Ohio State Has Balanced 2024 Coaching Staff with Similar Mix On Both Sides of the Ball

After Parker Fleming replaced Greg Mattison in 2021, Ohio State had only four full-time defensive assistant coaches for the last three years with Fleming focused on coaching special teams. Now, however, Ohio State is back to having five full-time coaches on the defensive side of the ball as Ryan Day chose to forgo hiring another dedicated special teams coach, instead promoting James Laurinaitis from graduate assistant to linebackers coach.

As a result, Ohio State’s 2024 coaching staff could be the most balanced coaching staff Day has had in his tenure as head coach.

The Buckeyes’ 2024 coaching staff features a similar makeup on both sides of the ball. Both the offense and defense will be led by veteran coordinators with a track record of elite performance. The offense and defense each still have an assistant who’s been on the staff since the Urban Meyer era, while each side can lay claim to having one of the best recruiters in the entire country. Both coordinators have the help of an assistant who previously worked with them before Ohio State to help them install their systems, while each side of the staff is rounded out by an up-and-coming assistant who’s viewed as a rising star.

While the path to building this year’s staff hit one roadblock when Bill O’Brien left Ohio State after just three weeks as offensive coordinator to become the new head coach at Boston College, Day’s quick move to replace O’Brien with Chip Kelly may have made the staff even better – and at the least checked the same box that O’Brien would have by bringing in someone with both head coaching and offensive coordinating experience in both the NFL and college to take over offensive play-calling duties from Day.

Day is confident he’s put together a staff that can lead Ohio State to its goals this season.

“It’s our job every year to identify what areas need to be adjusted, whether it’s with the team or with the staff. And we’ve worked really hard, we’ve spent a lot of time thinking to make sure the right guys are in the right seats. So now it’s time to go to work,” Day said Friday.

A closer look at the staff and the parallels that can be drawn between the coaches on both sides of the ball:

Proven Coordinators: Chip Kelly (Offense/Quarterbacks) and Jim Knowles (Defense)

Ohio State has already had a “head coach of the defense” for the past two years in Knowles. The former Oklahoma State defensive coordinator was already regarded as one of the best coordinators before he came to Ohio State, and he certified that reputation last season as he led an Ohio State defense that ranked in the top three nationally in both points (11.2) and yards (265.4) allowed per game.

Kelly can now give Ohio State a dedicated “head coach of the offense” – a role that Day has taken on himself for his first five years as Ohio State’s head coach, especially last year after Kevin Wilson’s departure. As an offensive play caller, he’s already proven that he can lead elite offenses – his offenses at Oregon were consistently among the best in the country, and his offenses at UCLA often outperformed their talent – and his experience as a head coach of both of those teams as well as the NFL’s Philadelphia Eagles and San Francisco 49ers will provide veteran leadership that the offensive staff could have used more of last season.

Superstar Position Coaches: Brian Hartline (Wide Receivers) and Tim Walton (Secondary)

Now entering his seventh year as Ohio State’s wide receivers coach, Hartline has firmly established himself as the premier wide receivers coach in college football. He’s proven himself to be both an elite recruiter and an elite developer of talent, already producing a handful of superstars in Chris Olave, Garrett Wilson, Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Marvin Harrison Jr. and Emeka Egbuka. Now Ohio State’s co-offensive coordinator, he’s brought in five-star receivers nearly every year since he’s been on the job while his recruiting impact now extends to the entire offense.

Walton has propelled himself into the conversation for being college football’s best secondary coach with his work over the past year. His secondary led the way for Ohio State to lead the nation in passing yards allowed per game (145.9) in 2023 while he’s currently the top-ranked recruiter in the entire country for the 2025 class, having already landed commitments from the top two cornerbacks in that cycle after already landing multiple top-10 cornerbacks in each of the past two recruiting classes while likewise playing an integral role in the recruitment of Alabama transfer safety Caleb Downs.

RELATED Tim Walton Promoted to Assistant Head Coach; Jim Knowles, Larry Johnson and Keenan Bailey Also Receive Contract Extensions

Longtime Stalwarts: Tony Alford (Running Backs) and Larry Johnson (Defensive Line)

It’s getting hard to remember a time when someone other than Johnson was coaching Ohio State’s defensive line and someone other than Alford was coaching Ohio State’s running backs. Johnson is entering his 11th season with the Buckeyes, joining Meyer’s coaching staff in 2014 ahead of Ohio State’s most recent national championship season, while Alford is entering his 10th year on staff, becoming Ohio State’s running backs coach in 2015.

You don’t spend a decade on Ohio State’s coaching staff if you aren’t one of the best in the business at what you do, so their continued presence with the Buckeyes speaks to how highly respected both of them are within the Woody Hayes Athletic Center and throughout the coaching profession. While they’ve both had some ups and downs in recruiting in recent years, both have tremendous track records of producing elite players and have been longtime linchpins of the staff under two different head coaches.

Larry Johnson is entering his 11th season as Ohio State’s defensive line coach.

Veterans of the System: Justin Frye (Offensive Line) and Matt Guerrieri (Safeties)

Frye is only in his third year at Ohio State while Guerrieri is in his first as a full-time coach for the Buckeyes, but both of them have history with the coaches they’re working for now that extends beyond their time at Ohio State.

Frye previously worked alongside Day at both Temple and Boston College and worked for Kelly at UCLA, which could make him uniquely qualified to help them design and install Ohio State’s 2024 offense. Guerrieri worked alongside Knowles for six years at Duke, which is a big reason why he was initially hired at Ohio State as a senior analyst/advisor in 2022 and was brought back to OSU in January as the Buckeyes’ new safeties coach.

Both of them enter 2024 with more to prove than their counterparts listed above – Frye might have the hottest seat of any assistant coach after Ohio State’s offensive line struggled last season, while Guerrieri will have to justify OSU’s determination that he is an upgrade over former safeties coach Perry Eliano. But both of them bring additional coordinator experience to the staff – Frye was UCLA’s offensive coordinator from 2019-21, while Guerrieri was the co-defensive coordinator at Duke for four years and at Indiana last year – and remain younger coaches (Frye is 40, Guerrieri is 34) with plenty of room to grow.

Rising Stars: Keenan Bailey (Tight Ends) and James Laurinaitis (Linebackers)

Bailey and Laurinaitis are the least experienced coaches on the staff, but both of them have been well-prepared for their current roles.

While Bailey is in his second year as a full-time assistant coach, he’s already in his ninth year at Ohio State, joining the Buckeyes as an offensive intern in 2016 after graduating from Notre Dame and working his way up the ranks to become the tight ends coach last offseason. Laurinaitis is entering his first season as a full-time assistant coach and just his third year in coaching overall, but his playing experience will give him instant credibility with players – just as it did for Hartline when he became Ohio State’s wide receivers coach in 2018 – as Laurinaitis was a three-time All-American at OSU before going on to play in the NFL for eight years.

They’re the junior members of Ohio State’s staff right now, but there’s reason to believe both of them could have sky-high futures as coaches, which is why they were promoted from within even though they had never previously been position coaches. Bailey is only 28 years old while Laurinaitis is 37, and both of them have already established themselves as valuable recruiters whom players are excited about playing for.