Arthur Smith's Ohio State hiring may have been the result of the Buckeyes' brass being impressed with what the son of FedEx's founder accomplished as the Tennessee Titans' offensive coordinator when Derrick Henry was a 2,000-yard rusher.
That's the sentiment former OSU linebacker Bobby Carpenter shared while discussing the program's recent addition of Smith. Carpenter believes Ryan Day is trying to re-establish the run with the decision, in an ode to the last championship play-caller, Chip Kelly.
“The one thing I know that Arthur Smith is very good at is he’s very good at the run,” Carpenter said on The Bobby Carpenter Show. “You go back and look at his time, he was in Tennessee for a number of years…they had a hell of a run game there with Derrick Henry. I think that is why Ryan [Day] targeted him."
“If you look at this, I think they want to try and get the run game going. That’s what Chip [Kelly] was so good at, and I think [Day] is hoping that Arthur Smith will bring that same level of detail to that run game.”
Bo Jackson will make Arthur Smith's job easy
Smith is walking into an amenable situation in Columbus, with a running back in Bo Jackson who can make his job easy. Smith's conservative play-calling is a good match for Jackson, who has the uncanny ability to extend plays. Jackson had 9.06 yards after contact per rush, 94 coming against TTUN in Week 14 last November, plus 35 missed tackles in 2025.
Jackson took a while to get going in Brian Hartline's offense, which focused on clean route-running and setting up the big play, but it often came at the expense of the run. There wasn't exactly a varied and unpredictable set of designed runs for Jackson. That the competition was so bad most of the year didn't help, since the playbook oftentimes had to compensate for being up big and needing to run down the clock.
With that said, Jackson got going. Big-time. He had 80+ yards in four of his last five games, finding the end zone seven times in that span. In his sophomore season, he'll be ripe to succeed within Smith's run-focused playbook.
Smith picked a good Power 4 program to boost his candidacy in the NFL next offseason. Ohio State picked a guy who has results not getting in the way of a great running back.
Sounds like a good football fit on paper.