Report: Rutgers Offensive Coordinator Drew Mehringer Leaving To Work For Mentor Tom Herman At Texas

After a busy weekend with Rutgers football hosting many current commits and recruiting on their official visits on campus, it appears that head coach Chris Ash also lost his offensive coordinator.

Regardless of how you felt about Mehringer, there is no doubt the timing of his departure is not good. Many commits were visiting this weekend, including 3-star quarterback Johnathan Lewis, who was recruited by Mehringer. The most important thing now is how Ash acts in replacing Mehringer and keeping a player like Lewis committed to the program. However, Ash has proven to be a good communicator with his recruits so far.

On November 27th the University of Texas announced Tom Herman as there new Head Football Coach. Herman, the former Head Coach of the University of Houston, went 22-4 in his two seasons. Drew Mehringer worked for Herman at Houston as the Wide Receivers coach and recruiting coordinator for the 2015 season.

Rutgers Football Head Coach Chris Ash hired Drew to run and implement the power spread offense similar to Ohio State. Prior to this past season Ash and Mehringer had no connections beside the fact they both worked at Ohio State and Iowa State. In this article with Dunleavy, Buckeyes head coach Urban Meyer discussed Mehringer here:

"He's unique," Meyer said when asked by NJ Advance Media. "Tom Herman, when I hired him, said, 'I've got to get this guy.' He got him, and I love Drew. Drew was a big part of our success, very intelligent. I trusted Drew with a lot of things that I usually don't trust with young people."

After Mehringer joined the Rutgers staff, Herman had this to say to Sports Illustrated about the new play caller:

“He’s the brightest young coach in America and is more than ready to run his own offense,” Herman said on Sunday.

“Although we are extremely sad to see Drew go, especially me given our history and relationship, we know that Chris Ash and Rutgers is getting an unbelievable teacher, coach, recruiter and mentor,” Herman said.

After only one season as Offensive Coordinator, Drew Mehringer is returning to his Texas roots to work under his mentor Tom Herman. The revolving door of offensive coordinators continues at Rutgers, and the upcoming consequences of this move have yet to be seen. Here is a list of previous offensive coordinators at Rutgers from the past decade.

2006 - 2008: John McNulty

2009 - 2010: Kirk Ciarrocca/Kyle Flood

2011: Frank Cignetti

2012: Dave Brock

2013: Ron Prince

2014: Ralph Friedgen

2015: Ben McDaniels