Matt Patricia and Brian Hartline bring different experience levels to their positions as coordinators. And through three games not much has gone wrong.
Columbus, OH – Matt Patricia, Ohio State’s defensive boss, has proven for two decades he can handle the second-guessing. Brian Hartline is learning what it’s like for the first time as a play caller.
So far, so good for Ryan Day’s new coordinators.
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National “experts” asserted their newness as a legitimate reason to question Ohio State’s potential to be vintage Ohio State and pursue a second straight national championship.
Veteran columnist Jeff Gilbert writes Ohio State football and basketball and OHSAA sports for Press Pros Magazine.com.
Of course, a 3-0 start does not a season make. In the new expanded playoff era, a 12-0 regular season does not a season make for elite programs. There is plenty of time to succeed or fail.
Patricia and Hartline passed a difficult entrance exam against Texas. Next, they coordinated the style of victories expected in Weeks 2 and 3. Now everyone expects the fine-tuning to be accomplished. That’s what three nonconference games and an open Saturday are for.
Big Ten season starts for the Buckeyes a week from Saturday in Seattle where the coffee is renowned, it rains a lot and the 2-0 Washington Huskies are trying to be more like the team that played for the national championship in 2023 and less like the team that finished 6-7 in 2024.
As Big Ten play progresses, will Patricia’s defense be a rinse-and-repeat unit that either pitches a shutout or comes close? The Texas game created great expectations.
Will Hartline’s offense continue to mature with a first-year quarterback, a developing offensive line, a true freshman running back who will keep getting carries and the best wide receiver group in the college universe? He will be judged on play calling and red-zone success.
They met with the media this week, answered some questions and displayed confidence in the operations they oversee.
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Patricia and the defense
Matt Patricia just turned 51 and keeps a pencil tucked under the edge of his ballcap. He likes to quickly write down ideas in a notebook he carries everywhere.
His young players surely noticed the pencil the first day of spring practice and wondered what was up with their new defensive coordinator. He looks and acts a lot younger than previous defensive guru Jim Knowles. But the pencil?
“They’ve done a good job of just trying to learn. My whole goal is to teach and mentor and coach young men and hopefully have a positive impact in their lives going forward” – Matt Patricia
Patricia learned old-school ways for 20 years in the NFL, most of them as Bill Belichick’s DC in New England. He speaks in plain English. He sounds like a proud father when he says his players are a joy to coach.
“They have that youthful energy about them, they love the game,” Patricia said.
He also gets a kick out of the slang his 18- to 22-year-old players use.
“They’re out there celebrating the ‘six seven,’” he said Tuesday and smiled. “I don’t even know what that is, but my kids know what it is, and they get excited about it.”
For the record (because if you are of a certain age, you wonder as well), the Google AI mode search revealed that if you’re not up on the latest rap songs or TikTok videos, you don’t know what “six seven” means either.
Know-it-all Google isn’t 100% sure. It might have to do with a lyric about LaMelo Ball being 6-foot-7, it might mean “so-so” or it’s simply a non-sensical response to anything.
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The good news for the Ohio State defense is that the generation gap, the quirks and the slang aren’t a barrier to playing good football. As the kids might say, everyone associated with the defense is “keeping it 100.”
The defense has allowed 16 points in three games with eight new starters and is being compared to last year’s veteran unit, the one that earned a reputation as the best in the nation. The factors are many, but Patricia is particularly impressed by how his players approach the job.
“These guys have been unbelievable going to the meeting room,” Patricia said. “There is that professionalism that they’re very serious, they take notes, they want to learn what their game plan is, they really want to learn about the opponent.”
Patricia gets credit for the defensive calls meant to hide his true intentions. Who’s blitzing? Who’s not blitzing? Is anybody blitzing? Who’s doing what in the secondary? Will the play begin with three men on the front line or five?
Those are Patricia’s calls, but not just because he stands at a whiteboard and dreams them up. He spent his early days and spring practice learning the skills of every player. List it all on a spreadsheet – physical, mental or both – and Patricia has the freedom to mix and match. He likes to keep it simple and fast.
“Give credit to the players,” he said. “They’ve done a good job of just trying to learn. My whole goal is to teach and mentor and coach young men and hopefully have a positive impact in their lives going forward. And that’s really what I’m trying to do, and that’s what’s been the most fun.”
That and trying to learn what “six, seven” means.
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Hartline and the offense
Brian Hartline replaced Chip Kelly, one of the most experienced play callers in football. He’s been watching and learning for years while turning Ohio State into Wide Receiver U.
But is he ready for such responsibility?
“Coach (Ryan Day) lets me kind of do my thing. And then if there’s something he wants to get done, he echoes it, and we keep pushing.” – Brian Hartline
“Coach has been great,” Hartline said. “He lets me kind of do my thing. And then if there’s something he wants to get done, he echoes it, and we keep pushing.”
Hartline wants to keep learning from Day, from his players and from the experience of each game. Hartline said the training wheels never come off.
“I always want to be better,” he said. “I’m never going to be satisfied. But I think that there’s been a lot of growth.”
No offense clicks 100% of the time. Trouble spots appear, even in games like last week’s 37-9 win over Ohio. The offense failed to score a touchdown on three first-half trips into the red zone.
“Execution is part of it, but putting guys in right positions to make plays is another part of it, so we all own it as a group,” Hartline said. “We definitely want to score every time we get down there. But there was learning opportunities, too.”
Opportunities for quarterback Julian Sayin to see things he didn’t see, for plays to be made on the perimeter, to protect Sayin better.
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“And myself, too, putting those guys in the right spots to make sure that we can execute at a high level,” Hartline said. “Obviously, every time we’ll be in the red zone, the expectation is to score touchdowns, both from the outside world and in this building.”
Otherwise, Hartline sounds like a coach who is happy with his new job. He’s enjoyed working with the quarterback, figuring out the best ways to balance the run and the pass and the different interactions he has with the other positions and coaching staff.
Hartline also emphasizes his appreciation of being accountable to Day while getting to be himself.
“Any person under a great head coach would feel the exact same way,” he said. “If you weren’t that way, that’d be kind of reckless for anybody as a play caller. I stand by what I believe in. It’s been very transparent.
“When I’m wrong, I’m wrong. The relationship and the thickness of skin is good.”
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