Less than a week after losing Carlos Locklyn to Ohio State, Oregon has zeroed in on a top target to replace him as the Ducks’ running backs coach.
Arizona State’s Ra’Shaad Samples has emerged as a target for Oregon’s running backs coach opening, sources tell 247Sports.
Before being hired as Arizona State’s pass game coordinator and wide receivers coach last year, the now 29-year old Samples was the youngest running backs coach in the NFL with the Los Angeles Rams after stints as a running backs coach at SMU and TCU.
“When you think of Coach Samples, this is a guy who’s been an assistant head coach in college football from the time he was 26,” Arizona State head coach Kenny Dillingham said last year. “He’s been the youngest position coach in the NFL. This guy will be the youngest head coach in college football someday. It will happen. There is no doubt in my mind he’s going to be. He’s ready for it. He could go run a program today. I don’t know if somebody is going to hire somebody that young. … But if somebody did, they could hire him today and he’d go run a football program.”
