Ohio State Football: Learning about Tim Walton and Perry Eliano

The Ohio State football team cleaned house with the defensive staff a couple of seasons ago. Pretty much everyone was let go except for Larry Johnson. Ryan Day was tired of bad play on that side of the ball and wanted to do something about it.

The two guys he hired to fix the secondary are Perry Eliano and Tim Walton. Eliano coaches the safeties while Walton coaches the corners. Last year was their first year on the job as well. As we saw for most of the year, the results with the secondary were mixed at best.

This is the year where we find out what these two coaches are made of. We find out if they can actually coach or if they are just good recruiters. They need to get their guys to stop giving up big plays in crucial moments as they did against both Michigan and Georgia.

Ohio State’s offense will be championship-caliber. They have been every year under Day. The defensive line is usually solid behind the direction of Larry Johnson. Even the linebackers got better last year under Jim Knowles, who coaches the linebackers.

As much as we’ve talked about how the secondary gave up big plays, they still were an improvement from 2021. They finished in the top-15 in passing yards allowed. For most of the season, they were pretty darn good. That’s certainly encouraging.

The coaching from Walton and Eliano will show up in the biggest moments of the biggest games. That’s the next level of coaching that Day needs from his assistants. He needs his players in the secondary to play their best in the biggest moments.

We’ll see how both coaches improve in their second year. I would expect them to be better just as the players should get better too.