The Ohio State football team has landed on a defensive coordinator hire. Ryan Day decided to hire Matt Patricia as the DC for the Buckeyes. Patricia is the former defensive coordinator for the New England Patriots and helped lead the defenses that won Super Bowls.
That experience is something that clearly attracted Day to wanting to bring Patricia in. Even though Patricia has no other college experience, Day thinks that he'll be able to lead the defense. It's still a very strange hire that Buckeye fans should be concerned with.
Patricia was completely out of football a year ago, and the last job he had was with the Eagles in 2023. He last coordinated a defense for an entire season in 2017. One CFB analyst doesn't seem to think that the Ohio State Buckeyes made a good hire, either.
CFP analyst thinks the Ohio State football team made a mistake hiring Matt Patricia
Some fans aren't the only ones concerned with the hire. One CFB analyst doesn't seem to think that the Buckeyes made a smart decision, either.
Of all the boxes I would have wanted checked as Ohio State's next DC. This essentially checks none of them. https://t.co/Ap4iUKFSLx
— J.D. PicKell (@jdpickell) February 12, 2025
There's no denying that Patricia coordinated some good defenses in the past. Yet, everyone knew that Bill Belichick was the one who was in charge of those defenses. Those Super Bowls happened a decade ago. Since then, Patricia was hired as a head coach with the Lions, and had just a 31% winning percentage.
Ohio State has a lot of talent on defense, but this has the potential to absolutely blow up in their face. Patricia will likely be a liability on the recruiting trail. The only way that this hire doesn't suck is if he is able to coach up the current players well enough for Ohio State to repeat as champions.
This is one of the most surprising hires that Day has ever made. This doesn't seem to be a fit, but perhaps I'm missing something. It's certainly going to be interesting to see how Patricia handles the college game after having not coached in college in two decades.
If this goes poorly, Patricia could just be in Columbus for one year.