ASU fills RBs job
Arkansas State University named Rashad Jackson running backs coach Thursday, filling the final open offensive job on a staff that has replaced seven of 10 assistant coaches in the past 10 days.
Arkansas State University’s offensive coaching staff is complete.
The Red Wolves named Rashad Jackson running backs coach Thursday, filling the final open offensive job on a coaching staff that has replaced seven of 10 assistant coaches in the past 10 days.
Jackson will replace former running backs coach and special teams coordinator Norval McKenzie, who took the same job at the University of Louisville. McKenzie was one of four ASU assistant coaches to accept a job elsewhere since Monday morning.
“[Jackson] was absolutely the guy [new ASU offensive coordinator Keith Heckendorf] stood on the table for from day one,” ASU Coach Blake Anderson said Thursday. “He wanted to add him to his room and felt like he’d bring a lot to us.”
Heckendorf, who was announced as ASU’s offensive coordinator Jan. 9 after the school fired Buster Faulkner, met Jackson when he was a graduate assistant coach at the University of Nebraska from 2004-06.
In 2005, Jackson was a running backs coach at Reedley College — a community college in Reedley, Calif. Jackson also coached wide receivers and tight ends there in 2006.
“So, for the last 11 years, we’ve just developed a relationship and have gotten to know each other,” Heckendorf said. “To be honest, I tried hiring him a couple different times at different places. For whatever reason, things didn’t work out in order for us to connect and get on the same staff.”
Jackson, a Pauls Valley, Okla., native, spent the 2018 season as an offensive coordinator at Trinity Valley Community College in Athens, Texas.
Prior to his stop at Trinity, Jackson spent nine seasons as offensive coordinator at East Central, a Division II program in the Great American Conference located in Ada, Okla. Jackson also served as director of player development in 200708 at Kansas State University.
Jackson — a longtime coach in and around the Midwest, a recruiting hotbed for ASU — will help fill the void left behind when defensive line coach Brian Early accepted the same job at the University of Houston on Monday.
“The footprint that [Jackson] recruits is going to fill a big hole that Brian Early left in terms of northeast Texas, Oklahoma and into Kansas,” Anderson said. “So he fits us in a lot of different areas.”
One of Early’s primary recruiting trails at ASU was junior colleges in Kansas. A number of ASU’s players last season spent time previously in Kansas, including Sun Belt Player of the Year quarterback Justice Hansen (Butler Community College in El Dorado) and Sun Belt Defensive Player of the Year defensive end Ronheen Bingham (Hutchinson Community College in Hutchinson).
“When the opportunity presented itself here, and we were looking for a guy, we felt like he was going to be a perfect fit,” Heckendorf said. “He’s a great ball coach. He’s a great man, a good family man. I think he’ll be a great addition to this staff.”
Promote from within
Arkansas State promoted a special teams coordinator — or coordinators — from within.
The Red Wolves are adding the title to inside wide receivers coach Kyle Cefalo and outside linebackers coach Nick Paremski, Anderson said.
Cefalo will begin his third season at ASU in 2019, which will be Paremski’s second.
Cefalo, Paremski and defensive backs coach Allen Johnson are the only three assistant coaches remaining from the 2018 season.
Another job
ASU defensive coordinator David Duggan, who was hired Tuesday, and Anderson plan to meet this weekend to discuss hiring a defensive tackles coach, the final open job on ASU’s defensive staff.
Anderson said he expects Duggan to report to Jonesboro this weekend.
ASU promoted defensive graduate assistant Brandon Joiner to defensive ends coach Monday. Joiner and the defensive tackles coach — two new titles to ASU’s coaching staff — will replace Early as a coaching duo on the defensive line.