Rutgers Football HC Chris Ash and Asst. coaches talks NSD 2019
On Wednesday afternoon Rutgers Football head coach Chris Ash spoke to Mike Quick in the teams annual post signing day show. The show is compromised of Chris Ash and his coaching staff breaking down the newest additions to the roster and what they feel they acquired in the teams newest players.
“I am happy with what we have done with this recruiting class and I think we’ve addressed a majority of our concerns and our needs, not all of them,” Ash told Mike Quick in a video interview. “We are going to have a couple of spots left to carry with us until post-spring and see what happens with the potential grad transfer market after spring practice.”
Here at The Knight Report we broke down the video, player by player of which each coach thought about the teams newest additions.
“He is a former New Jersey player of the year. He’s a football junkie, a highly competitive person and a guy who wants to do everything right to get better. He’s got certain attributes to his game that maybe we didn’t have last year. He can run, get the ball out quickly on some RPO stuff, and he can operate throwing on the run. He brings a little bit of a different skillset.” — OC John McNulty
“I met him up there at six o’clock in the morning, up by Buffalo and it is cold out. He jumped out of the car and he’s slinging it to about eight guys running routes who will do anything for him, you could just tell. I’ve been at a bunch of workouts and I haven’t seen anybody throw like that. We brought him to one of our camps, where he was around the best players in the whole area and he was one of the best throwers there. He was all-state hockey and football player and then you go to his games he was returning kickoffs, blitzing as a safety and intercepting balls down the field. All that stuff and it all translates to success at the next level.” — OC John McNulty
“He had a lot of offers and he should have. He is a great player, great athlete and a great football family. In the end Aaron felt comfortable with not just the coaches, but the players, even more so with the players. In the end I just think that relationships won out and when Aaron was on campus he already had some brothers already. He’s going to be able to walk on campus and already have 100 friends.” -- TE coach Nunzio Campanile
"We were really sure about him early and Vince Okruch told me about him when I first got on the job. He was a little smaller his junior year around 5-foot-10, 170-pounds, but he’s a little closer to 200-pounds now. Coach Okruch already had a previous relationship with his coach, then I went out to see him and Coach Ash went out to see him in the summer and we knew we really had to get out in front on this guy.” — TE coach Nunzio Campanile
“We still got to add some experience to the wide receiver room and Monterio is a guy who had a productive career in the junior college ranks. We expect him to really come in and contribute at the position. He’s an older guy, a more experienced guy and football is really important to him. He’s just another great addition to the room.” — WR coach Lester Erb
“Stanley is obviously one of the premier receivers in the state down there at Woodrow and we’ve been recruiting him since his freshman year. We are extremely excited to have him and he’s going to be a guy who I think could come in and play right away. He’s a tremendous wide receiver, has some good ball skills and really more importantly he is a really good individual.” — WR coach Lester Erb
We felt we needed to add some height to the room and they are all very good players. Isaiah is a guy we are very excited about, we’ve been recruiting him for over a year now. We identified him early and he’s another accomplished guy out of the state of Florida.” — WR coach Lester Erb
“I think it’s huge to get him back at Rutgers. My first reaction is wow and man this is great for Rutgers. If you meet the family, go to the high school and be around the team he is quite leader. He doesn’t say a lot, does a great job academically and he has a great football mind.” - OLB/ST coach Vince Okruch
“Omari is really a guy who has three years to play two. Just looking at his maturity as a person, his football smarts and his work ethic he has the potential. He spent two good years at a junior college and didn’t waste any time building his body up and I think he still has some room to grow still. He has all the skills to help us out and out of three guys we landed he probably has the bet chance to start right away coming out of a junior college.” -- OC John McNulty
“It’s interesting that this pipeline has kind of developed and we were kind of in the forefront of it. When they brought a number of guys over to camp, he popped right away. He showed certain qualities of a good offensive lineman, the bend, the pop, the footwork and the ability to get out of a stance and move to different levels. You could see the attributes from him. When you watch him on tape he’s further along physically then some of these guys coming out of high school.” — OC John McNulty
