MUNCIE, Ind. — Josh Zidenberg is no stranger to moving somewhere new.

It was a part of how he grew up. It’s been a part of his experience as a football coach. And with his recent acceptance of a position with Ball State football as its passing game coordinator and defensive backs coach, Muncie is now Zidenberg’s seventh stop in the collegiate ranks.

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Zidenberg, who also spent 2008 as a player personnel assistant in the NFL with the Miami Dolphins, first became a college coach in 2009 as a graduate assistant at Virginia. He stayed with the Cavaliers, who he played for from 2004-07, from 2009-11 and was out of coaching until he became a graduate assistant again at Connecticut in 2014. Stints as VMI’s co-special teams coordinator and safeties coach from 2015-16, Lafayette College’s running backs coach in 2017, Western Illinois’ special teams coordinator and defensive backs coach in 2018 and William & Mary’s special teams coordinator and safeties coach in 2019 followed.

Zidenberg took some time Friday with the Star Press to discuss his journey in coaching, love of football and more:

Why Ball State?

“A lot of reasons. The first one is because one of my best friends in (BSU defensive coordinator and inside linebackers coach) Tyler Stockton, who I worked with at Western Illinois, we had a really, really successful defense and we have a great working chemistry and all those different things. That really excited me, about knowing what he can do and what his ceiling is — which is above the clouds in my opinion. Just the belief I have in him. We go really, really far back and all that so it’s a really comfortable situation from that standpoint.

“I jokingly tell people that I’m going back to my Midwest roots since I was born in Nebraska, even though I lived there for, like, 11 months of my life. And then I’ve always been on one of the coasts, whether it was California or Virginia. And I actually was a part of VMI when we came up and played in 2015 to open the season at Ball State. So, I’d actually had, kind of, a snapshot of the setup they had and I remember just hearing about — I don’t think the addition was finished yet at that time, but how they were starting to pour in.

“And then when I met coach (Mike) Neu and all the guys it just, it felt like a great opportunity to make an impact and change from where it’s been to where I feel like it definitely could go. Especially, with how good they were offensively last year. I have no doubt coach Stockton and I will, as well the rest of the staff, work tirelessly to make sure defensively we’re doing our end so we can win a MAC championship.”

This stop makes it seven for you in collegiate coaching in addition to your time with the Miami Dolphins. What have you enjoyed about experiencing as many different programs and fan bases as you have and what’s been tough about moving around so much that fans may or may not realize?

“The great thing about it is being able to get to a whole — now really when you look at it, it’s even more spread out than I really ever probably think about. From Florida to Connecticut to as far west as Illinois, now at this point and kind of all over in between, it’s afforded me, one, an opportunity to recruit a lot of different areas and kind of expand upon all the different connections and networks and different areas that have different players. Obviously with the college landscape and how big of an aspect recruiting is, it just kind of makes it just — I’ve recruited in Ohio and the Midwest for five-plus years now. When I was at Western (Illinois) I had almost all of Missouri except for Kansas City, so St. Louis. It’s another reason why Ball State, from a comfortability standpoint, I actually have, really feel confident in a lot of what the big recruiting bases and areas in the Midwest that would probably make up a lot of Ball State’s team.

“It’s always great to — kind of how I grew up, too. Like I said, I was born in Nebraska, lived in California till I was about five or so, and then moved back to Hampton Roads, Virginia, which is where I spent the majority of my life. But even there, shoot, when my parents were divorced out in California my mom was from Virginia, so she moved me and my sister back to where she was from. It’s kind of just like, home’s wherever a couple of my things are and we’ll put it in a box and be ready to go. I usually don’t even just think twice about, and obviously it drives my wife crazy, but I don’t even think twice about, ‘Oh yeah, what do you mean? Just throw it in a box. Let’s go.’ But it is exciting.”

As for what’s tough about moving so much, Zidenberg mentioned first the players he has to leave behind. Zidenberg cares deeply about the relationships he forms with them and the effect he has on them, just as his first position coach at Virginia, Anthony Poindexter, meant a lot to him. Zidenberg’s son, Dexter, is named after Poindexter and Poindexter’s daughter, Chloe, is Zidenberg’s and Zidenberg’s wife’s god-daughter.

Zidenberg understands it’s not necessarily normal to build that close of a relationship with a coach, but uses it to illustrate how much relationships mean to him and why leaving the players is the worst part. Of course, being married and having a young child now makes the moves tough as well. And Zidenberg is effusive in his praise for how his wife has supported him, especially considering leaving William & Mary meant leaving a school only about 30 minutes away from where Zidenberg’s wife was born and raised and where her family is from.

In the more than a decade now that you’ve spent in the coaching profession, how have you seen what college athletes are like change and, if you have, are you glad to see those changes occur or resistant to them?

