Ohio State Football: Who calls the plays in the Fall?

The Ohio State football team has had Ryan Day calling the plays for them ever since he took over for Urban Meyer. That makes sense considering he was the offensive coordinator and always worked with the quarterbacks. Last year, his playcalling faced a lot of scrutiny.

Fans and media alike didn’t like the number of bubble screens he called per game, nor did they like the uncreativity when it came to run plays that were called. It seemed like he needed to make a change. Because of that, Brian Hartline was promoted to offensive coordinator.

Hartline has experimented with playcalling this Spring and called the plays during the Spring Game. I wasn’t exactly enthused with some of his choices, but he is a first-time play-caller. Day said at the start of the year that they would experiment with this and then revisit it in the Fall.

So now that the experiment is over, who is actually going to be calling plays for the Ohio State football team? With a new quarterback, I’m not sure it makes sense to put a first-time play-caller out there. At the same time, Hartline deserves this promotion and the ability to try this.

It’s unclear how his hospitalization over his ATV accident will affect this, but I doubt it will at all. I think it comes down to how comfortable Day is with letting go of those duties. He’s a guy that likes to be in control of things so I can see how this would be hard for him.

If I had to guess right now who would call the games, I would say it would be Day this year and then Hartline next year. Once Hartline gets a full year of coordinating under his belt, I bet Day turns the reigns over to him. We will see once Fall does roll around though.