Rob Ash Discusses MSU's Passing Game, the Big Sky, and Recruiting
8/5/2009 12:00:00 AM | Football
On the team’s quarterback play during spring practice:
“Spring ball was a challenge for us because we had a lot of players missing at a lot of positions. … Both (Mark) Iddins and (Cody) Kempt were limited (by injuries) during the spring, but we still got a lot done. Mark Iddins was able to get most of the team reps in and he got stronger as the spring went along. He came out of spring with the number one spot, although Cody Kempt is healthy now and had a great summer of training and he’s ready to challenge Mark now for the job.”
Where is improvement needed more, at quarterback or receiver?
“No question in my mind (success in 2009) depends on the wide receivers. Our quarterbacks have taken a lot of heat, and we haven’t been great at that position, but I think our issues have been more at wide receiver. We haven’t had a lot of speed, we haven’t had a lot of consistency there, and that’s an area where we needed to improve. We had that as a major focus of our off-season in recruiting, to try to make some acquisitions and recruiting moves to try to improve our talent at the wide receiver position. We actually started that process a year ago by bringing in DeSean Thomas. DeSean had an excellent true freshman season for our team, had some great plays throughout the year. Of course, he tore his ACL in the Northern Arizona game and did not get to play against Portland State or Montana at the end of the year, and we missed him, but he’ll be back. He missed the spring, but he’ll be back, and he’s a good returning player. In the meantime we brought in Elvis Akpla, who’s a transfer from the University of Oregon. He was here in the spring and doing a really good job until he also got injured and missed about the last half of the spring. We brought in Julius Lloyd who’s a junior college transfer from California, he’ll be joining us in the fall, and we have a couple of freshmen who might figure into the picture, possibly Everette Gilbert and maybe Gianni Carter. So when you take the two freshmen, the junior college guy, the transfer, and DeSean Thomas from last year who was a freshman, there are four or five guys there who are really new faces and we’re hoping that from that group we can find some players, guys that can make the catch and make plays for us and can help us in the passing game.”
What are your thoughts on the Big Sky this season?
“I’ll tell you what, I thought Weber State had a fabulous year last year. They’re a great football team, and they have so many guys back from that team that it’s scary. I think they’re a legitimate team on the national level. The win they had over Cal Poly, and of course beating Montana during the regular season, with all the weapons they have back I’m very, very impressed with Weber. I think they’re going to be good. But you always have to go back to Montana, they have that ability to win the big games and the clutch games, and they have the consistency over time. I’m not saying anything new here when I say that I think those two will be the teams to beat over the course of the season. What’s going to be intriguing to me is that there are so many other programs in our league in the developmental stages where you have coaches that from two or three years ago like myself coming into the second or third year, and now’s the time where you’re going to see progress being made by those program. There’s no doubt in my mind that somebody is going to jump out of that pack and the efforts of those coaching staffs over the last two or three years to build and bring freshmen in and get the off-season program going are going to pay off and somebody’s going to have that season jumping out of the pack like Weber State did after Ron had been there three or four years. But I don’t know who that is, I’m not a magician, I don’t have that crystal ball, but I think there’s going to be good competition, I don’t think Weber and Montana aren’t a lock to go through their seasons and bowl through all their games, although they’re both very good. I think there will be good competition from top to bottom.”
How have you enjoyed coaching at Montana State and the rivalry with Montana?
“I really enjoy it here. We’ve got great support and a great university to represent. I love the state and the people here, the boosters and the fan. I couldn’t ask for a better situation. We’re trying our best to put a team out there to meet the expectations of our boosters and fan that have put so much energy and time and support into our program. It’s definitely a challenge here, the University of Montana has such great history and tradition, especially the last 15 years or so, and they’ve set the bar very high. We’re trying to build a program that’s going to be competitive, we’re trying to build it with high school recruits, with in-state recruits, with a good off-season program, with an emphasis on academic success and off-the-field positive behavior, all those kinds of things that take time. I think we’re on the right path, and I see us making strides in all those directions. Quite honestly it’s the same formula Montana’s used to such good success over the years, as well. I’m not saying we’re copying them, because it’s the style I’ve always had in my career as a coach, but it’s the formula Montana has made work and we’re hoping to make it work as well, but the league is tough. There’s no question we’re going to have great parity and great competition every week. But that’s what makes it fun. Every week you have to line up and play.”
Has Cody Kempt put on a bunch of muscle and become a different type of player?
