Iowa State’s secondary coach, Chris Ash, feels like he has gotten lucky in the coaching profession.

The 28-year-old is already in his third season at Iowa State after leading the Drake Bulldogs to defensive prominence in Division I-AA.

One person who won’t buy the “lucky” bit is ISU head football coach Dan McCarney. He said Ash has paved his own way to becoming a great football coach and called the defense, as a whole, the best he has had since taking the job in 1995.

“He’s smart, he’s sharp, he really has great respect from the players,” McCarney said of Ash. “He understands offenses, he understands coverages and he understands what offenses are trying to do. He is a young coach that’s no question on the rise in this profession.”

Ash, who also spent one year as the secondary coach at Princeton, has a corps of players buying into his system, including Atif Austin, Harold Clewis, JaMaine Billups, Marc Timmons and Anthony Forest. The only player departing from that group next season is Austin, a senior. The youthful bunch gives Ash an optimistic outlook to the future of the secondary at Iowa State.

Hobbs, who had an interception and three pass deflections in a 31-17 victory over Texas Tech, said the job of the secondary is to shut down opposing receivers by whatever means necessary.

“Players in the secondary need to have a short memory, because some things are undefendable,” Hobbs said.

Ash is in the position of having to deal with that kind of challenge and, in what some would consider a daunting task, has helped ISU defenders record their best statistics in over a decade last season.

Ash, who lettered twice as a safety at Drake, no doubt had an impact on helping reach that achievement. The Cyclone secondary has combined to limit receiving yards and has helped corral elusive running backs all season.

The Cyclones limited Iowa’s receivers, which racked up 261 yards against Penn State earlier this year, to just 170 yards. In a victory over Texas Tech earlier this season, the secondary helped control Kliff Kingsbury and the Red Raiders’ widely-heralded passing game. They gave up 272 yards to the Red Raiders, who came into the game averaging 370 yards through the air.

“We want [the players] to make sure we play fast, we play aggressive and we play relentless,” Ash said. “Those are the things we want people to talk about when they talk about the Iowa State secondary. If they’re doing that, great. If they’re not, then we’ve got to step it up.”

Ash hesitates in taking credit for the production of Billups, who was converted from a running back to a safety earlier this year. He said it wasn’t tough for Billups to make the transition because he had played that position in high school and already had the aggressiveness the safety position calls for.

“The biggest thing he had to learn was the terminology, the reads and being able to pick up the schemes,” Ash said. “In terms of being a playmaker and being tough and physical, he had all those tools already.”

But Ash said it’s not just the talent level that makes up his players’ persona. It’s much more than that.

“They’re a great group of kids on and off the field,” Ash said. “They love to be around each other; they love to root for each other. They love to hang out and play PlayStation off the field. A lot of them live together.”

“It’s a real good group of kids to be around and they’re a lot of fun.”

Ash, who shied away from the first attempt to take credit for the secondary’s success, said he has seen his group evolve into a more athletic group since he took the job in 2000. He gives credit to Matt McGettigan, 2001 national strength and conditioning coach of the year, for the job he has done with the players in the weight room.

The mindset and ability level of his incoming players has also improved, Ash said.

“We’ve got more playmakers than we’ve ever had in the past,” Ash said. “I think that’s the biggest difference. We’re also more physical than we have been in the past.”