Mark Snyder Moves From Rumor To Possibility Comment Count

Brian

I was going to wait for Rittenberg to post on this out of courtesy but since Dave Birkett put it up it's time to mention it. Tom VanHaaren, via Rittenberg, has confirmed that Michigan did interview former Marshall head coach and Ohio State defensive coordinator Mark Snyder for its vacant assistant coaching position:

Rittenberg told me today that Snyder HAS interviewed for the position. He doesn't know much more yet, but should know more later today. One of their guys is at the coaching conference, and is having lunch with Snyder today.

At first glance, landing Snyder would be something of a coup. It's not often you can get a former HC and Ohio State DC to take a job coaching the linebackers. In the TomVH thread linked above there's some discussion about Snyder pro- and con-; it appears the Wikipedia article is full of lies about Snyder's resume. Wikipedia little box says Snyder was Minnesota's defensive coordinator from 1996 to 2000; his official Marshall bio and the article itself say he coached defensive ends. The little box (of lies!) also says he was Ohio State's DC for four years; he was only DC in 2004.

Snyder's year as OSU DC had some wild swings. Early the Buckeyes gave up 33, 24, and 33 in three consecutive losses against Northwestern, Wisconsin, and Iowa; late no one put up more than 24 and Ohio State strangled Oklahoma State in the Alamo Bowl. The final numbers were good: 30th in total defense, 19th in scoring, 19th in pass efficiency D. The following year OU shot up to 5th in both total and scoring defense, which you can either interpret as a sign Snyder wasn't that good or that he had a young team that year. Survey says these were the Ohio State seniors on defense in '04:

Uniform # First Name Last Name Position Class Games Played
37 Dustin Fox DB SR 9
34 Rob Harley DB SR 8
13 Harlen Jacobs DB SR 8
75 Simon Fraser DL SR 12
94 Marcus Green DL SR 11
83 Redgie Arden DL SR 1
51 Anthony Schlegel LB SR 12
1 Thomas Matthews LB SR 9

I think that's four starters (Fox, Fraser, Green, and Schlegel), two of whom were drafted in the third round. So the massive improvement from one year to the next doesn't necessarily say much about Snyder.

At Marshall, Snyder did zero, getting to .500 once in five years—this year's 7-6 season.

Snyder's still young for a former head coach at 45 and has seriously deep ties to Tressel with his stints at Ohio State and Youngstown State. He played safety at Marshall and has coached every position group on defense, FWIW.

Comments

03 Blue 07

January 12th, 2010 at 5:46 PM ^

That site also brought me this sweet bio. Note that these are for the "famous" athletes/coaches whose wisdom this store, "HIT, RUN, SCORE!" sells to the public.

http://www.hitrunscore.com/jeff-gossett-biography.html

However, although former NFL punter Jeff Gossett is pretty famous, he's nowhere NEAR as famous/accomplished as this guy:

http://www.hitrunscore.com/joe-roman-biography.html

Does this guy get to dole out football wisdom because he looks hard? Or is it because he was a junior college football coach? Or because he coached in Austria? All of the above.

Michael

January 12th, 2010 at 6:16 PM ^

Technically, for him to be a double agent he'd be telling the Buckeyes he's on their side, while really working for us. For example, he would be relaying defensive game plans to the Sovi...err, buckeyes which are actually provided by us with the goal of deceiving the buckeyes.

jlvanals

January 12th, 2010 at 5:32 PM ^

I think we'd be really lucky to have him as a linebackers coach just because you don't often get a former HC to agree to a positional downgrade.

HOWEVER, he did coach the last Ohio State defense to lose to Michigan. CONSPIRACY?!?!?!? I certainly do not put it past those trixy buckeyes.

zlionsfan

January 12th, 2010 at 6:30 PM ^

Wikipedia apologizes and says it's sorry. Will you forgive it?

No, srsly, I've been doing some work on the Louisiana-Monroe coaches page (don't ask), so I figured I might as well fix up Snyder's page now that you've mentioned it ... it should be more accurate now.

Engin77

January 12th, 2010 at 6:53 PM ^

could you add this to Coach Tressel's page:

Although Jim Tressel managed to keep his name out of police reports of the incident, informed source inside the Columbus PD, say that ol' sweatervest himself was riding shotgun in the early morning hours of August 9, 2006, when Maurice Clarett was arrested in Columbus after an illegal U-turn and police chase in Clarett's SUV. Teflon Tress could not be reached for comment.


I'll get back to you with a link. kthxbai

zlionsfan

January 13th, 2010 at 3:45 PM ^

but there's an ongoing discussion about how to spell it. Sweater Vest? Sweatervest? Sweater-vest? SV? Coach S. Vest? (That wouldn't work, OSU would insist they owned anything in CSV format.)

Even Wikipedia has standards, you know. (At least in some areas.)

Wazoo

January 13th, 2010 at 8:56 AM ^

I know he was the DC, but does he have experience specifically coaching LB's? What did he do before the OSU DC position that got him to that point?

Wazoo

January 13th, 2010 at 8:59 AM ^

In 1991, Snyder joined Tressel's Youngstown State staff as the outside linebackers coach. Snyder was given the added responsibility of special teams coordinator and inside linebackers coach in 1994 and was promoted to defensive coordinator and secondary coach in 1996. During his tenure at Youngstown State, the Penguins won three NCAA Division 1-AA national championships and played in four consecutive national championship games, facing Marshall in three of those contests (1991, 1992, and 1993).