Ohio State football might lose Al Washington to Tennessee

The Ohio State football team might be losing their linebackers coach to the University of Tennessee, which would mean losing a second defensive coach this offseason.

The Ohio State football team hired Al Washington as the linebackers coach in 2019 after taking him away from Michigan. Since coming to Columbus, he has done a very good job of recruiting linebackers to Ohio State. That might be ending sooner than Buckeye fans want.

According to multiple reports, Tennessee wants to give Washington a promotion and join their staff as defensive coordinator. If Washington leaves, he would be the second defensive coach the Buckeyes would lose this offseason after Greg Mattison retired.

Ryan Day recently said that he was not going to hire anyone to share the defensive coordinating duties with Kerry Coombs. That may be the only way to keep Washington. Giving him co-defensive coordinator duties might be the best way to keep Washington in Columbus.

If Washington were to leave, it would be a big blow. He has assembled a pretty nice linebacker recruiting class of 2022, having already landed two four-star recruits. Gabe Powers and C.J. Hicks are both from Ohio and were both recruited by Washington.

Losing Washington could mean losing one or both of them. That would hurt, considering linebacker is the one position on the defensive side of the ball that they don’t have depth at. It would certainly hurt their number one class ranking as well.

A lot still needs to be decided on still, but losing two defensive coaches in the same offseason would hurt this team greatly heading into the 2021 season. Keeping Washington has to be a priority, and Day should know what he needs to do in order to keep him.