“I think Cody Kempt is very motivated to make amends for last year, and I think Cody is very motivated because he wasn’t able to do spring football so he lost his number one spot on the depth chart. He made a huge commitment this summer. He’s put on about 20 pounds, he’s a little bit over 230 pounds right now, he’s running extremely well, his arm is strong, and he’s committed to the idea of regaining his starting quarterback position. That’s a coach’s dream, to have competition and to have guys that are working hard even though they’re not guaranteed to be starters. I’m impressed with what he’s done, and we’re certainly going to give him the opportunity to show us what he can do when practice starts.”
How have you had so much success recruiting in Texas?
“We have a really good recruiter, Justin Gaines, who goes down there. Justin is an active, persistent, aggressive recruiter in a positive way. He gets in and has a good relationship with players, he digs around and finds guys that are a good fit, guys that just miss catching on with a bowl division team, guys that fall through the cracks for one reason or another. I think it’s a combination of Justin working hard, first of all, finding the guy that’s the right fit, and then the key is we talk to them about the quality of football in Montana, the quality of football in the Big Sky, we talk about the support, the fans, the sellouts, the booster club, the whole emphasis on football. But these Texas kids love football. They want to come someplace where football is important. If they’re going to play at the FCS level they want to play in front of a full stadium and not in front of 5,000 people. They want to be in front of 15 or 20,000. So those are the things we push, and it’s been a good fit. Plus I joke, they’ve seen cowboy hats and boots before, so they’re not bothered by that, either.”
Can you talk about recruiting in the state and specifically in Helena, especially Helena Capital, with the Bignell brothers and Bobby Daly’s little brother in your program next fall?
“I think I’m like any coach in the country, we like to have players from winning teams because they know what it takes to win. We like having guys that have been in a great off-season program that they’ve had to make a commitment to, and certainly Helena Capital does that, with their lifting program and the track program that all the guys participate in. When we get a guy from Helena Capital we know that he knows how to work, he knows how to win, he’s had to compete for his playing time, he’s been well-coached. Those are all things we look for in a recruit. There are other good programs in the state, don’t get me wrong, and we recruit every school in the state. We’ll recruit anybody from the state of Montana who’s a good player regardless of what program they come from, but the Helena Capital guys have a little edge and they’re very attractive to us because of those things they’ve gone through. To win three championships in a row at any level of football is a tremendous accomplishment, so they deserve that level of attention that we give them.”
“Spring ball was a challenge for us because we had a lot of players missing at a lot of positions. … Both (Mark) Iddins and (Cody) Kempt were limited (by injuries) during the spring, but we still got a lot done. Mark Iddins was able to get most of the team reps in and he got stronger as the spring went along. He came out of spring with the number one spot, although Cody Kempt is healthy now and had a great summer of training and he’s ready to challenge Mark now for the job.”
Where is improvement needed more, at quarterback or receiver?
“No question in my mind (success in 2009) depends on the wide receivers. Our quarterbacks have taken a lot of heat, and we haven’t been great at that position, but I think our issues have been more at wide receiver. We haven’t had a lot of speed, we haven’t had a lot of consistency there, and that’s an area where we needed to improve. We had that as a major focus of our off-season in recruiting, to try to make some acquisitions and recruiting moves to try to improve our talent at the wide receiver position. We actually started that process a year ago by bringing in DeSean Thomas. DeSean had an excellent true freshman season for our team, had some great plays throughout the year. Of course, he tore his ACL in the Northern Arizona game and did not get to play against Portland State or Montana at the end of the year, and we missed him, but he’ll be back. He missed the spring, but he’ll be back, and he’s a good returning player. In the meantime we brought in Elvis Akpla, who’s a transfer from the University of Oregon. He was here in the spring and doing a really good job until he also got injured and missed about the last half of the spring. We brought in Julius Lloyd who’s a junior college transfer from California, he’ll be joining us in the fall, and we have a couple of freshmen who might figure into the picture, possibly Everette Gilbert and maybe Gianni Carter. So when you take the two freshmen, the junior college guy, the transfer, and DeSean Thomas from last year who was a freshman, there are four or five guys there who are really new faces and we’re hoping that from that group we can find some players, guys that can make the catch and make plays for us and can help us in the passing game.”
What are your thoughts on the Big Sky this season?
