43
Marlowe excited for new coaching challenge at YSU
By Joe Scalzo
YOUNGSTOWN
Tim Marlowe grew up dreaming of playing football at Youngstown State, so when Bo Pelini got hired by the Penguins in December, Marlowe told him he’d be willing to take any coaching job.
Then he proved it.
After spending the last two years as a offensive intern at Nebraska, Marlowe was hired as an assistant secondary coach.
“I’d obviously prefer to be on offense because that’s what I know and that’s what I played,” said Marlowe, a Cardinal Mooney High graduate who was a four-year letterman at Nebraska as a wide receiver and returner from 2009-12. Pelini was his head coach. “But Bo kind of proposed to me that it’d be a good idea for my coaching career to switch to defense, so I’d be able to see both sides of the ball, and I couldn’t agree more.”
Said Pelini, “I’ve always thought for somebody to be a good defensive coach, they have to understand what’s going on on the offensive side. He obviously played over there and coached over there, so that gives him a leg up.
“Down the road, it doesn’t matter if he stays on the defensive side or becomes an offensive coach, having this experience on both sides of the ball will help him for a long time.”
Marlowe was a two-way standout at Mooney in 2006 and 2007, playing wide receiver and cornerback (as well as special teams) before moving to quarterback at the end of the 2007 season when Dan McCarthy suffered a season-ending neck injury.
In the state championship loss to Coldwater, Marlowe ran for 104 yards and a TD and threw for 135 yards and a TD.
Although undersized at 5-foot-10 and 165 pounds, Marlowe used his speed (he was the fastest player on that famous 2007 team) and his work ethic to carve out a solid college career, appearing in 50 games while catching 16 passes for 167 yards and a TD, combining for close to 850 yards as a kick returner/punt returner and rushing for nearly 100 yards on nine carries.
“I was an undersized guy and an under-recruited guy and that’s exactly how I always liked it,” he said. “I flew under the radar, but I just worked hard and I was one of those guys who knew everything about football.
“I kind of lived in the film room. I made sure I knew what I was doing, so when I was out in the field, I could play fast.
“I’m a fast guy as it is, but when you know what you’re doing, you can play even faster.”
Pelini’s background is as a defensive back — he played safety at Ohio State — and Marlowe plans to lean on Pelini as well as secondary coach Richard McNutt, who played cornerback for Jim Tressel at Ohio State and later coached DBs for the Buckeyes.
“We’ve got some great secondary guys here at YSU that I get to work with,” he said.
Marlowe’s speed runs in the family — his father, Dick was a legendary Youngstown touch football player — but he admits that at 26, he’s not quite as fast as he once was.
“I’m pretty sure I’ve still got it, though,” he said. “We’ve got a couple guys that can fly [at YSU], like [WR Andre] Stubbs and some of the DBs are pretty fast, like Jameel Smith. But I think I’d still be top 10 on the team.”
Moore injured
YSU had its first major injury of the spring when sophomore RB Ryan Moore tore his ACL this week.
Moore, who stood on the sidelines in street clothes for Thursday’s practice, played in nine games as a true freshman last season, rushing for 118 yards on 20 carries. He also played on special teams.