“I wouldn’t say it’s a resistance. I sometimes will joke with the guys, like just from when, a matter of fact, I GA-ed my first time at Virginia back in 2009, then it was still DVDs. Hudl wasn’t even (around). And then when I got back into it in 2014 and went up to Connecticut and it was Hudl and all that, that for me was just like, ‘Whoa. I wasn’t out of it that long and it’s already changed that significantly to how you go get recruited.’ I’ll tell guys back when I was getting recruited, I’m like, ‘Y’all probably ain’t know what a doggone VHS tape is.’ I said, ‘The school would send you a blank VHS tape. You were lucky if you could put together a highlight tape because you had to get two VCRs and hit play and record at the same time.’ And I said, ‘And then you would send them back out but even then it was basically regional-based.’ Now you can get kids nationally and all that. It’s always interesting to see as it changes.

“I actually have an 18-year-old half-brother. So, thankfully he’s kept me a little bit into the fold of kind of what’s going on these days. But just the technology, the phone, all that, I’m not the most social media, technology savvy guy. I always joke with, actually, coach Stockton because he’s younger than me. He was just finishing school when he came in to GA at Connecticut, where we met, and I was GA-ing at the time and had just gotten married and all that. I didn’t even get a cell phone until I got to college and it was the free doggone Zack Morris phone, if you know what I’m talking about.”

Zidenberg added Stockton gave him a crash course on Twitter before Zidenberg left for VMI because it’s become such a significant aspect of recruiting in a time when people might not call each other as much anymore.

Zidenberg does, though, think the kids who love football are the same type of people as they’ve always been and will be committed despite the distractions available. And he always enjoys speaking with high school coaches, especially those who have been at their schools for many years, about what they’ve noticed change.

You’re coming into a Ball State program that’s approaching 2020 with a lot of optimism, but also has obvious areas where it can still improve. What do you feel like is the most important thing that you can do to ensure the optimism turns into success?

“To me, it’s less about the scheme and the X’s and O’s and more about how we play and how we play the game, and how we approach how we’re going to play. The beautiful thing, and why I’ve grown to love defense as much as I have, is just the fact that I’m a firm believer at the end of the day if we just played one call the entire game, but all 11 guys knew exactly what to do to every formation and played as hard as they possibly could every single play, you could still be really, really good just by your energy and your effort and all that.

“How many times do you see a 75-yard touchdown or should-be touchdown pass and the backside corner is running his tail off and just before he scores lunges in, pops the ball out of the back of the end zone and it’s now our ball? To me, that’s the beauty of — just through his sheer just willingness to not give up in effort changes a oh-my-gosh, big, just detrimental, explosive play to as if it never happened. How awesome is that?”

Zidenberg added that, of course, he also believes they’ll have a good scheme and have a coaching staff that prepares players well. However, there will still be a significant focus on relationship-building. Zidenberg believes if his players trust him, something he feels is his responsibility to make happen, then those players will more readily be able to learn what they need to in order to succeed.

If you weren’t a football coach, what would you be doing?

“The funny thing is, is when I left the thought process was all I’ve ever known in my life is football. All I’ve ever done is football. How would I even know if I would enjoy doing something else with my life? Because I’ve never even tried. I had no business doing mortgages. I was a doggone English major and that was just because it ended up being the easiest degree I could find for myself to graduate and stay eligible at Virginia — which, obviously, is not sound logic when picking a major but that just was my thought process. I just loved football and I didn’t want football taken away, so I would do whatever I had to do.

“And so, I end up getting this mortgage job solely because at that time it was a startup and the president was a UVA alum and played in the league and got me in contact with his partner. The dude, guy, fell in love with me so much to where I ended up living with him until I could find a place and all this stuff. He treated me like his own son. I always joked with him, I said, ‘Sometimes I think you even treat me better than your own sons.’ And so, I was making good money and all this stuff and I was miserable. I’d just got married and my wife didn’t know me as a coach at the time and she knew me doing these mortgages and I’m like, ‘I’m going to take an 100-and-some percent pay cut.’ But I told myself when I took the mortgage job that I know I’m going to probably have to suck it up and GA again. But if I know if that’s what I want to do with my life then I’ll be willing to do it.”

Zidenberg added that he likes to tell that story to show he actually tried to do something else, made a six-figure salary doing it and wasn’t happy. He loves football and what it can do for young men like himself. He treasures the relationships he’s formed and the mentors, such as Poindexter, who’ve been a part of his life. And so, if he wasn't coaching, he'd be trying to find the closest thing to it.

Zidenberg returned to coaching as a graduate assistant at UConn, where Poindexter was the defensive coordinator at the time, less than a year after getting married and for a stipend he estimated was $19,100.

Jordan Guskey covers Ball State and East Central Indiana high schools at the Star Press. Contact him at (765) 213-5813, jmguskey@muncie.gannett.com or @JordanGuskey.