Report: New O- Line Coach, Ron Crook "Lunch Pail Type of Guy"

This basically confirms Bowen to QB coach.

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The following is from this link:
https://goyotes.com/sports/football/roster/coaches/ron-crook/1297

Ron Crook joined the Coyotes in the summer of 2022. His career has spanned three decades and includes stops at Cincinnati, West Virginia, Stanford, Harvard and Illinois. Crook serves as run game coordinator, special teams coordinator, and works primarily with the Coyotes' tight ends.

Crook most recently served as offensive line coach at Cincinnati from 2017-21. The Bearcats have won back-to-back AAC titles and became the first group of five team to compete in the College Football Playoff this past season.

Crook has been an offensive line coach throughout his career, but doubled as special teams coordinator early on at Clarion, Glenville State and West Virginia Institute of Technology. He was at Harvard from 2003-10, Stanford from 2011-12 and West Virginia from 2013-16 prior to arriving at Cincinnati.

Crook's resume includes the tutelage of 38 all-conference players, nine all-Americans and nine NFL players. He has been a part of 10 championship-winning teams, worked with a pair of teams that made the NCAA Division II playoffs and has now coached inside the College Football Playoff.

The list of Bowl Games Crook has coached in is extensive and includes: Cotton (2021), Peach (2020), Birmingham (2019), Military (2018), Russel Athletic (2016), Cactus (2015), Liberty (2014), Rose (2012) and Fiesta (2011).

Crook was an offensive lineman collegiately at West Liberty State from 1986-88. He is originally from Parkersburg, West Virginia. He and his wife, Stacy, have three children, Andrew, Cian and Kenley.

Pain is Temporary, Chicks Dig Scars
Glory is Forever, Let's Go Hokies!!

South Dakota State, Cincinatti, and Stanford all had some pretty damn good lines during his time at each stop. Looks like he coached TEs and Offensive Tackles at Stanford the year they beat us in Orange Bowl, and then took over the entire OL the following year.

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May be a case of a very solid coach but not a big recruiter. That seems to be one of the knocks on him reading around the boards. Reserving judgment though, and really interested to get French's thoughts from a coaching and schematic fit. It kind of makes sense why he was likely one of the best realistic options given the timing here. That's a huge jump back up from South Dakota State to the P5 so I'm sure he jumped at the chance. However critics will certainly point to that. TBD I guess.

Not a big recruiter-type, but definitely an experienced OL coach and knows the region well being from WV and having coached at WVU and Cincy. Not splashy but if I can only have either a recruiter or good coach, would much rather have coaching acumen at OL. Hopefully he can mesh with what we are trying to do offensively and develop the OL. Just feels rough that this is that unit's third coach in as many years. Will be interesting to see what insights French may have from film.

I'm very interested to see what French thinks of this hire.
I'm also curious about how he went from OL coach at Cincinnati under Fickell to being at South Dakota for Fickell's last year at Cincinnati.

"That move was slicker than a peeled onion in a bowl of snot." -Mike Burnop

Yes, same here. Like why did he leave Cincy for South Dakota?

I love it that South Dakota has his phone number listed on his profile page. Guess you don't get too many crazy fans calling coach for his head after a tough loss to the Jack Rabbits in South Dakota.

"That man was violating a city ordinance, and I was just doing my duty to enforce it." - Mike Curtis

why did he leave Cincy for South Dakota?

Fickell left Cincy for Wiscy, and brought in Phil Longo to be his OC. Longo brought his own OL coach with him.
See below

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Crook left Cincy after 2021 though. He was not on Fickell's staff in 2022 and was replaced.

Crook joined South Dakota this past summer. So he left Cincinnati before Fickell was hired by Wisconsin. I'm curious why Fickell seemingly moved on from him while still at Cincinnati.

"That move was slicker than a peeled onion in a bowl of snot." -Mike Burnop

reading tea leaves, cincy promoted qb coach to oc, and he brought in his own ol coach, forcing crooks out.

after fickell left, oc is now nd qb coach and the ol coach replacement is at app st. wild.

eric

"My advice to you... is to start drinking heavily."-John Blutarsky

Ah thank you! This is the nuance I completely missed in my cursory research.

"That move was slicker than a peeled onion in a bowl of snot." -Mike Burnop

Apparently a bit of a soap opera...he was odd man out when the Cincy OC (Denbrock) was hired at LSU after 2021 and Fickell replaced Denbrock with Guidugli, the QB coach. Guidugli was allowed to bring in a buddy to be the OL coach (Cummings) which left Crook w/o a real job. So he opted to spend the year at SD rather than sit out or take a less meaningful job in-house.

Meanwhile, with all 5 OL starters returning, Cincy dropped from 29th to 94th in rushing under Guidugli/Cummings. So when Fickell went to Wisky, he took neither with him, instead opting for Longo/Bicknell Jr. So after 1 year as OC, Guidugli is back to coaching QB at ND and Cummings is OL coach at App St.

Meanwhile Crook reemerges at Rudolph's replacement at VT (and Joe can now deal with Guidugli).

Bowen to QB coach is the bigger (biggest?) story here.

This is basically Pry/Bowen committing to recruiting 4/5-star QBs every year and none of the 'coach em up' types. Bowen should be able to help schematically, but will have to rely on a GA for technique changes/fixes

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Personally I'm ok with Bowen to QB coach, because I feel like if we got another QB coach and our offense still sucked this year a lot of the blame would have been deflected from Bowen by a lot of "oh well it's the QB coach's first year blah blah blah"...I think this will really show if Bowen is a competent OC or not.

