In just one month as Ohio State’s interim wide receivers coach, Brian Hartline has already made a big impression on the players he is now responsible for coaching.
Ohio State’s three fifth-year senior wide receiver captains met with the media on Tuesday, and all of them had good things to say about what Hartline has brought to their position group so far.
“Everyone loves Coach Hartline,” Parris Campbell said. “He’s a very great coach. He’s very knowledgeable of the game.”
In the brief glimpses of practice that were open to the media during fall camp, Hartline’s energy and his hands-on approach to coaching were evident, and that has resonated with the Buckeyes’ wide receivers.
“He’s very energetic, and hands-on,” said Terry McLaurin. “He’s always running around, always critiquing everybody, coaching everybody up, whether you’re a starter or you’re a walk-on. So he really brings a lot to our room, and we’re happy to have him.”
It helps that approach resonate that Hartline is a former Ohio State wide receiver himself – so he can relate to the position that all of his players are currently in – and that he played for seven seasons in the NFL, where Campbell, McLaurin and Johnnie Dixon all hope to be next year and other Ohio State wide receivers hope to be in the future.
“Since he’s been at OSU, since he’s done what I’ve done, if he wants me to do something, if he tells me something that I need to do, he can go on the field and actually show me and I can see what it looks like,” Campbell said. “So it’s great. And for him to have skills, and for him to dominate at the next level, obviously, it’s easy to listen to a guy like that.”
“He’s always running around, always critiquing everybody, coaching everybody up, whether you’re a starter or you’re a walk-on. So he really brings a lot to our room.”– Terry McLaurin on Brian Hartline
While Hartline is new to his role as interim wide receivers coach, Ohio State’s returning wide receivers already had the opportunity to work with him last season and this spring, as he was already on the staff as a quality control coach. That’s made the adjustment easier for the Buckeyes’ wide receivers, as they had already built relationships with him and knew what to expect from him.
“We were learning from him all spring and even last year, so I don’t think it’s nothing really new,” Dixon said. “It’s just, I think it’s a different approach, I would say.”
McLaurin said Hartline’s presence already on the staff was actually one of the reasons why he chose to stay at Ohio State for his fifth-year senior season instead of declaring for the 2018 NFL draft.
“One of the big reasons I was coming back was I wanted to really work with him,” McLaurin said. “Since January, I’ve been working on my footwork, running out of my routes, just the little things that he brings to the table to make me the best receiver I can, ‘cause he’s been in my shoes before.”
Brian Hartline has been working with Johnnie Dixon and the rest of Ohio State's wide receivers since last season, when he was a quality control coach.
That said, McLaurin does believe Hartline – who had never previously been a full-time assistant coach – has “grown a lot” since becoming the interim wide receivers coach late last month, and Campbell says he believes Hartline is “a lot more comfortable than he was.”
Interim head coach Ryan Day is also impressed with what he’s seen from Hartline in his first month on the job.
“Brian's, on short notice, has stepped in and brought a lot of energy,” Day said Monday. “He's got great experience. He's sat in their seats. He's played wide receiver at Ohio State, he's played in the NFL, so he has great experience that he can obviously relay to those guys. He's done a great job so far.”
Hartline was hired as Ohio State’s interim wide receivers coach on July 26 to replace Zach Smith, who was fired three days earlier, hours after a civil protection order was filed against him and domestic violence allegations against him were reported publicly for the first time.
The wide receivers didn’t say much about Smith on Tuesday, in part because they were told not to, as Ohio State spokespeople were quick to interject – saying “football questions only” – when reporters asked questions related to Smith.
Campbell and McLaurin both did say, though, that they were trying to focus on the present and the future instead of dwelling on the past.
“We don’t want to go backward, so the loss, we’re kind of moved on from it,” Campbell said in regards to Smith’s firing. “Our focus is just being 1-0 right now, and we’re loving our coach and loving what we’re doing right now.”
The high goals that Ohio State’s wide receivers have set for themselves for the 2018 season have not changed, and they are confident Hartline will help them achieve those goals.
“He won’t accept anything less than the best, and that goes from me down to our freshmen,” McLaurin said. “He’s just a guy who’s played the game and been in our shoes, so that’s really something that’s encouraging to us as players, because he’s seen the game from our perspective, and that’s new for us. And just the fact that he brings that different type of mentality to the game and little things that can make us the best receivers possible.”
