Football
Sep 13 (Sat)
7:45 pm MT
- Title:
- Spurs/Nickels
Nick Toth (pronounced TOETH) enters his first year at Air Force as the spurs and nickel back coach. Toth comes to the Academy after five years at Fresno State where he coached inside linebackers.
In his first four seasons at Fresno State, Toth served as the defensive coordinator while also being the position coach for the inside linebackers. His defense drew 17 All-Mountain West selections and one All-American in safety Phillip Thomas in 2012, a unanimous selection. Thomas was a finalist for the Jim Thorpe Award, won the CFPA Defensive Back Trophy and was the Mountain West Defensive Player of the Year after leading the nation with eight interceptions.
Free safety Derron Smith earned first-team All-Mountain West accolades in three-straight seasons under Toth, becoming just the 11th player in school history and just the third defensive player to garner first-team all-conference accolades three times in a career. He finished his career with 15 interceptions, ranking in a tie for second in MW history, and was a 2015 sixth-round draft pick of the Cincinnati Bengals.
The turnover department was one that Fresno State had struggled with on the defensive side of the ball before Toth’s arrival. Fresno State had ranked 111th or worse in turnovers gained in each of the six previous seasons and had no more than 16 turnovers in any of those years.
After having only nine turnovers gained in 2011, the year before Toth’s hiring, Fresno State came back in 2012 and recorded the greatest turnover turnaround in the FBS since the turn of the century. Finishing with 35 take-aways in 2012 (ranking fifth in the FBS), the Bulldogs’ differential in turnovers gained in one season under Toth was plus-26.
His 2013 defense ranked sixth in the FBS with just over three sacks per game and 40 total on the year and also ranked fourth with 8.2 tackles for a loss per game. Over the 2012 and 2013 seasons, Fresno State and Stanford were the only schools in the country that ranked in the top 10 in sacks both seasons.
Prior to Fresno State, Toth coached at Texas A&M where he was the outside linebackers coach while also serving as the Aggies’ special teams coordinator in 2010 and 2011.
In his first season with the Aggies, Toth oversaw the development of linebacker Von Miller, who captured the prestigious Butkus Award during an All-American campaign in 2010. Miller went on to be the No. 2 overall pick of the Denver Broncos in the 2011 NFL Draft.
In 2011, Toth helped direct the A&M defense that led the nation in sacks with 51.
Prior to his two seasons at Texas A&M, Toth was the defensive backs coach and special teams coach at The Citadel in 2009.
Toth gained three years of experience working as a defensive coordinator from 2006-08. In 2006, he was the defensive coordinator/defensive backs coach at Mercyhurst (Pa.) college and from 2007-08 he was Ashland (Ohio) University’s defensive coordinator.
He has great knowledge of the secondary, as he coached the defensive backs at Elon (2005), defensive linemen at Ohio (2004) and defensive backs at Dakota State (2002). Toth was also the special teams coordinator at Elon, spent the 2003 season as the tight ends coach at Ohio and he was a defensive graduate assistant with the Bobcats from 2000-01.
A graduate of Ohio University in 1999 with a bachelor’s degree in political science, Toth played running back and defensive back for the Bobcats form 1994-99. After graduating, he worked one year on the high school level before returning to Ohio as a graduate assistant. He earned his master’s degree in athletic administration from Ohio in 2002.
Toth is a native of Cleveland, Ohio and was born on Oct. 16, 1975. He and his wife, Jennifer, have three sons; Nicholas IV, Michael and Johnathon, and one daughter, Susan.
