Matt Guerrieri spent the 2022 season at Ohio State as a senior advisor and defensive analyst. In his first game as Indiana’s defensive play-caller, he’ll be coaching against the team he spent all of last season with.
That makes Guerrieri very familiar with Ohio State’s personnel and particularly its defensive scheme, as Guerrieri previously spent six years working alongside Jim Knowles at Duke before joining Knowles at Ohio State to help Knowles implement his scheme when he became the Buckeyes’ defensive coordinator last year. Given that, Knowles isn’t particularly excited about coaching against his protégé in the season opener.
“Yeah, thanks for reminding me,” Knowles said when asked by a reporter this week about Guerrieri’s knowledge of his defense. “He knows what I do really well. So yeah, he will definitely be able to give their offense insight into what we do.”
Guerrieri, however, downplayed the advantage of that familiarity in an interview with Eleven Warriors on Thursday, knowing that Indiana’s defense still has a tough job in front of it trying to stop Ohio State’s offense.
“You can have familiarity, but I don't know if that matters,” Guerrieri said. “You still have to go out there and still have to do what it takes to stop an explosive offense. So there's things that I'm sure will be things that they've done in the past, but they’ll have new wrinkles this year. It's about us – especially in opening games, it's really about what you do from a preparation standpoint.”
After serving in a behind-the-scenes role for the Buckeyes last season, Guerrieri is taking on a much more front-facing role for Indiana this offseason as the Hoosiers’ new co-defensive coordinator and safeties coach. He’s tasked with trying to turn around an Indiana defense that ranked dead last in the Big Ten last year with 33.9 points and 449.3 yards allowed per game; the Hoosiers were particularly bad last year against Ohio State, allowing the Buckeyes to put up 56 points on 662 yards.
A native of Northeast Ohio, Guerrieri briefly joined Kevin Wilson’s staff at Tulsa’s defensive coordinator in January before taking the job at Indiana in February. He said the opportunity to return to the Big Ten as a coordinator was one he couldn’t pass up.
“I'm from Cleveland, Ohio. And the Big Ten, I think, is arguably one of the greatest conferences in the country and a chance to be able to be back in this league and obviously one that I was in a year ago, it was definitely a big draw,” Guerrieri said.
Guerrieri knew when he took that job that it would mean coaching against the team he was with last season. But he says that’s not anything new for him; as a graduate assistant at Lenoir-Rhyne during his first year as a coach in 2011, he actually coached against his former teammates at Davidson, where he was a defensive back from 2007-10.
“In sports, that's how it is sometimes,” Guerrieri said. “You just prepare your guys to go and get after it and compete.”
That said, Guerrieri still holds the Ohio State coaches he worked with last season in high regard, saying his relationships remain strong with many of them.
“That's a special group of men on that staff. And I appreciate all of those guys,” Guerrieri said. “I was only there one year, but yeah, I could name a ton of guys on that staff, and they've been awesome for the time that I was there, and those relationships are real.”
Guerrieri remains particularly appreciative of Knowles, who played a part in Duke hiring Guerrieri as a graduate assistant in 2012 – giving Guerrieri his first FBS coaching opportunity – when Knowles was the defensive coordinator in Durham.
“He’s been everything,” Guerrieri said. “I didn't know anybody in coaching, so I worked as many camps as I possibly could, and one of the camps that I worked was Duke’s camp. And David Cutcliffe was the head coach, Jim Knowles was the defensive coordinator and coached the safeties at the time, and I just worked the camp with him, that's how I got to know him, on a Saturday in the middle of June. And anyways, built a relationship with him, was fortunate to shortly after that interview for a GA job there, and was fortunate to get that and then our relationship kind of took off from there. So since I've been with him, he put his arm around me and mentored me, and on and off the field, he's been a huge influence on my life.”
Knowles continues to think just as highly of Guerrieri.
“I do have great respect for Matt,” Knowles said. “He’s, I don't know if I have to say a son to me, I'm not much older, maybe a little brother.”
Guerrieri is also glad he had the opportunity to work with Ryan Day, describing Day as a “fantastic man, first and foremost” and “a fantastic leader.”
“Very professional in his approach as a head coach, and his offensive mind is really special,” Guerrieri said.
In just one year at Ohio State, Guerrieri also made a big impression on the Buckeyes’ players, including safety Lathan Ransom.
“I love Coach G, man,” Ransom said. “When he was here, that was my guy, one of the smartest guys I know. And I think he brings a lot of good things. I mean, you see how successful he was at Duke. You saw how successful he was here. And to go there, I'm honestly really happy for him, but when we get on that field, it's us against him.”
Having previously only coached at Lenoir-Rhyne and Duke, Guerrieri said it “was a special journey” to be a part of a team that went to the College Football Playoff in his only year at Ohio State.
“To be at Ohio State and to see a perennial national title contender and the resources and commitment to winning at the highest level, to me was my first experience at a place like that,” Guerrieri said. “And definitely, just being part of that, is something I’ll take forward.”
“I could name a ton of guys on that staff, and they've been awesome for the time that I was there, and those relationships are real.”– Matt Guerrieri on working with Ohio State’s coaches
He’ll face a more challenging path to success this year at Indiana, which has won only six games in the past two seasons combined. He takes over a defense that returns just one of its top 10 tacklers from last season and is relying heavily on transfer additions to turn things around this year. But going into a season opener in which Ohio State is favored to win by 30 points, Guerrieri says he, his players and the rest of Indiana’s staff are focused on giving everything they can to succeed to the best of their ability.
“My expectation is to compete at the absolute highest capacity that we can. Every single day to every single player, every single coach, to push and everything we have, put it on the line every single week,” Guerrieri said. “That's the expectation.”
