistic approach to special teams emerges in the discussion of the team's new punter, Rory Perez, who has impressed at times early in 2010. “His hang time is tremendous, that's what we recruited him for,” Ash said. “He gets unbelievable elevation on his kicks, up to 4.5 (seconds) on his hang time. We want to lead the league in net punting.”
The decision to throw his energy into instilling incremental improvements in kick teams was a simple one, Ash said. “We won seven games last season with our kick teams in the bottom half of the league. Improving in those areas might be the difference between losing one of those games and winning it, and that might be the different between missing the playoffs and making the playoffs.”
Ripley summed it up succinctly. “We will do whatever it takes to win.”
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