Vo. 1, No. 28

This week in Ohio State football, we turned the page back to football quickly after both Buckeye basketball teams met an early demise in the NCAA Tournament.

To help us do that, Arthur Smith and Matt Patricia met with reporters to talk about why they are here and what they are doing to try to get Ryan Day’s team back to the top of college football.

(More after the ad break; remember if you click an ad, I get compensation, and that’s all you have to do! No purchase necessary…)

Why is Arthur Smith the offensive coordinator at Ohio State after years of working in the NFL?

Turns out it is not that complicated.

In short because he respects Ryan Day and, well, it’s Ohio State.

(Read more in my story for the Associated Press.)

We were short on time so there wasn’t a chance to follow up on that statement, but the mind wanders…which part of football’s history did he mean?

Woody Hayes’ beloved T Formation running game?

Sid Gillman fathering the modern passing game?

Dick LeBeau creating the zone blitz?

Paul Brown inventing, um, many of the things that make the modern game recognizable?

Or was it Francis Schmidt’s “razzle-dazzle” attack, the precursor to the modern spread offense?

Ok, it probably wasn’t that last one (You have to be a real sicko to be up on your Francis Schmidt history), but hopefully I’ll have a chance to ask him in the future.

As for the present, Smith does not need to invent anything himself to have a successful tenure in Columbus: Refining what they’ve been doing should suffice to improve the unit significantly.

He indicated he will be doing some of that, but he’s willing to do whatever it takes to move the ball and score points whether that means playing three tight ends, three receivers or any other combination of personnel.

Senior center Carson Hinzman said he got off on the right foot with the offensive linemen by showing them a video of what he wants to see from them this fall.

Anyone want to disagree with that?

(To read more about that at PressProsMagazine.com from my colleague Jeff Gilbert: Click here.)

One year ago, Matt Patricia was the outsider, a defensive coordinator hire met with skepticism by many (including me) because his recent years in pro football did not go so well either as the head coach of the Detroit Lions or back as an assistant with the New England Patriots.

Now he is the wise, bearded veteran coach with the pencil in his scarlet variation of the Woody Hayes Block ‘O’ hat who is beloved by players for his ability to connect with them and figure out how to get the best out of them.

Never mind the doubts (unless Texas scores more than two touchdowns when the Buckeyes visit Austin in September); all is well now. Just keep doing what you’re doing…

Like Smith, Patricia played it close to the vest as far as what types of things he might like to do schematically, but he’s got a lot of new personnel to evaluate as opposed to the returning players evaluating him like last year.

What he concludes he has at the end of spring ball next month will then inform how he deploys the next edition of the Silver Bullets.

The 2026 Ohio State defense might not have as many interchangeable parts, but a lot of different pieces appear to be available so perhaps the answer will be to assemble more packages for different situations in a game.

The most important new faces might be up front since nose guards like Kayden McDonald don’t grow on trees.

Hinzman said UCF transfer John Walker is “shifty,” and Patricia said he’s really enjoying getting to know Alabama transfer James Smith.

Smith said he’s learning a lot from both Patricia and defensive line coach Larry Johnson — so early returns are positive.

Hard as it is to believe, the last time Ohio State held a ceremony to award gold pants charms for beating Michigan was seven years ago.

The 2020 ceremony, which always takes place in the spring (and started with Schmidt in the 1930s), was canceled because of COVID-19, and they had not beaten the Wolverines since until they took out some frustrations in Ann Arbor last November.

The ceremony took place behind closed doors, but Ohio State released a video that showed Gold Pants Committee Chair Matt Finkes giving Day his fourth pair and a clip of secondary coach Tim Walton expressing thanks for the Silver Bullets for “getting an OG his first pair of gold pants.”

Walton played cornerback for Ohio State from 1989-1993 when the Buckeyes were 0-4-1 against the Wolverines, and he was 0-3 as an assistant coach until last November.

Pretty crazy how things can change on a dime, isn’t it? I was just learning about the gold pants tradition about the time Walton was finishing his career, and I distinctly remember articles about how many players had none until they broke through in 1994.

Then no other four-year class was shut out until 2020 and ’21.

Hinzman said those guys who missed out were on his mind both last fall and this week.

Now he has 51 new guys in the building (plus Arthur Smith and the other new coaches) to help prepare to go out and win another pair.

OK, that’s all for this week, but remember: If you like what you see, please share! Post a link on social media, send someone this link or see the note at the bottom.

BONUS CONTENT!

Aside from this newsletter, I’m also freelancing at multiple places, primarily PressProsMagazine.com, The Associated Press and MensJournal.com.

(I’m also sharing my thoughts on the message board at BuckeyeSports.com if you’re into that sort of thing.)

This week for Press Pros I wrote about Patricia while at Men’s Journal I tackled such topics as where to watch the Reds on DirecTV, the rising price of PS5s, Iowa busting ChatGPT’s boring bracket and the new lawn fertilizer made from spent grains of Natty Light. (Yes, really.)

Here I also recapped the Ohio State women’s basketball team’s disappointing loss to Notre Dame in the NCAA Tournament and evaluated Mark Titus’ claim Ohio State has the worst basketball fans in the world.