PISCATAWAY, N.J. -- Chris Ash doubted whether he would ever make it big in coaching. Long before he became Rutgers coach, Ash played small-college football about 20 miles from the Iowa town where he grew up. Even as he climbed the ranks to become the defensive coordinator for a national championship team, Ash still wondered if his stay-out-of-the-spotlight style would hold him back.
"The concern for me trying to get a head coaching job was I wasn't highly regarded as a hot coach," Ash said. "I'm not a guy that had been necessarily trying to self-promote himself to get his name out there and become popular with the media people or with fans.