Notre Dame football freshman LB Kyngstonn Viliamu-Asa on his CFP return
Notre Dame football freshman LB Kyngstonn Viliamu-Asa on his return to play in the CFP after suffering a knee injury on Nov. 23 vs. Army.
- The Irish’s last defensive coordinator was recognized as the best assistant in college football. Now, Chris Ash is tasked with replacing him.
- Ash, a native of Iowa, slept on couches while working at Drake. He eventually won a national championship and now seeks a second.
- Insight into what Ash will bring as Notre Dame’s defensive coordinator.
SOUTH BEND — Half a lifetime ago, long before he would land at Notre Dame football as the replacement for the reigning Broyles Award winner, Chris Ash slept on the couch in the Drake football office.
This was 1997, and funds were limited at the Division I-AA program. Yet Ash, just a year removed from an inspirational career as a Bulldogs safety and special teamer, didn’t mind roughing it.
“It was a very low-paying, menial job,” former Drake coach Rob Ash (no relation) said in a phone interview. “He said, ‘I don’t care. I want to coach.’ “
Two or three weeks into the arrangement, Rob Ash noticed something unusual about his new hire.
“He was always in the office when I got there, and he was always there when I left,” the elder Ash said. “Finally, I said, ‘You’re spending a lot of time in the office.’ “
The younger Ash had to confess.
“Coach, I’m sleeping here.”
Ash was on a mission to learn everything he could about the game while working on a staff of just two full-time assistants and a revolving crew of low-paid dreamers. This included reading through a collection of thick coaching manuals that lined the walls of the Drake football office.
“I had probably 30 or 40 of those manuals that each had 30 or 40 football lectures in them,” Rob Ash said. “They were these big manuals from the ‘coach of the year’ clinic. That’s what Chris did. He just sat in the office at night and read those manuals.”
Growing up in Ottumwa, a southern Iowa town of about 25,000, the younger Ash once recalled a boyhood regimen of “nonstop work.” He’d wake at 4 a.m. to deliver newspapers; after school and on weekends, he’d paint houses or work in the cornfields.
Anything it took to help his family pay the bills.
A five-sport varsity athlete in high school, where he also played for the Bulldogs, Ash went on to make himself indispensable at Drake.
“He was not the fastest or the most skilled player, but he was one of those guys you couldn’t take off the field,” said Rob Ash, who went on to coach at Montana State. “He had some terrible knee injuries, but he just played his heart out. He was smart and ruthlessly competitive. I’ll never forget his toughness and his determination.”
When Chris Ash went back to basics at Iowa State
At 25, after two seasons as a defensive coordinator, Chris Ash willingly returned to GA status at Iowa State.
Part of a coaching pipeline that sent at least eight young assistants from Des Moines to Ames during Dan McCarney’s 12-year run with the Cyclones, Ash made sure no one could ever say they outworked him.
“Chris had it all, you could just tell,” McCarney, now 71 and retired from coaching, said in a phone interview. “There was no doubt he had a rocket tied to his a–.”
Ash spent the last six of his seven years at Iowa State as a full-time defensive backs coach. By 2006, McCarney’s final season in Ames, Ash served as recruiting coordinator as well.
“Chris was willing to do anything,” McCarney said. “You love guys that don’t give a damn what their job description is. That was Chris Ash all the way. It didn’t matter how little a task might be or how big the responsibility might be, he’d jump in there and take it and go with it.”
McCarney noticed right away that Ash was “never a head bobber,” meaning he didn’t just nod in silent agreement at meetings.
“Chris was willing to speak up, have an opinion,” McCarney said. “He wasn’t afraid to throw out ideas and come up with some new things. That’s the old adage (Hall of Fame coach) Hayden Fry taught all of us when we were young assistants: ‘Don’t be afraid to scratch where it itches.’“
Chris Ash and the path to Ohio State
A dozen years went by before Ash regained coordinator responsibilities at Wisconsin in 2011-12. After following Badgers coach Brent Bielema to Arkansas for the 2013 season, Ash was in play again, this time for a co-DC role at Ohio State.
McCarney, who spent three seasons at Florida as Urban Meyer’s assistant head coach, including a 30-2 stretch and a national title in 2008, heard from his former boss, then in Columbus.
“I remember vividly when Urban called,” McCarney said. “He wanted to know about Chris. He said, ‘Listen, I don’t need just a guy, I don’t need somebody solid. I don’t need somebody good, Mac. I need somebody elite.’“
McCarney, then amid a five-year run as coach at North Texas, didn’t hesitate.
“I couldn’t have gone to bat any stronger than I had with any recommendation I’ve ever given an assistant coach,” McCarney said.
Before Ohio State faced Oregon for the first College Football Playoff title in 2014, McCarney made the trip down from Denton to Arlington, Texas, at Meyer’s invitation. After watching practice on the sidelines with former Gators quarterback Tim Tebow, McCarney saw Meyer and Ash walking toward them.
“Urban said, ‘You were right, Mac. He’s done a hell of a job,’“ McCarney said.
Pause.
“And he’d better do a hell of a job Monday night,“ Meyer added.
The Buckeyes won 42-20, holding Oregon and Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Marcus Mariota scoreless for the final 22 minutes. Ash was hired as the coach at Rutgers one year later.
“Those are things you feel good about,” McCarney said. “It was so easy to recommend Chris.”
What Chris Ash will bring to Notre Dame football
Now 51, Ash is back in the college game after spending the past four seasons as an NFL assistant and scout, including the 2021 season with Meyer’s Jacksonville Jaguars.
Rob Ash, now director of coaching development for Championship Analytics, sees the same devotion in Notre Dame’s new defensive coordinator that the kid from Ottumwa once showed as a couch-dwelling GA at Drake.
“I can’t imagine anybody more qualified for the position than Chris,” Rob Ash said. “He’s been a head coach. He’s been a DC at this level. He’s been in the NFL for many years. He knows defensive football as well as anybody in the country. He’s a smart, cagey gameday tactician.”
Chris Ash, who once said he “coaches serious,” still knows how to connect with young players, his mentors say.
“He’s an unbelievable motivator-type guy,” said Rob Ash, 73. “In practice situations, players really love him. He is not a pushover now. He is not a softy. He’ll get after those guys. He’s got a great mix of intelligence and toughness, competitiveness and experience.”
McCarney, who Lou Holtz tried to hire two different times at Notre Dame in the 1980s, sees a “great fit” for Ash at Notre Dame.
“There’s a time to put your arm around players and a time to put a foot up their a–,” McCarney said. “That hasn’t changed. There’s nothing wrong with coaching guys hard. Players still want to be coached hard, and Chris can do that. He’ll coach ‘em hard, but he’ll love ‘em up.”
Along the way, the work ethic that drove Ash from small-town Iowa to the top of his profession will be on daily display.
“He’s going to expect their best because he’s going to give them his best,” McCarney said. “It’s funny how that works, you know? You can just fight for each other and then hopefully make history someday. And I got a feeling there’s going to be more of that at Notre Dame with Chris involved.”
Mike Berardino covers Notre Dame football for the South Bend Tribune and NDInsider.com. Follow him on social media @MikeBerardino.
This content is reposted from the source: https://www.indystar.com/story/sports/college/notre-dame/2025/02/26/notre-dame-football-defensive-coordinator-chris-ash-elite-journey/80266531007/
