Cosh brings needed 'crash' to Mean Green

[Harry]

DENTON — The temperature pushed up toward 100 degrees at Apogee Stadium this spring as Chris Cosh bounced around from drill to drill, watching the members of North Texas’ defense sweat through another workout.

Cosh barked instructions while laying out the basic principles of his defense, clearly in his element heading into his first season as UNT’s defensive coordinator.

“Coach Cosh is a character and is tough on you, but we need it,” UNT linebacker Fred Scott said. “He pushes us and knows what he’s doing. He’s been a lot of places and knows what he’s talking about.”

The journey includes stops at Kansas State, Michigan State and Maryland with several twists and turns mixed in — perhaps none more intriguing than how a degenerative neck injury ushered Cosh into coaching in 1983.

Back then, Cosh didn’t go by “coach.” He was known as “Crash,” a hard-hitting linebacker for Virginia Tech.

Former Hokies assistant coach Lou Tepper still remembers Cosh taking on an Alabama tackle who towered over him.

“Chris knocked him to his knees,” Tepper said.

Eventually, all those hits added up and forced Cosh into coaching before his senior season.

“I didn’t take to it right away,” Cosh said. “I was coaching the same guys I was playing with and didn’t see myself in that role. That fall we had some young linebackers that I worked with who ended up starting by the second game of the season because some other players got hurt. I took pride in that.

“It’s what really got me going.”

Read more:  http://www.dallasnews.com/sports/college-sports/unt-mean-green/20150828-new-unt-defensive-coordinator-brings-needed-crash-to-mean-green.ece