Agree here. It definitely lightens Bowen's positional coaching load and he can focus on the QBs who need to be in lock step with the OC from a game planning perspective anyhow. He can focus on the scheme and working with the signal callers on it. As you mention, hopefully we are going to strive to bring in blue chip QBs who don't need as much skill development, so a "QB guru or whisperer" as we have heard in the past really isn't as much of a need. We just need a good schematic OC mind and recruiter to bring them in each year. Bowen I have no doubt can recruit and single-handedly brought in Drones in short order. Big year for him to prove things schematically on the field. But I like the intent here or at least what these moves signal.

This is basically Pry/Bowen committing to recruiting 4/5-star QBs every year and none of the 'coach em up' types.

Based on our lack of success with "project" QBs, I don't have a huge problem with this. Does raise the importance of QB recruiting/retention even higher than it already was. Having an offense that doesn't suck would probably help with that. Although a good QB would help us not suck.

It's definitely a "need Eddie Van Halen on lead guitar to have a truly triumphant video; need a truly triumphant video to get Eddie Van Halen on lead guitar" scenario.

The QBs should just sign up for Cornell's QB academy in the offseason.

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If this dude ends up sucking the Crook jokes are going to write themselves. I'm optimistic since he's coming from Cincy where they've actually won games lately so hopefully he'll have us trending up!

"Now Miami wants to talk about it." *Cue Enter Sandman*

Brooks & Crook is a country duo

"Why gobble gobble chumps asks such good questions, I will never know." - TheFifthFuller

If we just rename the RB room now Brooks & Run I'll be stoked.

Brilliant

"Now Miami wants to talk about it." *Cue Enter Sandman*

Hopefully the RB room will now Rock My World.

Never Forget #1 Overall Seed UVA 54, #64 UMBC 74

That would be Hillbilly Deluxe, but I'm for it.

"That's it guys. Let's get out of here. That cold drink's waitin' on us, let's go." - Mike Young after win no. 300.

VT went from 2 too many cooks to Crooks Brooks and no QB coach looks.

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I hope in a few years we look back on the hire of Crook as a steal.

He will look good smoking a stogie with JC

Plan for the worst and hope for the best, not the other way around.

Line coaches after watching the running game pound out a 400 yard game while the defensive line holds the other team in the negative.

Never Forget #1 Overall Seed UVA 54, #64 UMBC 74

If that happens, I will buy them the cigars.

I thought the same at first but after zooming in.....it's a Whistle.

Then again it could be a Whistle shaped cigar....which would be the ultimate way to get away with smoking a cigar during a game.....

My wife takes the kids and leaves the house while I watch my Hokie games.........nuff said

Not a great look for recruiting but it's a real football guy move to still have "UC" in his twitter handle because he couldn't be bothered to update it after moving to South Dakota

Profile photo is also from when he was coaching UC

edit: gotta wonder if he really manages his social media himself. Maybe didn't have anyone on staff at SD to help clean all that up

Haha he also has like 4 total tweets so far this year, so I don't think he twitters much

Now that sounds like a Coach I can get behind.

Crook has officially updated his twitter handle...looks like he's in it for the long haul fellas

@Crook_VT

Now finish up them taters; I'm gonna go fondle my sweaters.

His most recent activity is re-tweeting Rodney Rice. NOT the Rodney Rice you're probably thinking of.

I found TKP after two rails from TOTS then walking back to my apartment and re-watching the 2012 Sugar Bowl. I woke up the next day with this username.

This guy sure looks like an o-line coach. I'm in.

My wife takes the kids and leaves the house while I watch my Hokie games.........nuff said

Would love to know French's take on the hire and what to expect.

Recovering scientist working in business consulting

If Pry likes him, I like him.

People commenting that he isn't a great recruiter but OL strikes me as probably one of the lone spots where it's not about flashy stuff and more like "this is my body of work and what guys under me have done...", while that should be true of most coaches obviously there is more to it.

But I think his body of work in what the OL under his coaching has achieved speaks for itself and for the above mentioned decrease in offense after he left cincy.

If you don't want to recruit clowns, don't run a clown show.

"I want to punch people from UVA right in the neck." - Colin Cowherd

Cincy Rushing Stats... Dude sure appears to know what he's doing.

Pre-Crook
2016 3.6 YPC 118 YPG

Post Crook
2017 4.4 YPC 135 YPG
2018 5.2 YPC 239.5 YPG
2019 4.7 YPC 208 YPG
2020 5.0 YPC 212.4 YPG
2121 5.2 YPC 172 YPG

Post Crook
2022 4.0 YPC 129.7 YPG

'Its easy to grin, when your ship comes in, and you've got the stock market beat,
but the man worthwhile, is the man who can smile, when his shorts are too tight in the seat'

I know Cincy ran the piss out of the ball against the Hokies in the 2018 Military Bowl...

Five star get after it 100 percent Juice Key-Playing. MAN

in 2018 and 2019 Michael Warren had 505 carries for 2594 yards (5.1 ypc) behind Crook's lines

Wait RB's can actually rush for >1000 yards a season?

just a rumor

Big, if true.

I seem to recall this from back in the day, but I thought the NCAA changed a rule in 2014.

Plan for the worst and hope for the best, not the other way around.

Well, NCAA rules only apply to some schools, so others can safely ignore them ...

Recovering scientist working in business consulting