Toledo football coach Jason Candle will be dipping back into his Mount Union background to fill an open coaching spot with the Rockets, The Blade has learned.
Candle is expected to add Mount Union head coach Vince Kehres to the Toledo staff as a defensive assistant, according to sources with knowledge of the situation.
Kehres’ role has not been finalized, but he will either be linebackers coach/assistant head coach or defensive coordinator, the sources said.
After seven wildly successful seasons as the head coach of Mount Union, it was difficult for Kehres to decide to leave the school where he played for and coached with his father Larry, as well as carved out a nice head coaching career of his own.
“This wasn't something where I just woke up one day and said 'Let's try to do this',” Kehres told The Blade. “It was a long time coming. I've been thinking about it for a while. ... This is such a great place and the legacy of the football program here is what it is, so do I really want to leave that?... I feel like it’s the right time in my life for me to take on a new challenge and I’m really excited to do it at Toledo where I have really good relationships with a lot of the guys on the staff already.”
Kehres had an unbelievable run with the Purple Raiders with an overall record of 95-6 in his seven seasons as head coach. He led Mount Union to NCAA Division III national championships in 2015 and 2017, made five national title game appearances, and qualified for the NCAA playoffs in each of his seven seasons.
As an assistant coach of 15 years for the Purple Raiders, including eight years as the defensive coordinator, Kehres’ time on his father Larry’s staff overlapped with Candle, who was the offensive coordinator at Mount Union for the 2007 and 2008 seasons and was receivers coach from 2002 to 2006.
With Toledo needing to retool its defensive staff after Candle parted ways with defensive coordinator Brian George and linebackers coach Mike Ward, Kehres said his familiarity with Candle from their time at Mount Union gave him an extra feeling of comfort when he decided this was the right move.
“I’ve heard smart coaches say and I’ve listened to it over the years that there are a couple things you have to look for if you are going to take a new job,” Kehres said. “One is, are you working with people that you know and trust? That’s certainly the case here with Jason and then knowing a lot of the guys on staff already. I feel that way. Then the second criteria is, do you have the opportunity to be successful? I feel strongly about that, too. I think Toledo has a great program. They were a little bit down this year and maybe that’s part of the reason why an opportunity came up for me, but I feel very strongly about my abilities to help them and come in and add some value and to help them improve. I feel like everything is in place for them to be successful.”
It will be odd for Mount Union fans moving forward not to see a member of the Kehres family roaming the sideline as head coach. Larry was head coach for 27 seasons, followed by seven for Vince.
“It even amazes me when I sit back and think about the tradition of Mount Union and the legacy of Mount Union,” Vince Kehres said. “The fact that we’ve had three football coaches over the past 57 or 58 years, I don’t take that lightly. I’ve grown up with that and maintaining the program at a very high level is something I worked hard to do day in and day out. It’s not an easy decision, but it’s one that I’ve spent a lot of time thinking, is it something I’m willing to do? I tell the players all the time, if I don’t come to practice tomorrow no one is going to blink. Everybody is going to do their jobs. Everything will go on as if I was never around. ... Things carry on in a good program, and that’s what I’m going to tell them. Larry Kehres stepped down at one point and the Mount Union football program didn’t fall off. There’s no reason that it will when I step down.”
With a defensive background at Mount Union, Kehres said there are three characteristics of a successful defense in his opinion. They are quick, tough, and smart. He hopes to bring that mindset to the Rockets.
“We want to be quick,” Kehres said. “In Division III, you can’t always recruit big. Sometimes you are dealing with guys that some would consider undersized, but I felt like we were going to be relatively quick. For that position we had a quick guy whether it was defensive tackle or cornerback. I think that will continue. Toledo has great players and great athletes, and I see a lot of speed and quickness. Then we want to be tough. You measure toughness on defense by the ability to pursue the football and be great tacklers. When you see a defense that plays with great effort and rarely misses tackles and swarms to the football, I think that is the reflection of a tough defense. Then we want our players to be smart and understand what we are doing and understand the ‘why’ of what we are doing and not just the ‘what’ or the ‘’how.’ ”
Despite coming off of a season when the Toledo defense was at or near the bottom of the Mid-American Conference in most major statistical measures after allowing 32.2 points and 475.7 yards per game, Kehres is confident that the Toledo defense can turn things around quickly.
“Having watched the video now, I’m confident that Toledo is not very far away from being good on defense,” Kehres said. “I think it’s a matter of just cleaning a few things up and maybe bringing some new energy onto the staff. I don’t think it’s unrealistic to think Toledo can make some vast improvements defensively within a short period of time based on the personnel that I see and the types of players that are being recruited. ... They just need a little bit of this and a little bit of that and we’ll get these guys going in the right direction.”
Contact Brian Buckey at: bbuckey@theblade.com or 419-724-6110.
Contact David Briggs at: dbriggs@theblade.com, 419-724-6084 or on Twitter @DBriggsBlade.
First Published January 13, 2020, 7:02 p.m.
