Brian Hartline Shares How Jim Tressel, Urban Meyer and Ryan Day Shaped Him at OSU

Brian Hartline wasn’t looking to spend much of American Conference Media Days looking backward.

Seven months into his first head coaching job at South Florida, his focus has understandably shifted toward what’s in front of him. Still, Ohio State is a hard subject to completely separate from Hartline.

He played for Jim Tressel, returned to Columbus to begin his coaching career under Urban Meyer and eventually became one of Ryan Day’s most important assistants. That’s a lot of years and a lot of football spent inside one program.

So when asked whether pieces of Tressel, Meyer and Day have naturally found their way into his own coaching style, he didn’t try to distance himself from any of them.

“Oh, yeah. I mean, I’m shaped by those men,” Hartline said. “And so, a lot of what we do will probably resemble a lot of things they believe and how they operate.”

Hartline takes his development mindset to South Florida.

If there is one part of Hartline’s personality that certainly didn’t get left behind in Columbus, it’s his love of developing players.

Hartline left Ohio State with a reputation as one of college football’s elite recruiters and wide receiver developers. Since 2022, six Buckeyes wide receivers have been selected in the first round of the NFL Draft, a remarkable run that could continue next year with Jeremiah Smith and potentially Brandon Inniss.

The first-round picks piled up, but when Hartline was asked how much that success helped him eventually become a head coach, he didn’t spend much time talking about what it did for his career.

“I just love investing in people. I love maximizing people. I love the receiver position,” Hartline said. “The combination of those two things made it an easy passion.”

Getting his own program hasn’t changed that passion, either. Hartline has a lot more on his plate these days, but apparently giving up the receiver room completely wasn’t going to happen.

“That passion will continue here,” Hartline said. “I’ll still be heavily involved with the wideouts because I just need that. I truly enjoy that.”

Recruiting was another major part of Hartline’s rise at Ohio State, where he became known for landing some of the country’s best receivers. There isn’t a complicated sales pitch behind it, at least not according to Hartline.

“I learned a lot operationally from everybody I’ve been around,” Hartline said. “But just being yourself and not trying to trick people.”

Being at Ohio State obviously helped. Hartline knows that, too.

“When you’re at Ohio State, all you got to do is make sure you do a great job communicating information and do a great job identifying the right guys,” Hartline said. “I try to make sure we do that at a high level.”

And when asked if his approach has changed now that he’s recruiting players to South Florida instead of Ohio State?

“No. Approach really hasn’t changed.”

Building his Own culture at South Florida.

Hartline is no longer responsible for one position group. Everything eventually reaches the head coach’s desk now, from recruiting and practice habits to academics and the personality of the locker room.

Seven months in, Hartline isn’t pretending USF is a finished product.

“Growing, building,” Hartline said. “I think that we are in month seven, you know, of all of this. And so, I’m happy with where we’re at, but we got a ways to go.”

In some ways, Hartline is growing alongside the program.

South Florida is celebrating its 30th anniversary. Hartline came from a place where more than a century of football created traditions long before he arrived. At USF, some of those traditions are still waiting to be created.

“It’s just a good reminder of how early we are in this process,” Hartline said. “Been around programs that have been around for over a century and how long it took them to build a fan base, to build a stadium, to build facilities.”

USF is quite literally building around him. A new football operations center and on-campus stadium are taking shape while Hartline tries to build the football program that will eventually occupy them.

But buildings don’t create culture by themselves.

Hartline inherited a locker room filled with players who had already worn a USF uniform before he arrived. He then brought in 62 newcomers. Blending those groups could have been one of the more difficult parts of his first offseason.

“It’s their room. It’s their vibe. It’s their locker room. It’s their stadium. It’s not ours,” Hartline said. “We did not bleed. We did not sweat to earn that respect.”

That respect had to be earned.

Eventually, Hartline wants the players to take over. Coaches can set expectations and push players during the early stages, but his idea of a healthy program is one that doesn’t always need the head coach to provide its voice.

“I want to make sure our players know they own this program,” Hartline said. “It’s a player-led program.”

An Ohio State standard in a new home.

South Florida isn’t Ohio State, and Hartline isn’t trying to pretend it is. The histories are different. The expectations are different. Even the traditions are at completely different stages.

But Hartline spent too much of his life in Columbus for the experience not to influence how he sees his new job.

“At Ohio State, you never win enough championships,” Hartline said. “That’s just how it is, and I understand that, and I appreciate that.”

Yet championships weren’t the first thing Hartline pointed to when discussing what he wanted to carry forward. It was people.

“One thing I can say we’ve done better than anyone in the country is maximizing people, both on the field and off the field, from job acquisition to NFL rosters, all of that,” Hartline said.

He isn’t inheriting Ohio State’s history or its ready-made identity. At South Florida, Hartline gets to help create those things himself.

But he isn’t arriving without a blueprint, either.

Jim Tressel helped shape Hartline as a player. Urban Meyer gave him an opportunity to begin his coaching career at Ohio State. Ryan Day watched Hartline grow from a position coach into one of the most recognizable assistants in college football.

Now Hartline has his own program.

He wants South Florida to develop its own traditions, its own leaders and its own identity. But when Hartline was asked during his formal press conference how much of what he experienced at Ohio State will follow him to South Florida, he summed up the connection better than anyone else could.

“I played there, I coached there. Their DNA is my DNA.”

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