Ambrose comes home

Athletic director Mike Hermann and president Robert Caret introduced new head football coach Rob Ambrose at a press conference Tuesday in the Minnegan room at Johnny Unitas Stadium. Ambrose said he "humbly accepts this position" following a line of legendary community-building coaches like Carl Runk, Phil Albert and Gordy Combs.

"This is not about me at all," Ambrose said. "This is about the players in this room I haven't even met. It's about the faculty, the fans and the students. It's about making this program what it should be and what it can be, and it's about damn time."

Ambrose, who played football at Towson and graduated in 1993, also was a student-coach in the '90s before rising through the ranks as an offensive coordinator and associate head coach. He left after the 2000 season to become the head coach at Catholic University and was hired after one season there at Connecticut to be the quarterbacks coach. He was promoted in 2005 to offensive coordinator, but he jumped at the chance of an opening at his alma mater.

"Tell your friends," Ambrose said. "Call them up, because I'm coming home."

Though his hiring was announced Dec. 27, Ambrose has been unable to begin recruiting or building a staff until now, as Connecticut played Buffalo Saturday in the International Bowl, beating the Bulls 38-20 in Toronto.

It is unlikely that there will be any clear picture of how the 2009 campaign will be run until next week, when Ambrose said he hopes to have a staff together and have some recruits in consideration.

Caret introduced Ambrose as one of the most important instruments in the University's attempt to establish itself as "the other state school" of Maryland.

"It comes down every time, no matter what you're doing, to people," Caret said.

Caret said he was excited that Ambrose was going to head the program, and that the emphasis was on winning, a word he repeated frequently throughout his introduction. Combs, who was fired at the conclusion of the 2008 season, was 6-17 in his last two seasons as head coach despite an 86-73 record prior to that. According to Ambrose, Combs called his replacement this week to offer congratulations and good luck on the job.

Click to read: Commentary: Winning a necessity for Ambrose

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