Rockets begin season with changes in staff and the Glass Bowl

With every upcoming season comes some sort of change for the University of Toledo football team. Whether it’s through players, coaches, uniforms or stadiums, there’s always something.
With the addition of new head coach Jason Candle, the Rockets will have a brand new coaching staff for the 2016 season. Among them are offensive coordinator Brian Wright, defensive coordinator Brian George, cornerback coach Corey Robinson and offensive line coach Mike Hallett.
Wright comes to Toledo after spending four seasons as Florida Atlantic University’s offensive coordinator. Under Wright’s guidance, the Owls scored 22.5 points per game, ran for 1977 yards and passed for 2557 yards. FAU totaled 4534 yards on the season and averaged 5.1 yards per play in 2015.
George was Kent State University’s defensive coordinator for the past three seasons. With George’s direction, the Golden Flash defense ranked third in the Mid-American Conference in total defense, averaging 350.1 opponent yards per game and was also fifth in scoring defense, allowing 26.1 points per game. As a result, four of Kent State’s five MAC All-Americans were on the defensive side of the ball.

Robinson was the University of Maryland’s director of player personnel in 2015.
Prior to serving at Maryland, Robinson was the defensive backs coordinator at the IMG Academy in Bradenton, FL as the lead developer for high school, college and professional defensive back clients and participants. He also served as the assistant head coach at Saint Frances (MD) Academy High School in 2014. Robinson has coached six current NFL defensive backs in his career and nearly 30 at the high school level who went on to play collegiately.
Hallett joined the Rockets’ staff in time for their Boca Raton Bowl win. Hallett served as head coach at Heidelberg University from 2007-15. His career record in nine years as head coach was 55-36, 46-35 in the OAC, the school’s all-time leader in career victories. After winning four games in Hallett’s first season, the Student Princes gradually improved, winning at least eight games in every season from 2011 through 2014. In 2012, Heidelberg went 9-2 record (8-1 OAC) and earned its first-ever berth into the NCAA Playoffs.
On the uniform side, UT will have new helmets when they come out to play for the home opener. The Rockets will go from an all midnight blue lid to a midnight blue and gold variant helmet with blue on the top and gold on the bottom.
Lastly, the Glass Bowl has been renovated for the upcoming season. The renovations included new FieldTurf, concession stands, restrooms, entry ways and ticket stand.
The new FieldTurf surface is called Revolution 360, and features the latest in cutting-edge playing surface technology. The new surface will replace a FieldTurf surface that was installed in 2008. The Rockets will make their debut on the new field in their home opener versus Maine on Sept. 10.