“I think we had built a pretty strong relationship with CJ and his family. He is a tough, dependable, strong, stout player. A lot of times this is the hardest position to come in right away and play, but certainly he has the physical attributes to come in and compete at the position right away. He’s one of those guys, who have been here a million times and he is very into getting in here and doing things to get better.” -- OC John McNulty
“It’s real big for an interior guy like him to be here early. I think sometimes you like at even the NFL guys and it’s a position that is going to take some time just to get acclimated to every thing. Just him being on campus and being in the weight room with coach Parker, getting in the film room and getting those 15 spring practices will be second to none. Excited about him because he is very tough and a guy who can bring versatility to both inside positions.” — DL coach Corey Brown
“I love his athleticism, he is a very smart kid. He understands the game and has some really good football IQ, he has some potential grow still also. He was a dual sport kid in the past participating in both basketball and track, now that he will be focusing on one he will grow, get bigger and bring a lot to the table.” — DL coach Corey Brown
“He is definitely a guy who did a lot of different things for his team, playing running back, linebacker and defensive line checks a lot of boxes for us. His upside is so huge and he is a kid who will come in with a chip on his shoulder. Being up in Hornell not a lot of people knew about him and I think he has a huge upside.” — DL coach Corey Brown
"We are hoping he is going to have an opportunity to be an impact player. We are going to play him at WILL linebacker and he will help us on special teams. He is going to provide a lot of leadership too, in his short time here I’ve already seen a ton of leadership potential out of him. He’s a hard worker with a positive attitude and other gravitate toward him and I think he has a chance to be a special player.” - Head Coach Chris Ash
“Nihym went away and came back and he was with us for a majority of the fall. We kind of played him at outside linebacker, inside linebacker and we feel he has chance to make an impact as an outside linebacker. He is a run and hit guy, he loves the game of football and practices really hard. He’s already off to a great start this semester in the weight room. He played in four games for us last year and we were still able to redshirt him. He’s big, strong and physical, hoping to hear his name called a lot this year.” - Head Coach Chris Ash.
“He is a smart, tough, dependable guy and his dad is a football coach. I thought playing against him, man he was a tough, talented kid. Being a coaches kid from a great program, he will be a kind of guy who can come in and compete right away.” — TE coach Nunzio Campanile
“I loved him for a long time and we’ve been recruiting him for around two years now. We really fell in love with his athletic ability when he was at running back. We knew he was going to be a linebacker for us and when you look at the linebacker group overall we really addressed a big need at that position and I think we are going to be good for a long time at that spot.” — Head Coach Chris Ash
“We got him early, started early and showed him this a program looking for good, young talent and that there would be an opportunity for him to play right away. I saw him a week ago and I’d say he’s closer to 6-foot-5 now. Originally he wanted to play safety, but we watched him move around and said you’d be the biggest safety in football. He’s in that athlete spot right now, but I really see him being an outside linebacker, nickel safety type. I really think the secret to his recruitment was we started early.” - OLB/ST coach Vince Okruch
“He is cat like quick, great lateral quickness and change of direction. He’s also a basketball player and comes from some great bloodlines, you know his father played at another B1G institution and he’s very athletic.” — Safeties coach Noah Joseph
"Donald is very versatile. He will probably start out at corner, but hopefully he will move back into my room at safety. He is a guy when you talk about being a football player, you turn on the film whether it is in pass coverage, making tackles at the line of scrimmage, or blitzing he just does it all.” — Safeties coach Noah Joseph
"We went down there in the spring and saw him. Coach Ash actually coached a young man at Iowa State from Riverside High School and it ended up being an NFL guy. With TJ he was doing a lot for them on offense and we saw him do some DB drills and he could really put his foot in the ground and change direction. We monitored him and stayed in contact with him and in the end we were able to land him.” — Safeties coach Noah Joseph
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