The Ohio State football team needs to fix their defense. Everyone knows that. Ryan Day knows that and said as much today during his press conference. He also said that he was looking into possibly making drastic changes on the defense. He didn’t go into details, but everything seems on the table.
That includes possibly getting rid of Kerry Coombs as the defensive coordinator of the Buckeyes. Day did say that Coombs was the coordinator right now, but that all could change in a matter of a few days. At this point, everything is on the table.
I don’t expect Coombs to get replaced while the season is still going on. That would just add turmoil and distraction into the locker room where there is already a lot of noise. I’m not sure making a major coaching change like that in the middle of the season would make it any better.
My guess is that they would strip Coombs of defensive playcalling duties and give them to Al Washington. The issue is that might not fix the problem. They may just need a new voice entirely in there to implement a new scheme and put players in a better spot to succeed.
If Coombs is replaced during the season, these are three guys that I think Day would consider replacing him with. All of these guys make sense and would be definite upgrades over what Coombs gives the Buckeyes as a defensive coordinator right now.
The first guy on the list is an old player who has a great rise in the coaching ranks.
Marcus Freeman is a former Ohio State football player himself. He played for the Buckeyes from 2004-2008 and was a good player. He ended up being a fifth-round pick in the NFL Draft, but he didn’t last very long in the league. Then he came back to Ohio State as a grad assistant in 2010.
Since then, he has had a strong rise in the coaching ranks. He was a linebackers coach at Kent State for a couple of years before removing on to Purdue. He coached there until 2017 where he was reunited with Luke Fickell and was the defensive coordinator at Cincinnati under him.
Freeman coached very well there and was rewarded with the DC job at Notre Dame. While the defense for the Fighting Irish has struggled in the first two weeks, they aren’t nearly as bad as what Ohio State has done in that timespan.
Bringing Freeman back would be a good move both on the field and recruiting-wise. Freeman has done an excellent job recruiting as a defensive coordinator and already grabbed a recruit from the Buckeyes this past offseason. He would make a great addition to the coaching staff.
The next guy on this list is someone who hasn’t been able to put it together as a head coach but has been a great defensive coordinator.
Will Muschamp has bounced around a bit in his college football coaching journey. He has been a defensive coordinator at Auburn, Texas, and LSU. He has also been a head coach at Florida and South Carolina and is currently an analyst at Georgia.
Say what you will about his record as a head coach. It hasn’t gone great for him in that regard. But his defenses have always been stout. His Florida teams finished top 12 in the S+P in the four years he was there. That’s pretty strong play.
Would Muschamp head up North where he has never coached? That’s the question. But he would get to be on a team that competes for a national championship every year. A good performance with the Buckeyes would also give him a chance at another head coaching job in the future.
Muschamp seems the most unlikely of the three people I have on this list. He doesn’t fit the mold of what Ryan Day likes in coaches. He also seems very happy down South, so I can’t see him moving to Columbus, Ohio where it snows for four months out of the year.
The final man on this list is very familiar with the Buckeyes’ defense. In fact, he was on staff just one year ago.
Yes, that Greg Mattison. The same Greg Mattison that just retired before the start of this season. The same one who was the co-defensive coordinator to last season’s awful defense. You may not think it makes a lot of sense, but hear me out.
First off, he knows Ryan Day and he knows the roster. He coached this team just last season, so he knows the personnel and how to utilize them. He also coached the defensive line last season, which was the bright spot of the entire defensive unit.
We also know that Coombs clearly can’t coach a defense, so maybe more of his paws were over last season’s stinker than we thought. The secondary was also the largest issue last year, and that’s where Coombs was specializing at. Mattison seemed to work better with the rest of the defense.
Would Mattison be a long-term fix? No. The man is over 70 years old and already retired once. But if you can lure him out of retirement for this season, you can at least save this year and maybe next year too. Mattison would be a three-year fix at the max.
I don’t like writing these types of articles. From everything I hear, Coombs is a great man and a great person. It gives me no joy to see him struggling. But like everything in college football now, this is a business. He has to be better. It’s nothing personal.