Ryan Day only made one change to the offensive coaching staff: replacing himself with Oklahoma State offensive coordinator Mike Yurcich.
Beyond that single move, the first-time head coach didn’t see any reason to shake up anything on that side of the ball. He retained Kevin Wilson as offensive coordinator, kept offensive line coach Greg Studrawa, held on to running backs coach Tony Alford and promoted Brian Hartline to full-time wide receivers coach after serving as interim coach for the 2018 season.
Day had every reason to alter the defensive coaching staff, though, after the Buckeyes allowed more than 400 yards per game and gave up far too many chunk plays. So he replaced four defensive coaches. Greg Schiano, Alex Grinch, Taver Johnson and Billy Davis left, and Greg Mattison, Jeff Hafley, Matt Barnes and Al Washington entered.
Only one assistant coach on defense – Larry Johnson – remained once Day finalized his staff.
The retention of Johnson, whom Day called a “legend” two weeks after being announced as Urban Meyer’s successor, was more important than any of the five hires Day made when creating his inaugural staff. Day promoted Johnson to associate head coach and called it “very, very important” for him to remain at Ohio State.
“Larry has been great for me,” Day said on Deb. 6. “He was great for me in the summer. He's been great for me the last couple months. He's a guy that everybody respects. Obviously the defensive line is the heart and soul. Offensive and defensive line are the guys that run the team. Any time you want to be a championship team, if you don't win the line of scrimmage, that's not going to happen.
“More importantly you have to win the locker room. The defensive line is a big part of that. What he's recruited to the defensive line, how those guys feel about it. More than that, he's a father figure to everybody on the team. That was important in making him the associate head coach.”
As poorly as Ohio State’s defense played for stretches last year, the defensive line – even without Nick Bosa for the vast majority of the season – was the lone bright spot. Dre’Mont Jones turned into the impact player many people envisioned, and Chase Young blossomed with 10.5 sacks. Robert Landers, Davon Hamilton, Jonathon Cooper and Jashon Cornell offered contributions, too.
Though Bosa and Jones – one of the best defensive end-defensive tackle tandems in the nation – left for the NFL, Johnson has the line well-positioned for the future. He battled rumors of an upcoming retirement the past two years, but that didn’t stop him from pulling off massive recruiting wins.
Young will return for one more year before he inevitably leaves and becomes a first-round pick in the 2020 NFL Draft. Rising seniors Cooper, Hamilton, Landers and Cornell also have one more season. Behind them sit a giant cast of gifted, yet inexperienced linemen eager to enter the rotation.
Johnson has collected a mass of talent who committed to Ohio State hoping to become the next lineman on Johnson’s assembly line of linemen who have has success in college, then became NFL players.
Redshirt sophomore Haskell Garrett (former top-100 recruit), redshirt freshman Taron Vincent (former five-star recruit), redshirt junior Antwuan Jackson Jr. (former top-five overall junior-college recruit), redshirt freshman Tommy Togiai (former top-100 recruit) and redshirt sophomore Jerron Cage (former four-star recruit) will push Hamilton and Landers for playing time. Garrett and Vincent both will have an opportunity to win the starting defensive tackle spot that Jones vacated.
Sophomore Tyreke Smith (former top-50 recruit), sophomore Tyler Friday (former top-100 recruit) and redshirt freshman Javontae Jean-Baptiste (former four-star recruit) are next in line for snaps at defensive end.
Five-star defensive end Zach Harrison, four-star defensive end Noah Potter and three-star defensive tackle Jaden McKenzie also will enter the mix as freshmen this season.
The impressive mix of experience and youth on the defensive has existed at Ohio State for years, and it only has grown stronger recently. Johnson, 66 years old, shows no signs of slowing down. Essentially every defensive lineman who chooses to play for the Buckeyes cites Johnson as a main reason for their commitment.
“He has a legacy here, and what he's done with the defensive line, obviously, again, that's testimony,” Day said on Dec. 19. “And so there's defensive linemen all over the country that want to come to get coached by Larry Johnson, and you can see that again in this class and the relationships that he built are really, really important, but again, the way he develops the young men on the field and off the field is what's key.”
Day, especially as a first-time head coach, couldn’t afford to lose Johnson. A lot about the nearly completely new defensive coaching staff is unknown, but there’s nothing uncertain about Johnson. He will recruit high-level prospects, develop them into impactful defensive linemen and turn them into NFL players. Nothing will change for him under Day, even though he will be joined by defensive coordinator Greg Mattison.
At Michigan, Mattison coached the defensive line. He has coached the position group for a quarter-century. But in his first public comments after accepting the job at Ohio State, Mattison made sure everyone knew he wouldn’t alter Johnson’s factory of defensive lineman, calling Johnson “one of the best if not the best defensive line coach in the country.”
“Now, you know, I've coached defensive line a long time, and I'm not going to say where I rank. It's not my job to say that,” Mattison said on Feb. 6. “But I did say to him, Larry, when you coach D-line, there's a lot of times on the practice field when there's special teams, and the D-line is not really involved in that a lot. I said, let me be your assistant. Put me wherever you want. I'll coach whatever you want right there, and it'll be two of us doing it.
“You know, I'll be helping out wherever needed. I'll be with the backers a lot. Al Washington will do a tremendous job with them, but there's two inside backers, and then there's sometimes an outside linebacker, which is a different position, and that's where I can help with that.”
Johnson doesn’t need help from above. He’s proven that with his long list of highly rated commitments and NFL players developed.
So even though Day brought in Mattison, the defensive line will still be Johnson's sole concern. As it should be.
