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FAYETTEVILLE — Three of Arkansas’ new assistants had an obvious connection to the current coaching staff.

Tight ends coach Cody Kennedy worked with head coach Sam Pittman at Georgia, wide receivers coach Kenny Guiton worked with offensive coordinator at Houston and linebackers coach Michael Scherer played for Barry Odom at Missouri.

Pittman broke from that mold when looking for a new defensive line coach and the success of Tulsa, just to the west of Fayetteville, caught his attention. He felt the Golden Hurricane’s defensive line - coached by Jermial Ashley - had a direct impact on their top-25 season.

“I did not know Jermial, but I watched tape after tape after tape, trying to find our new d-line coach,” Pittman said. “I love the way his kids played (and I) heard some outstanding things about him when I called and asked different folks about him, so I’m very, very pleased to have him.”

Although there wasn’t an obvious connection with Ashley, Pittman did have a second-degree tie to him through long-time college defensive coordinator Bill Young.

Back in 1997, Young was the defensive coordinator at Oklahoma when Pittman was the Sooners’ offensive line coach. Even though they worked together for only a year, Pittman gained a great amount of respect for his defensive mind.

About a decade later, Young recruited Ashley and coached him into an All-Big 12 defensive end at Kansas. He then worked for Young as a graduate assistant at Oklahoma State and then again as a full-time assistant at Tulsa.

That connection alone was enough to catch Pittman’s attention, as Young had a profound impact on Ashley’s career.

“Coach Young is the reason I'm in this business and here to this day,” Ashley said. “He's everything to me as far as coaching wise. He was kind of my that figure for me kind of guided me and let me know how you do things. How you're supposed to operate in the business and dealing with players, preparations for games and all those things.”

If that wasn’t enough, Pittman was definitely sold after calling up Kennedy - whom he had just hired as the tight ends coach - to get his take on Ashley’s unit at Tulsa.

He had first-hand experience against his defensive line because he was the Green Wave’s offensive line coach and they faced the Golden Hurricane the last two years.

“Cody played Tulsa when he was at Tulane, so I picked up the phone to talk to Cody about him,” Pittman said. “I watched the game and he said they’re well-coached (and) the thing about their defense is they fly around, they play hard.”

On the flip side, it wasn’t too hard of a sell to get Ashley to leave Tulsa, where he’d been for six years, and make the jump to the SEC. Everything he heard about Pittman and Odom was positive.

“The people that I knew that really had a relationship with those guys spoke very highly of them and had nothing but great things to say about them,” Ashley said. “Me being a person in this profession, when you can surround yourself with great men and great people, I think you are putting yourself at an advantage for success.”

Pittman described Ashley as a “big guy, very imposing,” which was evident on the Zoom videoconference last week. He was listed at 6-foot-5 and 260 pounds as a player with the Jayhawks, but he joked that he’s “had a couple of meals since then.”

As was the case with all of the new hires, Pittman said he feels like Ashley will help with recruiting, as he brings more Oklahoma and Dallas ties to the staff.

“It’s not necessarily schematics, it’s about who do you have over there and how hard do they play and what kind of technique can you teach them to get to the quarterback,” Pittman said. “I think he’ll bring players in here and I know that he’ll have their attention because he’s a really good football coach and he’s a very dominant figure.”

With six years as Tulsa’s defensive line coach under his belt, Ashley is the most experienced and oldest of the Razorbacks’ new assistants.

Outside of Odom, he is also the oldest and most experienced coach on the defensive side of the ball, as Scherer and defensive backs coach Sam Carter are on the younger end of the spectrum.

“We’ve already been in the film room talking over some things,” Scherer said. “He comes from the background of a three down front there in Tulsa and not only that but they also produced the national defensive player of the year who was a linebacker (Zaven Collins), so there is a lot of things that I can learn from him and what he knows about our scheme and then transfer that over to our players and hopefully we can have similar success doing what we’re doing.”

Ashley has his work cut out for him, as Pittman has been vocal about the Razorbacks needing to get after the quarterback more in 2021.

Defensive tackle Jonathan Marshall is heading to the NFL and defensive tackle Julius Coates has entered the transfer portal, so Arkansas will have to replace its top two pass rushers.

The oft-injured Dorian Gerald is back for his sixth year of college ball, but the rest of the room includes younger players like Mataio Soli, Zach Williams, Eric Gregory, Marcus Miller, Taurean Carter, Enoch Jackson Jr. and several others.

“The thing with the D-line here is, it's some youth, but it's a group of guys that's willing to work and are hungry for knowledge and understanding with football in general,” Ashley said. “A lot of determination to prove themselves.”