After being tabbed with getting Rutgers back on track in the rugged Big Ten East with the likes of Michigan State, Ohio State, and Michigan, Chris Ash knew he had his work cut out for him to first change the culture in the off season before it translates to wins in the fall.
BTN followed Ash around for a day in his life leading the Rutgers program heading into his first fall, and his day starts with a 5 AM trip to the office, where Ash gets to his desk a few hours before any scheduled meetings for some "solitude time".
"It gives me a chance to really just look at my day. It's my time to look at the calendar, prepare for any meetings, any decision that has to be made in the program comes across your desk, and that's really what the first hour or hour and a half of my day is - just planning out the rest of the day and making sure that I'm organized for any meetings that we have."
Then the cameras head into the team meeting room during a special teams meeting before the Knights head outdoors for the first time this past spring before Ash touches on the culture that he and his staff are working on creating.
"The thing that we talk about with our culture is that there is only one acceptable way to behave and perform in this program, and on the field, it's to go extremely hard."
After practice, Ash's family meets him on the field and he talks about one of the biggest transitions for him going from coordinator to head coach.
"When you're the head coach and you're dealing with every player in the program, you don't get a chance to know the players like you would as a position coach or a coordinator on either side of the ball, and that has been one of the bigger challenges for me."
See more from Ash in BTN's feature below.