The first time Jake Diebler took a job at Ohio State, it was fair to question whether he took a step backward in his career trajectory.
After spending two seasons on Bryce Drew’s staff as one of the youngest assistant coaches in the country, he left Valparaiso in 2013 to join Thad Matta’s program as a video coordinator, taking both a pay cut and a reduction in the importance of his responsibilities. But he made the move to learn from Matta, inhaling everything he could from one of the most successful coaches in program history.
No one wondered whether Diebler made the correct decision in 2016, when a three-season stint in Columbus ended and Drew hired him as an assistant coach on his inaugural coaching staff at Vanderbilt, putting him on the bench at an SEC school.