Josh Cribbs’ feelings for Kent State go much deeper than just being a place where he played college football.

It’s the place where he met his wife at the Black United Students’ Renaissance ball his freshman year. Kent State is where they would first raise their child, who attended a daycare across the street from the university. All by Cribbs’ junior year.

Love for the school is actually an understatement for Cribbs, who built his family on Kent State’s campus. As they started to sprout at Kent, his football game blossomed as well.

“Life began for me at Kent,” Cribbs said. “I learned how to be a man from the coaches here, and they were like my second family.”

What Cribbs did not imagine when he left campus for the NFL was becoming one of those coaches himself, as he was hired as special teams analyst for the Kent State football team in April.

“I never saw myself as a coach, it was just a way to keep the game alive for me,” Cribbs said. “When I hung up my cleats, I would have vivid dreams of running and scoring touchdowns, so the game would not leave me alone. ”

Originally from Washington, D.C., Cribbs was first noticed by Kent scouts during a high school football game in which he led the Dunbar Crimson Tide against the St. Ignatius Wildcats.

“They came for them, and they saw me,” Cribbs said. “I came on a visit, and they told me they were going to build the team around me and that’s all I wanted to hear.”

Little did those scouts know they were watching the first steps of an all-time legend.

Before Cribbs could ever dream of becoming a three-time Pro Bowler, first-team All-Pro, and an NFL record-holding kick returner, he was a 20-year-old collegiate quarterback learning how to balance being a family man with living over five hours from his hometown.

“For me as a student athlete here, it was eye-opening,” Cribbs said. “I grew up in the inner city, so it was a culture shock coming here to Kent as an introvert.”

While undoubtedly a challenging hand to be dealt, Cribbs kept his head down and etched his name in the program’s history books. He holds the school records for both career rushing and total touchdowns, with 38 and 41, respectively. Cribbs is also the only player in NCAA history to lead his team in rushing and passing in four consecutive seasons.

As Cribbs dominated at the collegiate level, the NFL took notice. He was invited to multiple camps as a quarterback, and one of these was his hometown Washington Redskins before his future team, the Cleveland Browns, introduced Cribbs to the idea of a position change.

“There was a Browns scout that told me if anybody is looking at you as a quarterback, they just want you as a camp body, they don’t have a vision for you,” Cribbs said. “He wanted me to be a returner and receiver.”

Pivoting away from the quarterback position proved to be the perfect move for Cribbs, who would not be denied achieving his lifelong dream of making a living on the gridiron.

“Every day at recess, I played football,” hed said. “Now they pay me millions of dollars to do what I did at recess, and that was the joy of my life.”

Following the NFL draft in which Cribbs went undrafted, he signed a rookie contract with the team just an hour from his college. 

Still, Cribbs was an unproven and unknown commodity, new to the receiver and returner positions, but special teams was something he immediately felt at home with.

“It was just so easy for me,” Cribbs said. “See ball, get ball.”

Few people in the history of the NFL have made returning kicks look as easy as Cribbs did, and arguably no play shows this more clearly than a 100-yard kickoff return on November 11, 2007, against the rival Pittsburgh Steelers.

“Everything went quiet for me, and people thought I had the best moves, but I just didn’t want to get hit,” Cribbs said. “I had to watch it on film to understand, like, wow, I did that.”

With the Browns trailing by three in the opening minutes of the fourth quarter and the Steelers kicking off, the football bounced right through Cribbs’ hands into his own team’s endzone. As Cribbs gathered the ball, he broke every would-be tackle and tightrope the sideline en route to the touchdown.

“It was just that guy and me over there standing in my way to have a chance to play in the NFL,” Cribbs said. “I imposed my will often on the coverage units.”

Iconic moments fill the pages of Cribbs’ professional career, and as it crept towards the finish line in 2013, he first began to envision a career in coaching during his time with the Oakland Raiders.

“Our special teams coach at the time was not reaching the players,” Cribbs said. “He would use 1960s sayings, and so I would have to take over his meetings, and it became a joke, like can Cribbs just tell us.”

Cribbs’ first coaching opportunity came in 2018 with the Browns as special teams intern under head coach Hue Jackson, where his connection with the players was too perfect to ignore.

“When I coached at the NFL level, and the guys did exactly what I told them to do and had success with it, they were able to run back to me full of joy,” Cribbs said. “In that moment, I felt like that’s my son, and the joy I got from that set off a spark.”

Despite spending so many years elsewhere, Cribbs still felt like Kent was home. When head coach Mark Carney first invited him to a practice earlier this year, he immediately fell in love with the school all over again.

“I get butterflies just walking around,” Cribbs said. “I’m full of energy and have those jitters when you start something exciting.”

In what can be described as shades of Cribbs himself, senior receiver Da’Realyst Clark returned 16 kickoffs for 452 yards and two touchdowns last season for the Flashes. Arguably, there is nobody better to coach the special teams ace into something even more special than Cribbs himself.

“Everything that I had as a player at Kent and in the NFL is what I bring as a coach,” Cribbs said. “I want to bring a dynamic special teams unit that really helps this team.”

With the Flashes finally shedding their brutal losing reputation and achieving five wins in the 2025 season, Cribbs will do everything in his power to return the team to glory the same way he did years ago.

“I’m going to bring my ‘A Game’ to help coach Carney in every way possible,” Cribbs said. “I’m going to do it not just for this team but for the Flashes fans as well.”

In the wake of Cribbs’ Kent homecoming, his message to fans was direct.

“It’s going to be a hell of a year,” Cribbs said. “Don’t go to the concession stands after either team scores, because special teams are going to have a spark.”

Josh Szeremet is a reporter. Contact him at [email protected].