ICYMI: This Week in Ohio State Football: Taking stock of title game, portal fallout

Ryan Day has proven to be a great offensive mind, but the passing game is his specialty.

He also just seems to need someone to help make the whole picture come together, especially if he would rather not be calling plays or leading game planning anymore.

For years, that was Kevin Wilson, the old head who loves ball and was a true pioneer of the spread offense — especially the running game.

Then Chip Kelly came along in 2024 after the initial failure to launch Brian Hartline as offensive coordinator in ‘23.

Although Kelly did not exactly revolutionize the offense, they jazzed up the running game with more variety and set the stage for the attack to take off when Day became more involved for the College Football Playoff.

Prior to that, I think Kelly’s presence was important just to make the overall plan work from an organizational standpoint.

There’s a lot of grunt work that goes on behind the scenes and someone not only needs to do it but make sure everyone else is doing their part.

Ironically Ohio State seemed to be trying to do more to change the offense fundamentally last season with the increase in heavy sets (multiple tight ends and even some fullback) than under Kelly’s watch, but it never quite came together.

As I have written before, I think the plan was good, but the execution not so much last season.

In the simplest terms, it would have been great if the offensive line or the running backs were just a little better.

Failing that, Ohio State needed to get a little more creative to make sure it was dictating the terms to the defense — emphasizing its strengths and avoiding its weaknesses being attacked.

They did not do that in either loss, so an outside voice coming in should be able to refine what they were trying to do last year and hopefully enhance it.

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Make It Your Habit

A former North Carolina offensive lineman, Smith came to prominence as the offensive coordinator of the Tennessee Titans in 2019-20.

They road Derrick Henry to No. 4 in the NFL in scoring and No. 2 in total yards the latter year after rankings 10th and 12th, respectively, in ’19.

Of course, the 6-2, 252-pound Henry is a force of nature, but teams couldn’t stop him even when they knew it was coming, and in major college and the NFL you can’t just line up and run it without some sort of plan.

Plus it’s easy to forget Henry’s first three seasons (before Smith became OC) were nothing to write home about. He ran for 2,293 yards from 2016-18 then 3,567 in ‘19 and ‘20 (from 764 yards per season to 1,783).

Smith then became the head coach of the Atlanta Falcons, where he went 7-10 all three years before being fired. His Falcons teams weren’t offensive juggernauts but also weren’t blessed with much to speak of from a personnel standpoint. He got the last year of Matt Ryan’s career then was supposed to try to win with Desmond Ridder, Taylor Heinicke and Marcus Mariota at QB after that.

Smith did get Bijan Robison for one year, and the former Texas star gained 1,463 yards from scrimmage as a rookie.

Smith spent the last two seasons as offensive coordinator for the Steelers, who finished in the middle of the pack in scoring despite having the odd couple of Justin Fields and the shell of Russell Wilson at quarterback one season and what’s left of Aaron Rodgers in 2025.

Maybe most importantly, Ryan Tannehill had by far the best years of his career under Smith so it’s not like those Titans were one-dimensional.

Tannehill led the NFL in yards per attempt, yards per completion and passer rating in 2019.

For his career, he was a 91.2-rated passer but came in at 117.5 and 106.5 in his two seasons under Smith after having the misfortune of having to play for QB coach Zac Taylor to begin his career in Miami.

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One constant in all Smith’s last three stops was a preference for using two or more tight ends at a time.

The Steelers were last in the NFL in usage of 11 personnel (three receivers, one running back, one tight end) last season (38.7%) while ranking 14th in 12 personnel (two tight ends) and second in 13 personnel (three tight ends).

His last Falcons team was also 32nd in 11 personnel usage after coming in at No. 31 in ’22, although there is a caveat to that as one of the “tight ends” was Kyle Pitts, who is more of a supersized slot receiver who has had a hard time finding a niche in the NFL.

As you probably know, Ohio State leaned harder into 12 personnel and even a fair bit of 13 and 14 personnel last season with mixed results. The Buckeyes brought in two veteran tight ends from the transfer portal and lost some receiver depth so it figures that will continue this fall.

Of course the big question is will it work?

There’s a difference between studying how other teams use 12, 13 and 14 personnel and trying to mimic them than actually understanding how to do it effectively.

Often in football something becomes trendy and everyone tries to pick it up with varying success for that reason.

I felt that way about Jim Tressel’s teams trying to do more spread stuff late in his tenure. Yes, the Buckeyes used more shotgun and 11 personnel with Terrelle Pryor, but they struggled to tie together plays, became predictable and weren’t great either from the gun or the I-formation.

I think we saw something similar last year with Ohio State’s attempts to change its stripes, so adding an actual expert in this field could unlock the new evolution of Ryan Day’s attack the Buckeyes were already trying to achieve.

ICYMI: Flashback: Ohio State hires Jim Tressel