Ohio State Football: What kind of play-caller will Brian Hartline be?

One of the most interesting storylines heading into Spring practice for the Ohio State football team is the fact that they will have a new play-caller for Spring. It will be new offensive coordinator Brian Hartline calling the plays up through the Spring Game.

Ryan Day made the decision to give up play-calling duties, at least during the Spring, to see if it’s a more effective process for the offense. Day had some questionable calls throughout the season in 2022, although he called his best game by far in the Peach Bowl against Georgia.

Hartline has never called plays before or coordinated an entire offense. What kind of play-caller will he be? Will he be conservative? Or will he be aggressive and take shots down the field? The Spring Game is going to be our one chance to find that out before final decisions are made.

Day made it clear that this is just a trial period. He could end up taking back the duties in the Fall if he doesn’t like what he sees. Based on his background as a wide receivers coach, my guess is that Hartline is going to want to throw the ball down the field.

I’m very interested to see how the running plays are called. There were times last year when the same run plays were called during the course of the game. There was very little variety in how the Ohio State football team attacked on the ground. It was always up the middle.

I hope Hartline gets the backs more on the edge a bit or pulls more offensive linemen. There weren’t very many actions that pulled a guard out wide on the perimeter. That led to predictability for defenses and ineffectiveness in the run game for the Buckeyes.

This is one of the storylines that I’ll be watching throughout Spring ball. I think Hartline might be the play-caller throughout the season too. That’s just a hunch that I have.