Ohio State Buckeyes HC Opens Up About Defensive Coordinator Hire

It's a new era for Ohio State football but head coach Ryan Day still has the same championship expectations on his shoulders. He just won the College Football Playoff a few months ago, but don't believe for one minute that there's not pressure on him to do it again in 2025. That's just how things roll in Columbus.

It's a new era for the Buckeyes because CFP-winning offensive coordinator Chip Kelly left town for the Las Vegas Raiders and CFP-winning defensive coordinator Jim Knowles took the same position at Penn State.

Day chose to promote Brian Hartline to offensive coordinator and play-caller, which made sense considering Hartline's reputation within the organization as both a coach and recruiter. For defensive coordinator, though, Day chose to take a big swing and go for former NFL head coach Matt Patricia.

Patricia is infamously known for his disastrous stint as head coach of the Detroit Lions, which makes it easy to forget that he was a Super Bowl-winning coordinator under Bill Belichick with the New England Patriots. He certainly hasn't forgotten how to call defenses since then. Sure, criticize him all you want for the time in Detroit, but he's a strong defensive mind and so far the results are so good in Columbus.

That is according to the head coach, at least, who updated the media on Thursday and had some great things to say about his new defensive play-caller. Chase Brown of Eleven Warriors took some presser notes and relayed Day's thoughts on Patricia.

"You can tell that we were very thorough about how we went about the process," Day said. "I felt like Matt was that guy for a lot of reasons."

There will be differences in Ohio State's defense under Patricia compared to how it looked under Knowles, but Day is expecting the identity of OSU defense to be the same. In fact, Patricia has a mandate to ensure that the defensive identity from last season's CFP run stays intact.

And yes, there are certainly questions about Patricia as a coach. As mentioned, Day is taking a big swing by bringing him in and sometimes when you take big swings you end up missing. The OSU head coach does believe Patricia's experience will help him out now that he's in Columbus, though.

I think it's gonna carry over well," Day said of Patricia's NFL experience. "There's a lot more similarities now (between college and NFL) than there was in the past."