Chris Ash Show: no surprises for Rutgers fans

Two things from Wednesday evening’s Chris Ash Show at Edison’s Quaker Steak & Lube: 1) Jerry Kill will be on the sideline for the Morgan State game and 2) Shane Burnham now knows what a jughandle is.

That point about Kill came out well after Ash, when asked by host Chris Carlin, said that it was a very emotional Sunday for the team. Certainly after the loss it was not going to be easy to come in to the Hale Center anyway. But the fact that Kill had his medical issue made it that much more difficult. It was, of course, more so for the quarterbacks, but Ash felt the team was resilient and worked through it.

Not expecting him to say anything different, Ash put the onus for Eastern Michigan on himself. It was “very disappointing”; the team didn’t play well and “didn’t make the improvements we needed to. That’s on me.”

On Kyle Bolin, Ash said, like the rest of the team, he’s evaluated. He “didn't make plays we expected, but he wasn’t alone”. As far as responding to the loss, Ash said the team has had two good days of practice this week and he felt they were focused.

Looking at the running backs, Gus Edwards and Robert Martin, Ash was pleased with their work but was concerned with the inconsistency. The third quarter was good, but they needed that effort throughout the game.

People have commented here that they felt Janarion Grant needed to be in the flow more, including as a receiver. Ash said, “He’s just learning (a year ago) to be a receiver. If he continues to build, he can gave a great season. And at end of the game, he wanted the ball”.

While there were good and bad moments, Ash did comment on the defense late in the game. “I was most proud of the defense on their last possession. We would not have done that last year. It was awesome to watch the effort on the field goal block.”

Which brings us to Sebastian Joseph-Day. He, and D line coach Shane Burnham also appeared on the show. Regarding that block, Joseph felt they could block it and told Willington Previlon to switch places with him. Previlon kept saying no. “I don’t want to get in trouble with coach” according to SJ-D. So Joseph said, “Okay, I’ll do it myself.”

When Burnham got to speak, besides saying he was adjusting to New Jersey and jughandles well, he talked first about Sebastian and Darnell Davis. “Sebastian comes every day, has a steady approach. Last two weeks he’s played his most complete games. He leads by example. Like JPO (Julian Pinnix-Odrick). When you leave your legacy, it's the young kids who come up beneath you. Young guys look up to him. He teaches them about how to approach film study. These are guys that help build a program.”

Including Darnell Davis. “He’s a little shorter than what you want. But when Quanzell (Lambert) got hurt, he came in. Because he works and preps hard, good things happen around him. He'll be on highlight films for years (for the hit in the Washington game).”

The show takes phone calls and there was only one. There was also only one question from the audience. Both were fairly tame. The weekly program generally isn’t controversial. The people who go are also paying for their meal and drinks; no use getting agita on top of that.

At the close, Carlin asked Ash what he was looking for this week. His answer pretty much echoed most people’s answer: “get the same team to show up each week. That’s what we work for.”

Note: Chris Carlin mentioned that Saturday’s game is Military Appreciation Day and that over 5700 tickets have been distributed to service men and women.