Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Trey Elder is back
Coach Jerry Moore needed a receivers coach and didn’t have misgivings about hiring a young high-school assistant with minimal coaching experience if that coach happened to be Trey Elder.
Elder, a popular quarterback at ASU from 2004 through 2007, is now the Mountaineers’ receivers coach, replacing Lance Taylor, who took a job as an offensive assistant with the New York Jets.
“He’s right for the job,” Moore said. “He knows so much about our offense for one thing. I also gave a lot of consideration to the fact that we’re opening up against Chattanooga (a Southern Conference opponent), in terms of sending plays in and getting them done right and quickly. Trey has been through that. He is a perfect fit.”
Elder was a graduate assistant at ASU in 2008, and last season was receivers coach at Byrnes High School in Duncan, S.C., where he was a standout quarterback.
“It’s great to be back,” said Elder, whose goal is to someday be an offensive coordinator and eventually a head coach.
The job as ASU receivers coach is a jump start toward that, one that came sooner that he expected.
“I had talked to Coach (Moore) a little bit after Coach Taylor left but I didn’t think much about it at that point,” Elder said. “I wasn’t expecting this. He called me a couple of weeks ago and offered me the job.”
Elder said it didn’t take long to say “Yes”.
“There was no second thought for me,” Elder said. “I jumped at the idea of coming back.”
He said that going from a relatively new coach on the high school level to a college assistant might be a big jump if not for the fact that he is so familiar with ASU’s offense and program.
“It’s been an easy transition knowing the offense inside and out,” Elder said. “And the group I have is deep and experienced. They work hard. It really has been an easy transition for me.”
He knows most of the receivers, one of which is his brother, Blake Elder.
“The first person I called after Coach Moore called me was Blake,” Elder said. “I told him about the job and asked him if he thought we’d be able to do this and he said, ‘Get your butt up here, man.’ Our relationship has always been strong, we’re like best friends as well as brothers, but we both understand the dynamics of a coach. We understand that on the field I’m his coach and off the field I’m his brother.”
Blake Elder said: “It’s going to be different, but it’s going to be good. It’s going to be good for our team. That’s what I’m most excited about. Trey knows football, he knows the guys, and he knows how to motivate and get the most out of people.
“When we’re in the meeting room, he’s the coach and I’m the player. He’ll criticize and push me just like the other players. I’ll do what he says because he’s the coach.”