Former Navy assistant Ashley Ingram named head football coach at VMI

VMI has a new football coach, with the school announcing on Tuesday the hiring of Ashley Ingram, a former Naval Academy assistant who led D2 Carson-Newman to a 16-6 record over the past two seasons.

“Our unwavering mission will be to graduate and develop men of character,” said Ingram, who replaces Danny Rocco, who left earlier this month after wrapping his second straight 1-11 season at VMI.

“We will strive daily to make everyone associated with VMI proud,” said Ingram, a 1996 alum of North Alabama, where he played on the offensive line, then started his coaching career as a grad assistant.

“The product we put on the field will be a reflection of the ideals that make VMI so special. We will be a tough, disciplined team that plays with relentless effort,” Ingram said.

Ingram, 52, was at Navy as the offensive line coach for 16 seasons.

He also served stints on the staffs at Temple, West Alabama, Rhode Island and Bucknell.

Ingram’s Carson-Newman teams used a triple-option offense that finished in the Top 10 nationally in each of his two seasons as the head coach.

Triple-option can be hard to watch for fans, but the pro-style offense used by Rocco – who left VMI to take a job as an offensive analyst on the staff of James Franklin at Virginia Tech – ranked eighth in the nine-team Southern Conference in 2025, averaging just 291.8 yards per game.

And that was an improvement: the 2024 VMI offense ranked ninth in the SoCon, averaging an anemic 209.0 yards per game.

As long as three-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust works with Ingram at the controls, it won’t matter how it looks, right?

“Coach Ingram is committed to building a program — not just a team — that represents VMI with excellence on the field, in the classroom, on post and throughout the community,” VMI AD Jamaal Walton said. “From the moment we began the process, it was evident that Coach Ingram embodies discipline, toughness, grit and a relentless competitive drive to be a champion. He is a proven winner, exceptional recruiter, developer of quality football players, and someone who sees this as a transformational opportunity to take VMI to new heights.”