Ohio State Football: Grading Ryan Day’s 2019 coaching staff
Looking at Day’s 2019 hires
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Jeff Hafley as co-defensive coordinator and secondary coach was an excellent hire. Being able to incorporate the way that Day wanted his defense to look, Hafley brought a simple yet complex secondary scheme that was able to work all season long. He too proved to be a top-flight recruiter in his ten months on the job.
A true testament to Day’s hiring abilities, Hafley was named head coach at Boston College after just one season on the job.
Bringing in Greg Mattison on the recommendation of Urban Meyer was a wise decision. Bringing 40 years of coaching experience to Columbus with him, and an intimate knowledge of the Michigan Wolverine program, Mattison was effectively able to coordinate a defense from the sidelines that was one of the best in recent Buckeye history.
Landing another Michigan coach in Al Washington to coach the linebackers really hurt the Wolverine program while it brought the play of the current Ohio State linebacker corps to another level. Tuf Borland, Malik Harrison and Pete Werner all had their best seasons wearing Scarlet and Gray.
Co-offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Mike Yurcich came to Columbus as a celebrated hire. Working at Oklahoma State for six seasons and taking their offenses to new highs breaded confidence that Yurcich could do the same here. And it worked.
He was also a good quarterback coach as he helped develop Justin Fields into a Heisman Trophy candidate. Questions lingered in January about his recruiting abilities and his move to Texas was looked at by some as a mutual parting of ways.
And finally, the special teams unit looked vastly improved compared to the 2018 version and that can be directly attributed to Matt Barnes who is also doing a fine job on the recruiting trail in his own right.
Day did an excellent job in the hiring of his initial staff at Ohio State. Day is realizing with the departure of Hafley that as long as he keeps winning at a high level, he is always going to have to have a shortlist of potential coaches to replace them.
Can his second and third hires prove to be excellent coaches or are we going to see some sub-par hires such as what Urban Meyer had with Tim Beck and Ed Warinner when it came time for his second hires?
Only time will tell but if bringing in coaches such as Kerry Coombs is any indication of how replacing his coaches is going to go, then I would say the Buckeyes are in good hands with Day making those decisions.
Next. Stroud listed as player who could prove people wrong. dark
As far as game-planning and in-game adjustment went, Day and his staff were really never out-coached until the College Football Playoffs when I would say Clemson was on the same level as them.