“I’ll tell you what, I thought Weber State had a fabulous year last year. They’re a great football team, and they have so many guys back from that team that it’s scary. I think they’re a legitimate team on the national level. The win they had over Cal Poly, and of course beating Montana during the regular season, with all the weapons they have back I’m very, very impressed with Weber. I think they’re going to be good. But you always have to go back to Montana, they have that ability to win the big games and the clutch games, and they have the consistency over time. I’m not saying anything new here when I say that I think those two will be the teams to beat over the course of the season. What’s going to be intriguing to me is that there are so many other programs in our league in the developmental stages where you have coaches that from two or three years ago like myself coming into the second or third year, and now’s the time where you’re going to see progress being made by those program. There’s no doubt in my mind that somebody is going to jump out of that pack and the efforts of those coaching staffs over the last two or three years to build and bring freshmen in and get the off-season program going are going to pay off and somebody’s going to have that season jumping out of the pack like Weber State did after Ron had been there three or four years. But I don’t know who that is, I’m not a magician, I don’t have that crystal ball, but I think there’s going to be good competition, I don’t think Weber and Montana aren’t a lock to go through their seasons and bowl through all their games, although they’re both very good. I think there will be good competition from top to bottom.”
How have you enjoyed coaching at Montana State and the rivalry with Montana?
“I really enjoy it here. We’ve got great support and a great university to represent. I love the state and the people here, the boosters and the fan. I couldn’t ask for a better situation. We’re trying our best to put a team out there to meet the expectations of our boosters and fan that have put so much energy and time and support into our program. It’s definitely a challenge here, the University of Montana has such great history and tradition, especially the last 15 years or so, and they’ve set the bar very high. We’re trying to build a program that’s going to be competitive, we’re trying to build it with high school recruits, with in-state recruits, with a good off-season program, with an emphasis on academic success and off-the-field positive behavior, all those kinds of things that take time. I think we’re on the right path, and I see us making strides in all those directions. Quite honestly it’s the same formula Montana’s used to such good success over the years, as well. I’m not saying we’re copying them, because it’s the style I’ve always had in my career as a coach, but it’s the formula Montana has made work and we’re hoping to make it work as well, but the league is tough. There’s no question we’re going to have great parity and great competition every week. But that’s what makes it fun. Every week you have to line up and play.”
Has Cody Kempt put on a bunch of muscle and become a different type of player?
“I think Cody Kempt is very motivated to make amends for last year, and I think Cody is very motivated because he wasn’t able to do spring football so he lost his number one spot on the depth chart. He made a huge commitment this summer. He’s put on about 20 pounds, he’s a little bit over 230 pounds right now, he’s running extremely well, his arm is strong, and he’s committed to the idea of regaining his starting quarterback position. That’s a coach’s dream, to have competition and to have guys that are working hard even though they’re not guaranteed to be starters. I’m impressed with what he’s done, and we’re certainly going to give him the opportunity to show us what he can do when practice starts.”
How have you had so much success recruiting in Texas?
“We have a really good recruiter, Justin Gaines, who goes down there. Justin is an active, persistent, aggressive recruiter in a positive way. He gets in and has a good relationship with players, he digs around and finds guys that are a good fit, guys that just miss catching on with a bowl division team, guys that fall through the cracks for one reason or another. I think it’s a combination of Justin working hard, first of all, finding the guy that’s the right fit, and then the key is we talk to them about the quality of football in Montana, the quality of football in the Big Sky, we talk about the support, the fans, the sellouts, the booster club, the whole emphasis on football. But these Texas kids love football. They want to come someplace where football is important. If they’re going to play at the FCS level they want to play in front of a full stadium and not in front of 5,000 people. They want to be in front of 15 or 20,000. So those are the things we push, and it’s been a good fit. Plus I joke, they’ve seen cowboy hats and boots before, so they’re not bothered by that, either.”
Can you talk about recruiting in the state and specifically in Helena, especially Helena Capital, with the Bignell brothers and Bobby Daly’s little brother in your program next fall?
“I think I’m like any coach in the country, we like to have players from winning teams because they know what it takes to win. We like having guys that have been in a great off-season program that they’ve had to make a commitment to, and certainly Helena Capital does that, with their lifting program and the track program that all the guys participate in. When we get a guy from Helena Capital we know that he knows how to work, he knows how to win, he’s had to compete for his playing time, he’s been well-coached. Those are all things we look for in a recruit. There are other good programs in the state, don’t get me wrong, and we recruit every school in the state. We’ll recruit anybody from the state of Montana who’s a good player regardless of what program they come from, but the Helena Capital guys have a little edge and they’re very attractive to us because of those things they’ve gone through. To win three championships in a row at any level of football is a tremendous accomplishment, so they deserve that level of attention that we give them.”
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